The best science fiction stories from the year 1997 as picked by Gardner Dozois along with a summation of the state of the genre and a list of honourable mentions.

The anthology contains the following stories

• Acknowledgements
• Summation 1997
• Beauty in the Night by Robert Silverberg
• Second Skin by Paul McAuley
• Steamship Soldier on the Information Front by Nancy Kress
• Reasons to be Cheerful by Greg Egan
• Moon Six by Stephen Baxter
• We Will Drink a Fish Together by Bill Johnson
• Escape Route by Peter F. Hamilton
• Itsy Bitsy Spider by James Patrick Kelly
• A Spy in Europa by Alastair Reynolds
• The Undiscovered by William Sanders
• Echoes by Alan Brennert
• Getting to Know You by David Marusek
• Balinese Dancer by Gwyneth Jones
• Marrow by Robert Reed
• Heart of Whiteness by Howard Waldrop
• The Wisdom of Old Earth by Michael Swanwick
• The Pipes of Pan by Brian Stableford
• Crossing Chao Meng Fu by G. David Nordley
• Yeyuka by Greg Egan
• Frost Painting by Carolyn Ives Gilman
• Lethe by Walter Jon Williams
• Winter Fire by Geoffrey A. Landis
• Nevermore by Ian R. MacLeod
• Open Veins by Simon Ings
• After Kerry by Ian McDonald
• The Masque of Agamemnon by Sean Williams and Simon Brown
• Gulliver at Home by John Kessel
• A Cold, Dry Cradle by Gregory Benford and Elisabeth Malartre
• Honorable Mentions