Rich Horton (ed)'s "The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2010 Edition" (anthology): Annotated table of contents

While Horton's own blog is silent on the subject, Jonathan Strahon has linked the ToC of Horton's forthcoming book at oldcharliebrown.

Horton clarifies elsewhere that "the list is not in final TOC order". This is significant, since few modern "best of year" anthologies have more than 2 or 3 stories worth reading - they're filled with many ordinary stories & a lot of fillers. "ToC order" is editor's way of telling us which stories are more significant than others. I've personally found that first two & last two entries often contain one or two good stories; other interesting one could be about the middle of ToC list - I'm not sure of this, but editors do spend some effort on what would go in the middle.

Also, the list below may be one story short because "We're waiting on permission for one more story".

Table of contents (29 stories, best first, unread last).

Links on author, editor, or publisher fetch more matching fiction. Where I'm aware of online copies, I include download links too. My rating is in brackets. Where I have a separate post on a story or major comments on it in a larger post, link on story title goes there.

1. Paul McAuley's "Crimes and Glory" (B); download; Subterranean Online, Spring 2009; space opera: A man is smelling something fishy in a "good" offer of aliens to humanity...
2. Lucius Shepard's "Sylgarmo's Proclamation" (C); download; Gardner Dozois & George R R Martin (eds)' "Songs of the Dying Earth"; fantasy: Hero magician must recover something from evil magician - something that promises hope of escape to an alternate realm since the Sun is about to go nova & will kill earth.
3. Steven Gould's "A Story, with Beans"; Analog, May 2009: Not read.
4. Theodora Goss' "Child-Empress of Mars"; Delia Sherman & Christopher Barzak (eds)' "Interfictions 2": Not read.
   
   Marooned has some comments on this story.
5. Peter Watts' "The Island"; read online (no download); Gardner Dozois & Jonathan Strahan (eds)' "The New Space Opera 2": Not read.
6. John Kessel's "Events Preceding the Helvetican Renaissance"; read online (no download); Gardner Dozois & Jonathan Strahan (eds)' "The New Space Opera 2": Not read.
7. Robert Kelly's "The Logic of the World"; Brian Evenson & Bradford Morrow (eds)' "Conjunctions 52": Not read.
8. Ann Leckie's "The Endangered Camp"; Mike Allen (ed)'s "Clockwork Phoenix": Not read.
9. Jo Walton's "Three Twilight Tales"; Sharyn November (ed)'s "Firebirds Soaring": Not read.
10. John Meaney's "Necroflux Day"; George Mann's "The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction 3": Not read.
11. Robert Charles Wilson's "This Peaceable Land; or, The Unbearable Vision of Harriet Beecher Stowe"; Nick Gevers & Jay Lake (eds)' "Other Earths": Not read.
12. John Langan's "Technicolor"; Ellen Datlow (ed)'s "Poe": Not read.
13. Rachel Swirsky's "Eros, Philia, Agape"; download; tor.com, 3 March 2009: Not read.
14. Nir Yaniv's "A Painter, a Sheep, and a Boa Constrictor"; Shimmer, #10: Not read.
15. Eugene Mirabelli's "Catalog"; F&SF, February 2009: Not read.
16. Dominic Green's "Glister"; Interzone, #223 (July/August 2009): Not read.
17. Jay Lake's "On the Human Plan"; download; Lone Star Stories, February 2009: Not read.
18. Alex Irvine's "Dragon's Teeth"; F&SF, December 2009: Not read.
19. Catherynne M Valente's "The Radiant Car Thy Sparrows Drew"; download text/audio; Clarkesworld, August 2009: Not read.
20. Damien Broderick's "The Qualia Engine"; Asimov’s, April-May 2009: Not read.
21. Holly Phillips' "The Long Cold Goodbye"; Asimov’s, March 2009: Not read.
22. R Garcia y Robertson's "Wife-Stealing Time"; Asimov’s, November 2009: Not read.
23. Sara Genge's "As Women Fight"; Asimov’s, October-November 2009: Not read.
24. Nancy Kress' "Images of Anna"; download; Fantasy, 14 September 2009: Not read.
25. Sarah Monette & Elizabeth Bear's "Mongoose"; Ellen Datlow (ed)'s "Lovecraft Unbound": Not read.
26. Margo Lanagan's "Living Curiosities"; Deb Noyes (ed)'s "Sideshow": Not read.
27. Toiya Kristen Finlay's "The Death of Sugar Daddy"; Electric Velocipede, Spring 2009: Not read.
28. Genevieve Valentine's "Bespoke"; download; Strange Horizons, 27 July 2009: Not read.
29. Paul Park's "The Persistence of Memory; or, This Space for Sale"; Postscripts, #20/21: Not read.

Related.

1. Competing "best fiction of 2009" anthologies: Dozois', Strahan's.
2. Other volumes of this anthology series: 2011 Edition, 2009 Edition (science fiction).
3. Works of Rich Horton.
4. All anthologies (annotated but infrequently updated list of anthologies & collections).
5. "best of" lists.
6. My "best of 2009" fiction list (includes others' "best of 2009" lists at bottom).
7. Pre-order at Amazon.

Note: I normally update anthology posts as I read stories, find online links for a story, etc. This post was last updated on 20 December 2009.