Contents (view Concise Listing)

• Introduction: Beginnings ... • essay by Marty Halpern
• The Thought War • (2008) • short story by Paul J. McAuley [as by Paul McAuley]
• How to Talk to Girls at Parties • (2006) • short story by Neil Gaiman
• Face Value • (1986) • short story by Karen Joy Fowler
• The Road Not Taken • [Roxalani • 1] • (1985) • novelette by Harry Turtledove
• The Aliens Who Knew, I Mean, Everything • (1984) • short story by George Alec Effinger
• I Am the Doorway • (1971) • short story by Stephen King
• Recycling Strategies for the Inner City • (1990) • short story by Pat Murphy
• The 43 Antarean Dynasties • [Birthright Universe] • (1997) • short story by Mike Resnick
• The Gold Bug • (2007) • novelette by Orson Scott Card
• Kin • (2006) • short story by Bruce McAllister
• Guerrilla Mural of a Siren's Song • (1989) • short story by Ernest Hogan
• Angel • (1987) • short story by Pat Cadigan
• The First Contact with the Gorgonids • (1992) • short story by Ursula K. Le Guin
• Sunday Night Yams at Minnie and Earl's • [Minnie and Earl's] • (2001) • novella by Adam-Troy Castro
• A Midwinter's Tale • (1988) • short story by Michael Swanwick
• Texture of Other Ways • (1999) • short story by Mark W. Tiedemann
• To Go Boldly • (2009) • short story by Cory Doctorow
• If Nudity Offends You • (1988) • short story by Elizabeth Moon
• Laws of Survival • (2007) • novelette by Nancy Kress
• What You Are About to See • (2008) • short story by Jack Skillingstead
• Amanda and the Alien • (1983) • short story by Robert Silverberg
• Exo-Skeleton Town • (2000) • novelette by Jeffrey Ford
• Lambing Season • (2002) • short story by Molly Gloss
• Swarm • [Shaper/Mechanist] • (1982) • novelette by Bruce Sterling
• MAXO Signals: A New and Unfortunate Solution to the Fermi Paradox • (2007) • short story by Charles Stross (variant of MAXO Signals 2005)
• Last Contact • (2007) • short story by Stephen Baxter
• About the Contributors (Alien Contact) • essay by uncredited