The Best Science Fiction of the Year Read online

  Also turning ten this year was literary adventure fantasy magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies (beneath-ceaseless-skies.com). They are consistently publishing some of the best fantasy work in the market. Their output falls outside the purview of this anthology, but it’s well worth reading.

  Celebrating its 100th issue, Lightspeed Magazine (lightspeedmagazine. com) published a supersized issue of the magazine that was nearly double the size of their regular releases. It included an excellent story by Sofia Samatar which never appeared in their online edition. Other notable SF works were written by Bryan Camp and Ken Liu. Lightspeed had a much stronger year on the fantasy side of the publication.

  Uncanny Magazine (uncannymagazine.com) published a guest-edited “Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction” issue featuring fiction and non-fiction by writers who identify themselves as disabled and in 2019 they intend to launch a new YouTube channel. The best science fiction story in this year’s lineup was by A.T. Greenblatt. Overall, Uncanny had a stronger fantasy than SF lineup this year.

  GigaNotoSaurus (giganotosaurus.org) only publishes one story a month, frequently longer than you’ll find in most other markets. The strongest stories here came from Vanessa Fogg and Adrian Simmons. This was Rashida J. Smith’s last year as editor. Elora Gatts will take the reins in 2019.

  UK veteran science fiction magazine Interzone (ttapress.com/interzone) took a break in early 2018 and skipped an issue, resulting in only five of the usual six print and digital issues per year. This appears to have been temporary change in schedule as the January/February 2019 issue is scheduled for publication. The publication schedule for sister magazine Black Static (ttapress.com/blackstatic) was likewise altered. The best stories from Interzone were by Gregor Hartmann and Samantha Murray.

  Strange Horizons (strangehorizons.com), one of the oldest continually running online magazines, continued to publish issues on a weekly schedule. Sister magazine Samovar (samovar.strangehorizons.com) celebrated its first anniversary and published six new translations in 2018. They may be the only genre magazine publishing translations that includes the original version of the story as well.

  Interesting science fiction can also be found outside the standard publishing ecosystem for such things, of course. Future Tense Science Fiction, a partnership between Slate, New America, and Arizona State University, ramped things up considerably. After publishing only two stories since the launch of the series at Slate, in 2018 they started publishing monthly stories around a quarterly theme. A notable feature of this series is that each story is accompanied by a response essay from a professional working in a related field. The quality here is high with excellent work by Madeline Ashby, Hannu Rajaniemi, and Mark Stasenko.

  Shorter works can often be found at tech and science website Motherboard’s Terraform (motherboard.vice.com/terraform) and within the science magazine Nature as Nature Future (nature.com/nature/articles?type=futures). Wired Magazine (wired.com/magazine) closed out the year by publishing a few stories from a 2019 issue on their website. For reasons mentioned in previous introductions, the online editions of these stories were considered 2018 publications for the purpose of this anthology. Notable among these were works by Adam Rogers and Martha Wells.

  Just as the online and print magazines have become more similar in the way they distribute issues, the audio fiction world of free podcasts has often done the same. Not only are more print and digital magazines producing podcasts (Asimov’s, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, and Uncanny, for example), but more podcasts are offering online text versions of their stories with increasing regularity. Among these, The Escape Artists produce four of the more successful podcasts: Escape Pod (escapepod.org), PodCastle (podcastle.org), PseudoPod (pseudopod.org), and Cast of Wonders (castofwonders.org). Other interesting fiction podcasts include Levar Burton Reads (levarburtonpodcast. com), The Drabblecast (drabblecast.org), and the District of Wonders markets: StarShipSofa (starshipsofa.com), Tales to Terrify (talestoterrify.com), and Far Fetched Fables (farfetchedfables.com).

  Additionally, a wide range of stories—sometimes focused on very specific themes and subject matters—can also be found in publications like Abyss & Apex Magazine (abyssapexzine.com), Anathema (anathemamag.com), Andromeda Spaceways (andromedaspaceways.com), Aurealis (aurealis.com.au), Compelling Science Fiction (compellingsciencefiction.com), Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores (cosmicrootsandeldritchshores.com), Daily Science Fiction (dailysciencefiction.com), Diabolical Plots (diabolicalplots.com), Factor Four (factorfourmag.com), Fiyah (fiyahlitmag.com), Flash Fiction Online (flashfictiononline.com), Galaxy’s Edge (galaxysedge.com), Helios Quarterly (heliosquarterly.com), Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet (smallbeerpress.com/lcrw), Mithila (mithilareview.com), Neo-Opsis (neo-opsis.ca), Omenana Magazine of Africa’s Speculative Fiction (omenana.com), On Spec (onspecmag.wordpress.com), Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show (intergalacticmedicineshow.com), Perihelion (perihelionsf.com), The Future Fire (futurefire.net), and many more.

  Anthologies, Collections, and Standalone Novellas

  Anthologies had a strong year with six different titles landing stories in this year’s table of contents and several more on the recommended reading list. It was a difficult call, but I think the strongest science fiction anthology of the lot was Twelve Tomorrows edited by Wade Roush. This latest installment in the series presented some impressive visions of the future by Elizabeth Bear, J. M. Ledgard, Ken Liu, Paul McAuley, Nnedi Okorafor, and Alastair Reynolds.

  Two other anthologies were close. Robots vs. Fairies, edited by Dominik Parisien and Navah Wolfe, was a very strong contender and was likely the best mixed science fiction and fantasy anthology of the year. The strong lineup included top-notch science fiction by Madeline Ashby, Lavie Tidhar, and Alyssa Wong. Also interesting was Infinity’s End—the final installment in the Infinity anthology series—edited by Jonathan Strahan. The notable stories here included works by Naomi Kritzer, Linda Nagata, Alastair Reynolds, Kelly Robson, and Peter Watts. I’m sad to see the series end, but Jonathan already has something new in the works for 2019.

  Several other anthologies captured my interest this year. 2001: An Odyssey in Words, edited by Ian Whates and Tom Hunter, was an interesting concept (all 2001 word stories) and offered enjoyable stories by Yoon Ha Lee and Ian McDonald. A Thousand Beginnings and Endings, edited by Ellen Oh and Elsie Chapman, explored the mythology and folklore of South and East Asia and had a great story by Aliette de Bodard. Mechanical Animals, edited by Selena Chambers and Jason Heller, riffs on the traditional ideals of automata to explore our strange and competitive relationship with the natural world and featured excellent work by Aliette de Bodard, Stephen Graham Jones, An Owomoyela, and Caroline M. Yoachim. Mother of Invention, edited by Rivqa Rafael and Tansy Rayner Roberts, featured diverse and challenging stories about gender and artificial intelligence, including some excellent works by John Chu, Seanan McGuire, and Bogi Takács. Shades Within Us, edited by Susan Forest and Lucas K. Law, hit themes of migration and borders and included another one of Rich Larson’s excellent tales. Women Invent the Future, a project from Doteveryone, included a strong piece by Liz Williams.

  Also important to the strength of the field are the many reprint anthologies published each year. This market is almost entirely the domain of the small press, with a few exceptions like The Future Is Female! edited by Lisa Yaszek and published by Library of America and the previously mentioned Worlds Seen in Passing retrospective of Tor.com stories. Several reprint anthologies cover the year’s best spectrum, like this one. In 2018, other such volumes that included science fiction were: The Year’s Best Science Fiction: 35th Annual Collection, edited by Gardner Dozois, The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2019, edited by Rich Horton, The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume Twelve, edited by Jonathan Strahan, The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2018, edited by N.K. Jemisin, series editor John Joseph Adams, The Year’s Best Military & Adventure SF: Volume 4, edited by David Afsharirad, Tra
nscendent 3: The Year’s Best Transgender Speculative Fiction, edited by Bogi Takács, and Best of British Science Fiction 2017, edited by Donna Scott. At this time, it appears as though Gardner’s series will not be assigned to a new editor, ending the series at thirty-five volumes. The Very Best of the Best: 35 Years of The Year’s Best Science Fiction, completed before his death, was published posthumously.

  Single author collections were very common in 2018, numbering in the hundreds if you go by ISFDB.org and primarily originating from small press publishers. Some of the most notable include: The Sacerdotal Owl and Three Other Long Tales by Michael Bishop; An Agent of Utopia by Andy Duncan; How Long ’til Black Future Month? by N. K. Jemisin; The Promise of Space and Other Stories by James Patrick Kelly; Tomorrow Factory by Rich Larson; Ambiguity Machines and Other Stories by Vandana Singh; and The Future Is Blue by Catherynne M. Valente. No favorites from this lot, as they’re all great.

  On the novella front, Tor.com Books, Tachyon Publications, and Subterranean continue to be at the front of the field. Tor.com Books is by far the most prolific publisher of standalone novellas (and occasional novelettes) in the field and featured excellent work by Brooke Bolander, Ian McDonald, Kelly Robson, and Martha Wells. Tachyon published another excellent work by Peter Watts, The Freeze-Frame Revolution. My favorite of Subterranean’s 2018 lineup was The Tea Master and the Detective by Aliette de Bodard. I wouldn’t be surprised to see any of these on award ballots this year.

  I’d also like to take a moment to point people towards Twelfth Planet Press. Icefall by Stephanie Gunn is a work that might well sail below the radar for many readers and deserves more attention.

  The 2018 Scorecard

  For those interested in tracking the sources of the stories selected this year:

  Stories Included

  Percentage

  Magazines

  17

  58.6%

  Anthologies

  11

  37.9%

  Collections

  1

  3.4%

  These stories represent seventeen different sources, up four from last year. Online magazines have eleven of the stories, up one over last year. Print magazines remained the same. Anthologies and collections each gained one.

  Short stories did considerably better this year, placing eighteen on my list, up from thirteen last year. Novelettes were down from eleven to eight and novellas up from two to three. The volume of short stories allowed for an increase from twenty-four stories to twenty-six stories in total.

  And from my Recommended Reading List:

  Stories Included

  Percentage

  Magazines

  27

  50.0%

  Anthologies

  16

  29.6%

  Collections

  1

  1.9%

  Standalone

  10

  18.5%

  The standalone category primarily consists of individually published novellas from publishers like Tor.com Books, Tachyon, and Subterranean. Several of those would have been worthy additions to this book but were logistically impossible due to size or availability issues. Novellas continue to be a strong source of some of the best work being written today.

  Overall, while I may worry about the business side of the field, I thought 2018 was a good year for science fiction, but an unusual one in that fewer of my favorites came from what I would consider the usual suspects. It’s not that they had an off year, but more that others published some very pleasant surprises. The landscape is changing in interesting ways and that’s a good thing.

  The Most Interesting Development for Short Science Fiction

  We’ve been exporting SF to other parts of the world for decades, but it wasn’t until more recently that significant numbers of works from outside the usual US/UK/Canada/Australia sphere have been making their way here. As an editor and reader, this makes me particularly happy. Science fiction is at its best when it is incorporating and being challenged by new ideas and perspectives. This recent influx will be of benefit to the future of the field both domestic and abroad.

  Translations, in particular, have been increasingly common in US magazines. Clarkesworld has regularly published Chinese SF for over four years and will add Korean SF in 2019. Samovar—affiliated with Strange Horizons—has regularly published translations since 2017, and now Future Science Fiction will be featuring them as well. Occasional works in translation have also been appearing in Asimov’s, Lightspeed Magazine, Tor.com, Uncanny Magazine, and many more.

  Translation or internationally-focused anthologies were also quite common in 2018 and represented by works such as Future Fiction: New Dimensions in International Science Fiction, edited by Bill Campbell and Francesco Verso; Solarpunk: Ecological and Fantastical Stories in a Sustainable World (translated from Portuguese), edited by Phoebe Wagner and Brontë Christopher Wieland; Apex Book of World SF 5, edited by Cristina Jurado; Best Asian SF—despite the title, this is an original anthology and not a “best of” in the traditional sense—, edited by Rajat Chaudhuri; Zion’s Fiction, edited by Sheldon Teitelbaum and Emanuel Lottem; and Speculative Japan 4, edited by Edward Lipsett. I’m aware of four more anthologies scheduled for 2019: Broken Stars: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation, edited by Ken Liu; Readymade Bodhisatva (South Korean SF), edited by Sunyoung Park and Sang Joon Park; Gollancz Book of South Asian Science Fiction, edited by Tarun K. Saint; and Best Asian Short Stories 2019, edited by Hisham Bustani.

  If you are interested in learning more about what is happening with translated works, I highly recommend reading Rachel Cordasco’s SF in Translation blog (sfintranslation.com). It’s filled with interesting news and reviews and is definitely the best source of information on this subject on the web.

  Notable 2018 Awards

  The 76th World Science Fiction Convention, Worldcon 76, was held in San Jose, California, from August 15th to August 20th, 2018. The 2018 Hugo Awards, presented at Worldcon 76, were: Best Novel, The Stone Sky by N. K. Jemisin; Best Novella, “All Systems Red” by Martha Wells; Best Novelette, “The Secret Life of Bots” by Suzanne Palmer; Best Short Story, “Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™” by Rebecca Roanhorse; Best Series, World of the Five Gods, by Lois McMaster Bujold; Best Graphic Story, Monstress, Volume 2: The Blood, written by Marjorie M. Liu, illustrated by Sana Takeda; Best Related Work, No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters, by Ursula K. Le Guin; Best Professional Editor, Long Form, Sheila E. Gilbert; Best Professional Editor, Short Form, Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas; Best Professional Artist, Sana Takeda; Best Dramatic Presentation (short form), The Good Place: “The Trolley Problem”; Best Dramatic Presentation (long form), Wonder Woman; Best Semiprozine, Uncanny; Best Fanzine, File 770; Best Fancast, Ditch Diggers; Best Fan Writer, Sarah Gailey; Best Fan Artist, Geneva Benton; plus the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, Rebecca Roanhorse, and The World Science Fiction Society (WSFS) Award for Best Young Adult Book, Akata Warrior by Nnedi Okorafor.

  The 2017 Nebula Awards, presented at a banquet at the Pittsburgh Marriott City Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on May 19, 2018, were: Best Novel, The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin; Best Novella, “All Systems Red” by Martha Wells; Best Novelette, “A Human Stain” by Kelly Robson; Best Short Story, “Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™” by Rebecca Roanhorse; Ray Bradbury Award, Get Out; the Andre Norton Award, The Art of Starving by Sam J. Miller; the Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award, Gardner Dozois and Sheila Williams; the Kevin O’ Donnell Jr. Service to SFWA Award, Bud Sparhawk; and the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award, Peter S. Beagle.

  The 2018 World Fantasy Awards, presented at a banquet on November 4, 2018, at the Renaissance Baltimore Harborplace Hotel in Baltimore, Maryland, during the Forty-fourth Annual World Fantasy Convention, were: Best Novel, (tie) The Changeling by Victor LaValle and Jade City by Fonda Lee; Best Long Fiction, “Passing Strange” by Ellen Klages; Best Short Fiction, “The
Birding: A Fairy Tale” by Natalia Theodoridou; Best Collection, The Emerald Circus by Jane Yolen; Best Anthology, The New Voices of Fantasy, edited by Peter S. Beagle and Jacob Weisman; Best Artist, Gregory Manchess; Special Award (Professional), Harry Brockway, Patrick McGrath, and Danel Olson for Writing Madness; Special Award (Non-Professional), Justina Ireland and Troy L. Wiggins for FIYAH: Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction. Plus Lifetime Achievement Awards, Charles de Lint and Elizabeth Wollheim.

  The 2018 John W. Campbell Memorial Award was won by: The Genius Plague by David Walton.

  The 2018 Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for Best Short Story was won by: “Don’t Press Charges and I Won’t Sue” by Charlie Jane Anders.

  The 2018 Philip K. Dick Memorial Award went to: Bannerless by Carrie Vaughn.

  The 2018 Arthur C. Clarke Award was won by: Dreams Before the Start of Time by Anne Charnock.

  The 2017 James Tiptree, Jr. Memorial Award was won by: Who Runs the World? by Virginia Bergin.

  The 2018 Sidewise Award for Alternate History went to (Long Form): Once There Was A Way by Bryce Zabel and (Short Form): “Zigeuner” by Harry Turtledove.

  The 2018 WSFA Small Press Award: “The Secret Life of Bots” by Suzanne Palmer.

  In Memoriam

  Among those the field lost in 2018 are:

  Ursula K. Le Guin, SFWA Grand Master, winner of six Hugos, six Nebula Awards, three World Fantasy Awards, three James Tiptree, Jr. Awards, and many other honors, author of classics such as The Dispossessed, The Left Hand of Darkness, The Lathe of Heaven, and the Earthsea series; Jack Ketchum, World Horror Grand Master, winner of three Bram Stoker Awards; John Anthony West, short stories in F&SF and Omni, Bill Crider, winner of the Sidewise Award; Victor Milán, Prometheus Award-winning writer; Peter Nicholls, Hugo Award winner and editor of The Science Fiction Encyclopedia; Kate Wilhelm, two-time winner of the Hugo Award, helped establish SFWA and the Clarion Workshop, Science Fiction Hall of Fame member; Mary Rosenblum, Compton Crook and Sidewise Award winner; Karen Anderson, author and illustrator; David Bischoff, Nebula Award nominee, novelist, screenwriter; Claudia De Bella, Argentinian author and translator; Palle Juul Holm, Danish critic and author (as Bernhard Ribbeck), published the first Danish educational text for science fiction; Raymond Reid Collins, stories in F&SF; Susan Ann Protter, literary agent; Philip Roth, winner of the Sidewise Award and Man Booker International Prize for Lifetime Achievement; Gardner Dozois, fifteen-time winner of the Hugo Award for Best Editor, two-time winner of the Nebula Award, Science Fiction Hall of Fame member, editor of Asimov’s Science Fiction from 1984-2004, editor of The Year’s Best Science Fiction series; Christopher Stasheff, best known for his humorous Gallowglass/Warlock novels; Steve Sneyd, Science Fiction Poetry Association Grand Master; Steve Ditko, comic artist and writer, artist and co-creator (with Stan Lee) of Spider-Man and Doctor Strange; Harlan Ellison, SFWA Grand Master, winner of seven Hugos, four Nebula Awards, a World Fantasy Award, and many other honors, Science Fiction Hall of Fame member, edited Dangerous Visions and Again, Dangerous Visions, author of the Star Trek episode “The City on the Edge of Forever”; Christine Nöstlinger, received the Hans Christian Andersen Medal for her lasting contribution to children’s literature; Karen Simonyan, pioneer of Armenian science fiction; Michael Scott Rohan, Scottish fantasy and science fiction author; H.M. Hoover, winner of the Golden Duck Awards’ Hal Clement division for young adult literature; Michael Sissons, literary agent and anthologist; K.C. Ball, winner of the Writers of the Future Contest; Sven Wernström, Swedish author; Robert Bausch, winner of Fellowship of Southern Writers Award; Greg Stafford, game designer, co-founder of Chaosium, Origins Award Hall of Fame member; Pat Lupoff, Hugo Award winner for Best Fanzine; Dave Duncan, two-time winner of the Aurora Award, Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame member; Jin Yong, Chinese author and one of the most popular wuxia writers of all time; Domingo Santos, Spanish author and co-founder of Neuva Dimensión; Achim Mehnert, German author and one of the founders of ColoniaCon in Köln, Germany; Stan Lee, created and co-created the Fantastic Four, Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, the X-Men, Daredevil, Doctor Strange, Spider-Man, and more, winner of the Inkpot, Eisner, Kirby, and Saturn Awards; Emeka Walter Dinjos, short story author; Billie Sue Mosiman, author and editor.