Dormanna by Gene Wolfe - a sweet, sweet story about a girl's imaginary friend who may be something more; this is the kind of first contact story I like to read.

Portrait of Lisane de Patagnia by Rachel Swirsky - a story about artists and legacies, what art is and where the tools for it come from and what you can do with them. This one gets better every time I read it.

The Mongolian Wizard by Michael Swanwick - a fairly frothy historical fantasy kind of story, clearly the beginning of a series, murder, betrayal, immanent war, all that good stuff. Fun.

A Tall Tail by Charles Stross - a hard sf story told in the form of an anecdote at a party that leaves me feeling like I'm missing something. I'm not sure if it's the science or the party.

The Ghosts of Christmas by Paul Cornell - a beautiful time-travel story about the ways we mess up our kids and our parents, and also why time travel is probably not a good idea, and also how easy it is to be a terrible person even when you're trying not to be. Weirdly heartwarming, given all that? I loved it.

The Finite Canvas by Brit Mandelo - a story about how contract killers end (it's not pretty).

Am I Free to Go? by Kathryn Cramer - a story about the hacker victim of a police state that's only barely speculative (but I really want wifi fungus, even if I don't have a backyard to scatter it in).

About Fairies by Pat Murphy - a story about family, death, and the kind of fairies an anthropologist could believe in. Moving and excellent.

Our Human by Adam-Troy Castro - two aliens, bounty-hunting, find a human monster living among more aliens. Evil and its uses; greatness divorced from morality. Fascinating, and with very good aliens.

Faster Gun by Elizabeth Bear - a Doc Holliday weird west story that is, basically, everything Cowboys vs. Aliens should have been and never was.

A really, really good anthology. It was free, and worth every penny. Seriously though, I'd gladly pay for it.

The standout piece, for me, was Pat Murphy's About Fairies (which you can read online on its own, http://www.tor.com/stories/2012/05/about-fairies). I don't know -- there's just something haunting about the narration. A sort of a quiet desperation combined with an undercurrent of compassion that really got to me. Sounds fuzzy, I know, but it's a worthy read, I promise. ( )