Stick Dog, Mutt, and the rest of the tidbit-snatching gang cross Picasso Park to the site of a brand-new restaurant, where they sample mouthwatering sushi.

This anthology marks the 27th edition of the award-winning annual compilationof the year's best science fiction stories.

When Merlin is weighed down by sorrows, Jack and Annie travel back to feudal Japan to learn one of the four secrets of happiness.

"Quiver, a mostly-human astronaut, takes refuge from the monotony of harvesting minerals on remote asteroids by running through a virtual reality called the Lights, chasing visions of an elusive red-haired beauty. Her high-strung robot partner, Mic, pilots their Wobble and entertains himself by surfing the records of the obliterated planet Earth stored on his Swift Wheel for Al Pacino trivia, recipes for reconstituted sushi, and high fashion trends....

"Small-town sleuths Brandy and Vivian Borne -- with their trusty shih tzu, Sushi -- head for a Big Apple comics convention to sell a rare 1940s Superman drawing. When an intruder breaks into their hotel suite, their madcap Manhattan misadventure is only beginning. Soon the out-of-towners stumble onto a murder victim impaled by a pen-shaped award. Villains abound -- from cartoonists to crime bosses -- creating a jumble of clues. Brandy and Vivian will...

"Susannah Mikami dreams of becoming a famous sushi chef like her dad. And this summer, she plans to learn everything about his traditional kitchen. Only he refuses to teach her, and won't tell her why. Is it because he doesn't want her to embarrass him in front of the documentary crew filming at his restaurant? Or worse, because she's a girl? Either way, Sana decides he's not the only one who can keep secrets. So when she meets Koji, a cute boy who...

Hungry Wolf disguises himself as a sheep and nobody suspects a thing! (Or do they?) Wolf dreams of tasty sheep--sheep sandwiches, sheep sushi, sheep tacos! In his clever sheep costume, he infiltrates the friendly neighborhood herd, blending in by helping with chores, reading bedtime stories to the lambs, and working up a sweat in sheep aerobics class. Wolf's sneaky plan works so well, he becomes part of the family. And suddenly, the sheep don't seem...

"Welcome to the not-too-distant future: Japan, having vanished from the face of the earth, is now remembered as "the land of sushi." Hiruko, its former citizen and a climate refugee herself, has a job teaching immigrant children in Denmark with her invented language Panska (Pan-Scandinavian): "homemade language. no country to stay in. three countries I experienced. insufficient space in brain. so made new language. homemade language." As she searches...