The Big Book of Science Fiction - Jeff VanderMeer & Ann VanderMeer

If you're a SF fan and looking to make just one purchase this year, this would be the one. Expert curators Jeff and Ann Vandermeer assemble nearly a hundred stories from across the genre, drawing from authors all over the world. A few of the usual suspects are included, but so are some real oddballs (Cordwainer Smith and R.A. Lafferty) and even some stories translated into English for the first time (such as a novella by Hugo award winning Chinese writer Cixin Liu). The book comes with a thorough introduction to the history of science fiction that is itself worth the price of admission.