The stories in this anthology are a broad spectrum of genres and styles, united by a kind of forward-thinking freshness that I loved. I picked this up for a book group, and we're supposed to pick our favorite three stories to discuss. I'm not sure I can, so many of them were so good! The very first story, "The Galactic Tourist Industrial Complex" by Tobias Buckell, is fantastic--I'd watch a TV show based on it. And someone should make a movies out of "Blood And Bells" by Karin Lowachee and "Burn the Ships" by Alberto Yáñez.
But my favorites have to include "The Virtue of Unfaithful Translations" by Minsoo Kang, for the layering of historical documentation and analysis. "The Shadow We Cast Through Time," by Indrapramit Das is another one that really struck me: creepy as hell, sad, but also hopeful and weird, it does my favorite thing that science fiction can do, which is create a whole other world where different circumstances create different ways of being human. And Anil Menon's "The Robots of Eden" was funny and believable near-future that was also somehow so, so sad.
All in all, a solid anthology full of many writers to keep an eye out for. (And I'm not just saying that because Nisi is my friend and I'm hoping they'll get to edit a Volume II, although I'm not not hoping that...)