Hugo awards 2013 winners

[via Twitter]. All stories originally published during 2012.

1. [ss] Ken Liu's "Mono No Aware"; download: A Japanese town reacts in a very orderly manner to news that earth is soon to be destroyed by an asteroid impact.
2. [novelette] Pat Cadigan's "The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi".
3. [novella] Brandon Sanderson's "The Emperor's Soul".
4. [novel] John Scalzi's "Redshirts".

And among friends, SF Signal gets it for "Best Fanzine".

For other categories, see the twitter feed.

Related: Past & current nominees & winners.

My "best of the year" picks: 2013

The list is in order in which I found the stories. Stories were all originally published during 2013.

The list.

Links on author or publisher name fetch more matching fiction. Where I have a separate post on the story, link on story title goes there. If I'm aware of an online copy, I include download link too.

1. [novelette] Mark Niemann-Ross' "A Cup of Dirt"; Analog, June: Turning dirt into soil...
2. [ss] Carrie Vaughn's "The Best We Can"; download; Tor.com, 17 July; first contact, hard sf: When an alien Voyager reached our backyard...
3. [ss] Harry Turtledove's "It's the end of the World as We Know It, And We Feel Fine"; Analog, March: Dog is to Man as Man is to... 
4. [novelette] Ted Chiang's "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling"; download; Subterranean, Fall: On the fallibility of human memory...
5. [ff] Brian Clegg's "Quis custodiet?"; download; Nature, 3 October; humor: "Perfect dictatorship" vs democracy...
6. [ss] Kenneth Schneyer's "Life of the Author Plus Seventy"; Analog, September; humor: Legal implications of human hibernation...

Related.

1. Fiction originally published during 2013.
   
2. My "best of the year" 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 picks.
3. "Best of" lists.

Legend: ss = short story; ff = flash fiction.

Nebula Awards 2012: Winners announced

@SFWA.

PS: I wonder if I'm making mistakes or Blogger has started behaving in a weird way. I'd posted this several days back, but just noticed it was marked "Draft!"

Hugo Awards 2013 - short stories: nominees, my ranking & winner

Note 22 April 2013:  I'm not clear what happened. This article was posted yesterday & appeared ok. But I just noticed it stopped appearing at the site & Blogger had changed its status from Published to Draft! I'm just hitting the Publish button again.
---

Only 3 nominees this year, 2 online. All originally published during 2012.

None really worked for me, though Bodard's has an idea briefly taken up near the end of the story that I could identify with - intelligently adapting an artifact of an alien civilization isn't easy; for best results, you better be born in the culture that originated it! Artifacts carry around their cultural origins in many ways.

List below is in order of my preference. Links on author or publisher fetches more matching fiction.

1. Aliette de Bodard's "Immersion" (B); download text/audio; Clarkesworld, June 2012: Not sure what to think of it. And it certainly didn't touch me at any emotional level.
   
   There is a gadget - an "immerser". "Wear" it & you become someone else, whatever avatar you choose. And you can wear it at varying levels of power that determines how much you will be aware of you real self when wearing it.
   
   Set aboard a "station" that makes money from "Galactics", a technologically advanced stream of humanity that has split from earth.
   
   There is a minor side story of a woman who married to a different culture, felt completely lost, tried to fit in so much she lost her own original self.
2. Kij Johnson's "Mantis Wives" (B); download text/audio; Clarkesworld, August 2012; macabre: The story doesn't really say anything, but uses nice language & is comprised of many tiny episodes.
   
   Mantis, an insect whose female eats the male after copulation. Could the mantis develop this killing into an art? Story describes many ways the female could slowly torture & kill her mate!
3. [winner] Ken Liu's "Mono no Aware" (B); Nick Mamatas & Masumi Washington (eds)' "The Future is Japanese"; apocalypse: Tries too hard to arouse your emotions. And too dramatic near end, for my taste.
   
   Life on earth is about to be destroyed by an asteroid(?) impact & the world knows it early enough. It's about reactions in a small Japanese town to this news, & later escape to a distant star in a solar-sail powered generation ship of the only human survivors - mostly Americans, plus a few others, among them a child from this Japanese town

Related.

1. Official announcement of 2013 nominees @The Hugo Awards.
2. Other Hugo nominees & winners.
3. "best of" lists.

Hugo awards 2012: winners announced

Link.

A case for anthologies edited by Groff Conklin

Bud Webster would have us believe that no science fiction bookshelf can be complete without anthologies edited by Groff Conklin.

Includes some information on Conklin that I didn't know before. I personally have read only one of his anthologies, though I have a couple of others lying around. May be I'll pick up one of these soon.

Related: "Best of" lists.

My "best of the year" picks: 1963

For the background of this list, see opening remarks of my best of 1961 list. List below is in order of publication - earliest first, unknown dated last. All stories, of course, were first published in 1963. Download links are included where I'm aware of an online copy.

1. [ss] Rick Raphael's "Sonny"; download; Analog, April: US Army got too lucky with this draftee!
2. [novella] Rick Raphael's "The Thirst Quenchers"; download; Analog, September: Managing fresh water in an energy-rich but overpopulated world. I think the main reason I liked this story is: it's a water dystopia that focuses on engineering to actually solve the problem, unlike innumerable others that focus on showing human pain in a world that has adjusted to the situation.
3. [novelette] Murray Leinster's "Med Ship Man"; download; Galaxy, October: A gang of land sharks playing dirty games to reduce the local real estate prices...
4. [novel] Pierre Boulle's "Planet of the Apes": Story is both similar to & different from the movie. What if apes ruled a world that had moronic humans treated as animals by ruling apes...

Related: "Best of" lists; fiction from 1963, 1960s.

Hugo awards 2012 - short stories: Nominees & my rankings

Official announcement.

Covers short stories originally published during 2011.

One of the stories is a novel excerpt rather than an independent story. I didn't read it. I was not even aware novel excerpts are eligible.
5 May 2012: OK - I now understand it's mean to an April Fool's joke - the prologue to an imaginary novel series.

Three of the stories were also on Nebula list this year.

List below is in order of my preference - best first, unread last. Where I have a separate post on a story, link on title goes there. All stories are online, & I've included the links. Links on author or publisher fetch more matching fiction.

1. Mike Resnick's "The Homecoming" (B); download; Asimov's, April/May: Son is visiting parents after being away for over a decade, & he's a very changed man. Dad is very angry, mom is now amnesic. How will the reunion go?
   
   Decent read, if you are in the right mood. It's an emotional story.
2. Nancy Fulda's "Movement" (B); download text & audio; Asimov's, March: Life of a girl inflicted with "temporal autism".
   
   Nominated for Nebula award 2011 in short story category.
3. E Lily Yu's "The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees" (B); download text/audio; Clarkesworld, April: Wasps colonize bees territory. Imaginative but with lousy ending.
   
   Colorful, but I was very disappointed with the ending.
   
   Nominated for Nebula award 2011 in short story category. Collected in Rich Horton (ed)'s "The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2012".
4. Ken Liu's "The Paper Menagerie" (B); download; F&SF, March/April: Emotional & sad story of a Chinese peasant girl - losing her parents, being sold as a slave to a Hong Kong household, being sold as a "wife" to an American man, & finally being rejected by her American son who disliked his Chinese origins.
   
   Nominated for Nebula award 2011 in short story category.
5. John Scalzi's "Shadow War of the Night Dragons: Book One: The Dead City: Prologue"; download; Tor.com: Not read.

Related.

1. All Hugo award winners & nominees.
2. Other awards for short fiction originally published during 2011: Nebula, BSFA.
3. Fiction originally published during 2011.
4. My "best of 2011".
5. "Best of" lists. 

My "best of the year" picks: 1962

For background of this list, see opening remarks of my best of 1961 list. List below is in order of publication - earliest first, unknown dated last. All stories, of course, were first published in 1962. Download links are included where I'm aware of an online copy.

1. [novelette] James White's "Christmas Treason"; F&SF, January: When little kids brought about global nuclear disarmament! Very funny.
2. [ss] Kurt Vonnegut's "2 B R 0 2 B"; download; If, January: Drastic population control in a society of long lived people.
3. [ss] Arthur Clarke's "Maelstrom II"; Playboy, April: Totally crazy but effective rescue operation...
4. [novella] Jack Vance's "The Dragon Masters"; Galaxy, August: Masters are also the slaves!
5. [novel] Fred Hoyle & John Elliot's "A For Andromeda": One of the most gripping alien invasion stories I've seen.

Related: "Best of" lists; fiction from 1962, 1960s.

My "best of the year" picks: 1961

Going over Joachim Boaz's list of his "Top 11" novels from 1960s, I thought I'll produce my own. But with some differences.

1. It won't have a "Top 11" or any numerical limit. If I liked a story, or find it noteworthy, it gets included.
2. It's not restricted to novels & includes short fiction too.
3. It's a mix of online & offline stuff; links included for online stories.

When compiling the list, I ran into two problems:

1. It's taking too long. I've spent over an hour, & am still just covered 1963.
2. List itself is growing too big. Small bites will probably be more palatable.

I hope to update this list as & when I find more entries, but I often get lazy updating such lists. This list was last updated: 12 April 2012.

List below is in order of publication - earliest first, unknown dated last. All stories originally published during 1961.

1. [ss] Arthur Clarke's "Death & the Senator"; Analog, May: Certain heart ailments may be best treated in a zero gravity environment.
2. [novelette] Lloyd Biggle, Jr's "Monument"; download; Analog, June: Non-violent, non-Gandhian, resistance against colonialism.
3. [ss] Arthur Clarke's  "Before Eden"; Amazing Stories, June: A human expedition to Venus finds something that could be prelife - but its chances of survival are ruined by innocently careless actions of man, in spite of all precautions of the expedition...
4. [ss] Kurt Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron"; download; F&SF, October: An extreme version of the idea of "equal opportunity" 
5. [novel] Arthur Clarke's "A Fall of Moondust": Shipwreck & rescue set in an extremely exotic locale - neither land nor water, neither air nor space!

Related: "Best of" lists; fiction from 1961, 1960s.

Couple of recently announced "best of" anthologies

1. David G Harwell & Kathryn Cramer (eds)' "Year's Best SF 17" (2012). ToC. Collects fiction originally published during 2011.
2. Jason Sanford (ed)'s "Million Writers Award: The Best Online Science Fiction and Fantasy". ToC (need to scroll down at linked page).

Related: "Best of" lists.

Nebula Awards 2011 - short stories: Nominees & my rankings

Official announcement.

Seven stories, all first published in the US during 2011. Nothing really outstanding. I found two completely unreadable; rest are at least readable.

All the ones I finished, except Yu's, are in sad mood, about various kinds of tragedies.

Where I have a separate post on a story, link on story title goes there. My rating appears in brackets. Links on author or publisher yield more matching fiction. All stories are online, & download links are included.

Nominees (7 stories, best first).

1. Nancy Fulda's "Movement" (B); download text & audio; Asimov's, March: Life of a girl inflicted with "temporal autism".
2. David W Goldman's "The Axiom of Choice" (B); download; New Haven Review, Winter: A personal tragedy & a man's pain coping with it. Has unusual FORTRAN-style presentation.
3. E Lily Yu's "The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees" (B); download text/audio; Clarkesworld, April: Wasps colonize bees territory. Imaginative but with lousy ending.
4. Ken Liu's "The Paper Menagerie" (B); download; F&SF, March/April: Emotional & sad story of a Chinese peasant girl - losing her parents, being sold as a slave to a Hong Kong household, being sold as a "wife" to an American man, & finally being rejected by her American son who disliked his Chinese origins.
5. Tom Crosshill's "Mama, We are Zhenya, Your Son" (B); download; Lightspeed, April: A woman has sold her 8 year old son to a scientist for experiments. Scientist who plugs him into a virtual reality environment, only we are not clear if it is virtual reality or alternate realms. Where multiple copies of child's consciousness experience multiple terrors.
6. Adam-Troy Castro's "Her Husband's Hands" (C); download; Lightspeed, October: Left partway through. This is macabre stuff. A soldier lost all of his body except hands, which were reanimated & returned to his wife. How should the wife be interacting with these living disembodied hands?
7. Aliette de Bodard's "Shipbirth" (C); download; Asimov's, February: Left partway through - something incomprehensible & apparently gory about future star-faring humans.

Fact sheet.

1. Other categories in this year's Nebula awards: [novelette], [novella].
2. This year's other awards: BSFA short fiction.
3. Previous Nebula award nominees & winners.
4. My "best of 2011" list.
5. Fiction originally published during 2011.
6. "Best of" lists.

This year's Nebula award nominees

@SFWA website. [via SF Signal]

Related: Previous nominees & winners.

BSFA Awards 2011: Short fiction

Main post.

I've now read all the 5 stories. While I personally find all of them minor, one story - Nina Allan's "The Silver Wind" (download) - might have considerably more appeal for British readers because it references many apparently current political issues, & later parts of the story are set in an alternate London in a parallel universe - a London that appears to be author's idea of a utopia - a London free of racial prejudices.

BSFA Awards 2011: Short fiction nominees, winner, & my ranking

Official announcement came out a few days back. Only minor stories this year.

All nominees are online. All originally published in UK during 2011.

List below is in order of my preference - best first, unread last. Links on author or publisher fetch more matching fiction. My rating is in brackets. Where I have a separate post on a story, link on title goes there.

1. [novella] Nina Allan's "The Silver Wind" (B); download; Interzone 233: Evil British government has been secretly experimenting with randomly picked citizens without informing them. Experiments that leave the victims grotesquely changed in body, if they survive at all. Experiments with a device that puts the subject in a parallel universe or in a different time.
   
   This is the story of a man who will be thus stranded in a parallel London, never able to return.
   
   British readers might find it more interesting as the story makes several references to what appear to be popular political issues there.
2. [novelette] Al Robertson's "Of Dawn" (C); download; Interzone 235: Left midway through. It wasn't that badly written, but I had read enough of unimportant stories in succession & wanted to move to something interesting.
   
   A woman is mourning the recent death of her soldier brother.
3. [ss] China Mieville's "Covehithe" (C); download; The Guardian, 22 April 2011: If the story has a head or tail, I cannot make it out.
   
   Oil rigs lost in the seas due to disasters are mysteriously coming alive, walking at ocean's surface, sometimes visiting coastal places & doing mindless destruction, laying "eggs" & having baby rigs, ... 
4. Kameron Hurley's "Afterbirth" (C); download; author’s own website: Way too complex to describe story & completely pointless. A world where women are required to have at least some children, though the responsibility for raising them is of the state. A woman is interested in some sort of astronomical artifact.
5. [winner] [novelette] Paul Cornell's "The Copenhagen Interpretation" (C); download; Asimov's, July 2011: In a Europe where diplomatic messages are conveyed via human couriers by burning the message in a courier's head in a language known only to two end parties, & even the courier doesn't know the message. Where walls & doors of rooms are made by bending space itself.
   
   Don't ask me what the story is about, though. It made zero impression & I immediately forgot. Something about a spy getting involved in an intrigue where terrorists have got hold of a courier carrying a valuable message.

[via SF Signal]

Related.

1. Past nominees & winners.
2. My "Best of 2011" list.
3. Fiction originally published during 2011.

My "best of the year" picks: 2012

The list is in order in which I found the stories. Stories were all originally published during 2012.

Here is some background information, & how I pick the stories. (Badly needing revision, but this is the only background information I have right now.)

The list.

Links on author or publisher name fetch more matching fiction. Where I have a separate post on the story, link on story title goes there. If I'm aware of an online copy, I include download link too.

1. [ss] Gwendolyn Clare's "All the Painted Stars"; download; Clarkesworld, January: An alien fighter pilot is itching for a fight, & gets involved in it. And finds a second purpose in life...
2. [novelette] Mark Niemann-Ross' "Humnity by Proxy"; Analog, January-February: Several linked stories, illustrating good engineering (of a gadget).
3. [ss] Mari Ness' "And the Hollow Space Inside";  download text/audio; Clarkesworld, February: Cyborgs with normal body but artificial brain.
4. [ff] Mark W Moffett's "Picnic with ants"; download; Nature, 16 February: Funny diary of a field worker's observations of an ants colony...
5. [ss] Jerry Oltion's "You Say You Want a Revolution"; Analog, April: You runined my life. Now wish you the same...

Related.

1. Fiction originally published during 2012.
   
2. My "best of the year" 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 picks.
3. "Best of" lists.

Legend: ss = short story; ff = flash fiction.

Rich Horton (ed)'s "The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2012" (anthology)

Horton posted the ToC a couple of days back. 29 short stories picked by the editor from among those first published during 2011. I think it's several months before the book is actually available in a store.

Where I'm aware of online availability of a story, I include the link too. Links on author, publisher, or editor fetches more matching fiction.

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

1. [ss] Chris Lawson's "Canterbury Hollow" (B); download; F&SF, Jan/Feb: Love story of a "balloted" couple - in world with too much population & too few resources; so periodically, ballots are drawn to decide who is to be prematurely killed!
2. Nina Allan's "The Silver Wind"; Interzone, March-April: Not read.
3. John Barnes's "Martian Heart"; Jonathan Strahan (ed)'s "Life on Mars": Not read.
4. Jonathan Carroll's "East of Furious"; Conjunctions:56, Terra Incognita: The Voyage Issue, Spring 2011: Not read.
5. Suzy McKee Charnas' "Late Bloomer"; Ellen Datlow (ed)'s "Teeth": Not read.
6. C S E Cooney's "The Last Sophia"; download; Strange Horizons, March 7: Not read.
7. Alan DeNiro's "Walking Stick Fires"; Asimov's, June: Not read.
8. Bradley Denton's "The Adakian Eagle"; George R R Martin (ed)'s "Down These Strange Streets": Not read.
9. Alexandra Duncan's "Rampion"; F&SF, May-June: Not read.
10. Neil Gaiman's "'And Weep Like Alexander'"; Ian Whates (ed)'s "Fables from the Fountain": Not read.
11. Theodora Goss' "Pug"; Asimov's, July: Not read.
12. Gavin Grant's "Widows in the World"; download (in two parts); Strange Horizons, February 7 & 14: Not read.
13. Yoon Ha Lee's "Ghostweight"; download text/audio; Clarkesworld, January: Not read.
14. Kat Howard's "Choose Your Own Adventure"; download; Fantasy, April: Not read.
15. Karen Joy Fowler's "Younger Women"; download; Subterranean, Summer: Not read.
16. Kij Johnson's "The Man Who Bridged the Mist"; Asimov's, October-November: Not read.
17. Vylar Kaftan's "The Sighted Watchmaker"; download; Lightspeed, December: Not read.
18. Margo Lanagan's "Mulberry Boys"; Ellen Datlow (ed)'s "Blood and Other Cravings": Not read.
19. Marissa Lingen's "Some of Them Closer"; Analog, January: Not read.
20. Kelly Link's "The Summer People"; Kelly Link & Gavin J Grant (eds)' "Steampunk!": Not read.  
21. Paul McAuley's "The Choice"; Asimov's, February: Not read.
22. K J Parker's "A Small Price to Pay for Birdsong"; download; Subterranean, Winter: Not read.
23. Robert Reed's "Woman Leaves Room"; download; Lightspeed, March: Not read.
24. George Saunders' "My Chivalric Fiasco"; Harper’s Magazine, September: Not read.
25. Rachel Swirsky's "Fields of Gold"; Jonathan Strahan (ed)'s "Eclipse 4": Not read.
26. Lavie Tidhar's "The Smell of Orange Groves"; download text/audio; Clarkesworld, November: Not read.
27. Catherynne M Valente's "The Girl Who Ruled Fairyland, for a Little While"; download; Tor.com, July 27: Not read.
28. Genevieve Valentine's "The Sandal-Bride"; download; Fantasy, March: Not read.
29. E Lily Yu's "The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees"; download text/audio; Clarkesworld, April: Not read.

Related.

1. 2011 edition of this anthology series.
2. Competing "best of 2011" anthologies: Dozois', [Strahan's], [Hartwell/Cramer's].
3. All anthologies (annotated but infrequently updated list of anthologies & collections).
4. My "best of 2011" list. 
5. Fiction originally published during 2011.
6. "Best of" lists.

Gardner Dozois (ed)'s "The Year's Best Science Fiction, Twenty-Ninth Annual Collection" (2012, anthology)

His original post is supposed to be at Facebook, but I cannot see that; don't have a/c. The ToC below is seeded from SF Signal, then material added by me.

The book collects editor's choice of short stories originally published during 2011. Book itself is will likely be available mid-2012.

I've read all but perhaps a half dozen authors. There are may be 2 or 3 whose occasional stories I've really liked in the past. I'll not approach this anthology with high expectations, though I've read only one story so far.

Of 35 stories, 8 are from 3 original fiction anthologies edited by Jonathan Strahan. Then comes Asimov's - 6 stories, F&SF - 5 stories, Clarkesworld - 4 stories, & Tor.com 3 stories. Interzone, Analog & Subterranean get 1 story each. All other sources, mostly sundry original fiction anthologies, together have 6.

Table of contents (35 stories, best first, unread last).

Links on author, publisher, or editor fetches more matching fiction. For stories I've read, my rating is in brackets. Where I'm aware on an online copy of the story, I include the link too.

1. [ss] Chris Lawson's "Canterbury Hollow" (B); download; F&SF, Jan/Feb 2011: Love story of a "balloted" couple - in world with too much population & too few resources; so periodically, ballots are drawn to decide who is to be prematurely killed!
2. Paul Mcauley's "The Choice"; Asimov's, February 2011: Not read.
3. Catherynne M Valente's "Silently And Very Fast"; download text - part 01, 02, 03; Clarkesworld, October/November/December 2011: Not read.
4. Kij Johnson's "The Man Who Bridged The Mist"; Asimov's, Oct/Nov 2011: Not read.
5. Robert Reed's "The Ants Of Flanders"; F&SF, Jul/Aug 2011: Not read.
6. David Moles' "A Soldier Of The City"; Jonathan Strahan (ed)'s "Engineering Infinity": Not read.
7. Stephen Baxter's "The Invasion Of Venus"; Jonathan Strahan (ed)'s "Engineering Infinity": Not read.
8. [novelette] Karl Schroeder's "Laika's Ghost"; Jonathan Strahan (ed)'s "Engineering Infinity": Not read.
9. Damien Broderick's "The Beancounter's Cat"; download; Jonathan Strahan (ed)'s "Eclipse 4": Not read.
10. Gwyneth Jones' "The Vicar Of Mars"; Jonathan Strahan (ed)'s "Eclipse 4": Not read.
11. Elizabeth Bear's "Dolly"; download audio; Asimov's, Jan 2011: Not read.
12. John Barnes' "Martian Heart"; Jonathan Strahan (ed)'s "Life on Mars": Not read.
13. Alastair Reynolds' "Ascension Day"; Scott Harrison & Lee Harris (eds)' "Voices from the Past": Not read.
14. Lavie Tidhar's "The Smell Of Orange Groves"; download text/audio; Clarkesworld, November 2011: Not read.
15. Maureen Mchugh's "After The Apocalypse"; from author's collection with same title: Not read.
16. Jay Lake's "A Long Way Home"; download; Subterranean, Winter 2011: Not read.
17. Geoff Ryman's "What We Found"; F&SF, Sep/Oct 2011: Not read.
18. Dave Hutchinson's "The Incredible Exploding Man"; Ian Whates (ed)'s "Solaris Rising": Not read.
19. Paul Cornell's "The Copenhagen Interpretation"; Asimov's, Jul 2011: Not read.
20. Peter S Beagle's "The Way It Works Out And All"; F&SF, Jul/Aug 2011: Not read.
21. Michael Swanwick's "The Dala Horse"; download; Tor.com, 13 July 2011: Not read.
22. Ken MacLeod's "Earth Hour"; download; Tor.com, 22 June 2011: Not read.
23. Carolyn Ives Gilman's "The Ice Owl"; F&SF, Nov/Dec 2011: Not read.
24. Jim Hawkins' "Digital Rites"; Interzone, #237 (Nov/Dec 2011): Not read.
25. Pat Cadigan's "Cody"; Stephen Cass (ed)'s "TRSF: The Best New Science Fiction", #1 (2011): Not read.
26. Yoon Ha Lee's "Ghostweight"; download text/audio; Clarkesworld, January 2011: Not read.
27. Tom Purdom's "A Response From Est17"; Asimov's, Apr/May 2011: Not read.
28. Ian McDonald's "Digging"; Jonathan Strahan (ed)'s "Life on Mars": Not read.
29. David Klecha & Tobias S Bucknell's "A Militant Peace"; download text/audio; Clarkesworld, Nov 2011: Not read.
30. Michael Swanwick's "For I Have Laid Me Down On The Stone Of Loneliness And I'll Not Be Back Again": Not read.
31. Michael Flynn's "The Iron Shirts"; download; Tor.com, 4 May 2011: Not read.
32. [novelette] Alec Nevala-lee's "The Boneless One"; Analog, Nov 2011: Not read.
33. [novelette] Ian R MacLeod's "The Cold Step Beyond"; Asimov's, Jun 2011: Not read.
34. Ken MacLeod's "The Vorkuta Event"; Peter Crowther & Nick Gevers (eds)' "Postscripts #24/25: The New and Perfect Man": Not read.
35. Peter M Ball's "Dying Young"; Jonathan Strahan (ed)'s "Eclipse 4": Not read.

Related.

1. Entire "The Year's Best Science Fiction" series; works of Gardner Dozois.
2. Competing "best of 2011" anthologies: [Horton's], [Strahan's], [Hartwell/Cramer's].
3. All anthologies (annotated but infrequently updated list of anthologies & collections).
4. My "best of 2011" list.
5. "Best of" lists.

Recommended works of Poul Anderson

Folks at rasfw are doing the recommending.

Related: "best of" lists; stories of Poul Anderson.

Hugo Awards 2011: Winners announced

Official announcement.

Short fiction winners:

1. [novella] Ted Chiang's "The Lifecycle of Software Objects" (A); download; Subterranean Press (2010): Training AIs takes a lot of time & commitment.
2. [novelette] Allen M Steel's "The Emperor of Mars"; download; Asimov's, June 2010: A man copes with tragedy by escaping into fantasy.
3. [ss] Mary Robinette Kowal's "For Want of a Nail"; download; Asimov's, September 2010: A retiring computer operator bugs spaceship's AI to save himself from recycling. Everyone "useless" must be recycled (destroyed) to save ship's resources!

My "best of the year" picks: 2011

My picks follow, in no particular order. Actually, I normally add new entries at bottom - so the list is generally in order in which I found the stories.

Here is some background information, & how I pick the stories. (Badly needing revision, but this is the only background information I have right now.)

The list.

Links on author or publisher name fetch more matching fiction. Where I have a separate post on the story, link on story title goes there. If I'm aware of an online copy, I include download link too.

1.  [novelette] Robert Silverberg's "The Tomb of the Pontifex Dvorn"; download; Subterranean Online, Winter 2011: Bringing history to life.
2. [ss] Dominica Phetteplace's "The Cult of Whale Worship"; download; Asimov's, October/November 2011: Engineering a bug to help conserves whales...
3. [ss] Margaret Atwood's "Stone Mattress"; download; The New Yorker, 19 December 2011; non-genre: A woman raped as a teenager gets her revenge.

Related.

1. Fiction originally published during 2011.
   
2. My "best of the year" 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 picks.
3. "Best of" lists.

Legend: ss = short story; ff = flash fiction.

David G Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer (eds)' "Year’s Best SF 16" (anthology, 2011): Annotated table of contents & review

Kathryn Cramer posted the ToC earlier this week. The volume collects editors' choice of fiction originally published during 2010, & will likely "be out from HarperCollins in May" 2011.

Legend: ff = flash fiction; ss = short story.

Table of contents (21 stories, best first, unread last).

Links on author, publisher, or editor fetch more matching fiction. Where I'm aware of an online copy, download link is included. My rating for read stories appears in brackets.

1. Nina Kiriki Hoffman's "Futures in the Memory Market" (B); download text/MP3; Clarkesworld, June 2010: A recording device like in Arthur Clarke's "Patent Pending" - record your entire experience, not just audio & video; sell it in units like DVDs, so anyone can play back the experience.
   
   This is the story of a young woman conned into a slavery-like contract with a corporation that trades in her experiences.
2. Jack McDevitt's "The Cassandra Project" (B); download; Lightspeed, June 2010: Discovery of an alien artifact on moon.
3. [ff] Gregory Benford's "Penumbra" (B); download; Nature, 9 June 2010: Apocalypse brought about by earth getting caught in "a gamma-ray burster" somewhere in or out of our galaxy. These are supposed to be astronomical phenomenon that transform a star into a black hole, & are supposed to be intense enough to kill everything on earth if occuring within the galaxy!
   Title, "Penumbra", means "twilight zone"; some of earth was behind moon's twilight zone, leading to many survivors.
   
4. Joe Haldeman's "Sleeping Dogs"; Elizabeth Anne Hull (ed)'s "Gateways" (anthology): Not read.
5. Kay Kenyon's "Castoff World"; download podcast; Jetse de Vries (ed)'s "Shine" (anthology): Not read.
6. Benjamin Crowell's "Petopia"; Asimov's, June 2010: Not read.
7. Vernor Vinge's "A Preliminary Assessment of the Drake Equation, Being an Excerpt From the Memoirs of Star Captain Y.-T. Lee"; Elizabeth Anne Hull (ed)'s "Gateways" (anthology): Not read.
8. Terry Bisson's "About It"; F&SF, September/October 2010: Not read.
9. Vandana Singh's "Somadeva: A Sky River Sutra"; download; Strange Horizons, 29 March 2010: Not read.
10. Damien Broderick's "Under the Moons of Venus"; download; Subterranean Online, Spring 2010: Not read.
11. Cat Sparks' "All the Love in the World"; Alisa Krasnostein (ed)'s "Sprawl" (anthology): Not read.
12. Alastair Reynolds' "At Budokan"; Jetse de Vries (ed)'s "Shine" (anthology): Not read.
13. David Langford's "Graffiti in the Library of Babel"; download; Nick Gevers & Marty Halpern "Is Anybody Out There?" (anthology): Not read.
14. Michael Swanwick's "Steadfast Castle"; F&SF, Sptember/October 2010: Not read.
15. Catherynne M Valente's "How to Become a Mars Overlord"; download; Lightspeed, August 2010: Not read.
16. Karl Schroeder's "To Hie from Far Cilenia"; John Scalzi (ed)'s "Metatropolis" (anthology): Not read.
17. Brenda Cooper's "The Hebras And The Demons And The Damned"; Analog, December 2010: Not read.
18. Robert Reed's "The Good Hand"; Asimov's, January 2010: Not read.
19. Stephen Popkes' "Jackie’s Boy"; Asimov's, April/May 2010: Not read.
20. Sean McMullen's "Eight Miles"; Analog, September 2010: Not read.
21. [novella] Paul Park's "Ghosts Doing the Orange Dance (The Parke Family Scrapbook Number IV)"; download; F&SF, January/February 2010: Not read.

Related.

1. Previous volumes in this series.
2. Competing "best of 2010" anthologies: Dozois', Horton's, Strahan's.
3. Fiction originally published during 2010.
4. My "best of 2010" list (links others' lists at bottom).
5. "Best of" lists; "good" fiction; "good" online fiction. 
6. Works of  David G Hartwell, Kathryn Cramer.
7. Short fiction anthologies, collections, magazines (only old pulps); all short fiction.

Note: I normally update list posts like this when I read one of the stories, find a new online link, etc. This post was last updated on 6 March 2011.

2010 BSFA Award nominees announced

Link. [via SF Signal @ twitter].

Related: Previous BSFA Award lists.

Rich Horton (ed)'s "The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2011 Edition" (anthology): Annotated table of contents & review

There is nothing still on it on Horton's own blog, but its ToC has been on internet since early this month. I was planning to write this after reading a good number of stories, but the rate at which I'm going suggests I'll find something else interesting long before I'm through!

The anthology collects editor's choice of short fiction originally published during 2010.

Table of contents (28 stories, best first, unread last).

Links on author, editor, or publisher fetches more matching fiction. If I am aware of an online copy of a story, I include it too. If I've read a story, my rating appears in brackets. If I have a separate post on a story, link on story title goes there.

Note the list is in order of my preference (where I've read the stories), rather than editor's ToC order (unread stories are in editor's order).

1. [ss] Peter Watts' "The Things" (A); download text/MP3; Clarkesworld, #40 (January 2010); fanfic: A retelling of John Campbell's "Who Goes There?" from the point of view of the alien.
   
   Also included in my "best of 2010" list. 
2. Carol Emshwiller's "No Time Like the Present" (B); download; Lightspeed, July 2010; butterfly effect: Immigrants have arrived from a dark future. 
3. [ss] Adam-Troy Castro's "Arvies" (B); download; Lightspeed, #3 (August 2010); horror: An extreme form of slavery. Very dark story.
4. [novelette] K J Parker's "Amor Vincit Omnia" (B); download; Subterranean Online, "Summer" (July-September) 2010; fantasy: What's most threatening to authority, government? A citizen who's beyond the government's power to hurt!
   
   Caution: Initial parts use far too much of ... is it Latin? I don't know the language, but almost gave up. Those funny words cease to be an issue once the story picks up.
5. Charles Yu's "Standard Loneliness Package" (B); download; Lightspeed, #6 (November 2010); brain dump: Outsource your pain, for a price!
6. Amal El-Mohtar's "The Green Book" (C); download; Apex Magazine, 1 November 2010; fantasy: Cannot make out the head or tail of it.
   There is a magical impossible-to-destroy notebook ("The Green Book") that can be used to chat with some dead - you write something, they write back! And some sort of sinister organization called "Sisters" that apparantly killed the dead you chat via the notebook & ominous implication they'll get to you too for having read their secret.
7. Charlie Jane Anders' "The Fermi Paradox is Our Business Model"; download; Tor.com, 11 August 2010: Not read.
   Note: Tor.com site seems to be down today. 
8. Paul M Berger's "Stereogram of the Gray Fort, in the Days of Her Glory"; download; Fantasy Magazine, 21 June 2010: Not read.
9. Damien Broderick's "Under the Moons of Venus"; download; Subterranean, Spring 2010: Not read.
10. C S E Cooney's "Braiding the Ghosts"; Mike Allen (ed)'s "Clockwork Phoenix 3": Not read.
11. Alexandra Duncan's "Amor Fugit"; F&SF, March/April 2010: Not read.
12. Willow Fagan's "The Interior of Mr. Bumblethorn's Coat"; download; Fantasy Magazine, 11 October 2010: Not read.
13. Neil Gaiman's "The Thing About Cassandra"; George R R Martin (ed)'s "Songs of Love and Death": Not read.
14. Elizabeth Hand's "The Maiden Flight of McCauley's Bellerophon"; Neil Gaiman & Al Sarrantonio (eds)' "Stories: All New Tales" (read first 4 stories online): Not read.
15. Samantha Henderson's "The Red Bride"; download; Strange Horizons, 5 July 2010: Not read.
16. Matthew Johnson's "Holdfast"; download; Fantasy Magazine, 6 December 2010: Not read.
17. Alice Sola Kim's "The Other Graces"; Asimov's, July 2010: Not read.
18. Bill Kte'pi's "Merrythoughts"; download; Strange Horizons, 22 March 2010: Not read.
19. Geoffrey A Landis' "The Sultan of the Clouds"; Asimov's, September 2010: Not read.
20. Yoon Ha Lee's "Flower, Mercy, Needle, Chain"; download; Lightspeed, #4 (September 2010): Not read.
21. An Omowoyela's "Abandonware"; download; Fantasy Magazine, 28 June 2010: Not read.
22. Paul Park's "Ghosts Doing the Orange Dance"; F&SF, January/February 2010: Not read.
23. Robert Reed's "Dead Man's Run"; F&SF, November/December 2010: Not read.
24. Rachel Swirsky's "The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen's Window"; download; Subterranean, Summer 2010: Not read.
25. Matthew David Surridge's "The Word of Azrael"; Black Gate, #14 (February 2010): Not read.
26. Steve Rasnic Tem's "A Letter from the Emperor"; Asimov's, January 2010: Not read.
27. Gene Wolfe's "Bloodsport"; Jonathan Strahan & Lou Anders (eds)' "Swords and Dark Magic: The New Sword and Sorcery": Not read.
28. Christie Yant's "The Magician and the Maid and Other Stories"; download; John Joseph Adams (ed)'s "The Way of the Wizard": Not read.

Related.

1. Previous volumes in this series: 2010 Edition, 2009 Edition. Next volume: 2012 Edition.
2. Competing "best of 2010" anthologies: Dozois', Hartwell/Cramer's, Strahan's.
3. Fiction originally published during 2010.
4. My "best of 2010" list (links others' lists at bottom).
5. "Best of" lists; "good" fiction; "good" online fiction. 
6. Works of Rich Horton.
7. Short fiction anthologies, collections, magazines (only old pulps); all short fiction.

Credits: ToC here was seeded from oldcharliebrown; then expanded by me.

Note: I normally update list posts like this when I read one of the stories, find a new online link, etc. This post was last updated on 20 December 2011.

Jonathan Strahan (ed)'s "The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Five" (anthology, 2011): Annotated table of contents & review

Jonathan Strahan has posted the ToC of the volume, due out in March 2011 from Night Shade Books. Book collects editor's choice of short fiction originally published during 2010.

I do wish he would mark the stories that are clearly science fiction or clearly fantasy, for those of us with limited tastes. No luck here. Some cases are obvious from publisher, author or title; others aren't. My immediate impression is: anthology is highly biased towards fantasy.

Also, I'm now-a-days a lot less enthusiastic about these "best of the year" volumes than I was some years ago. Ones I've tried reading in the last couple of years appear to be full of fillers, with just one or two good stories - if that.

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

Links on author, editor, or publisher fetches more matching fiction. If I am aware of an online copy of a story, I include it too. If I've read a story, my rating appears in brackets. If I have a separate post on a story, link on story title goes there.

Note the list is in order of my preference (where I've read the stories), rather than editor's ToC order (unread stories are in editor's order).

1. [ss] Peter Watts' "The Things" (A); download text/MP3; Clarkesworld, #40 (January 2010); fanfic: A retelling of John Campbell's "Who Goes There?" from the point of view of the alien.
   
   Also included in my "best of 2010" list.
   
2. [novelette] K J Parker's "Amor Vincit Omnia" (B); download; Subterranean Online, "Summer" (July-September) 2010; magic: What's most threatening to authority, government? A citizen who's beyond the government's power to hurt!
   
   Caution: Initial parts use far too much of ... is it Latin? I don't know the language, but almost gave up. Those funny words cease to be an issue once the story picks up.
3. Hannu Rajaniemi's "Elegy for a Young Elk"; download; Subterranean Online, Spring 2010: Not read.
4. Neil Gaiman's "The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains"; download; Neil Gaiman & Al Sarrantonio (eds)' "Stories: All New Tales" (read first 4 stories online): Not read.
5. Sandra McDonald's "Seven Sexy Cowboy Robots"; download; Strange Horizons, 4 October 2010: Not read.
6. Sarah Rees Brennan's "The Spy Who Never Grew Up"; Trisha Telep (ed)'s "Kiss Me Deadly: 13 Tales of Paranormal Love": Not read.
7. Holly Black's "The Aarne-Thompson Classification Revue"; Darrell Schweitzer & Martin H Greenberg (eds)' "Full Moon City": Not read.
8. Damien Broderick's "Under the Moons of Venus"; download; Subterranean Online, Spring 2010: Not read.
9. Joe Abercrombie's "The Fool Jobs"; Jonathan Strahan & Lou Anders (eds)' "Swords and Dark Magic: The New Sword and Sorcery": Not read.
10. Robert Reed's "Alone"; Jonathan Strahan (ed)'s "Godlike Machines": Not read.
11. Kij Johnson's "Names for Water"; Asimov's, October/November 2010: Not read.
12. Theodora Goss' "Fair Ladies"; download; Apex magazine, 2 August 2010: Not read.
13. James Patrick Kelly's "Plus or Minus"; Asimov's, December 2010: Not read.
14. Ellen Kushner's "The Man With the Knives"; download; first published as a "chapbook from Temporary Culture" on 3 May 2010: Not read.
15. Cory Doctorow's "The Jammie Dodgers and the Adventure of the Leicester Square Screening"; download; Shareable, 25 May 2010: Not read.
16. Elizabeth Hand's "The Maiden Flight of McAuley's Bellerophon"; Neil Gaiman & Al Sarrantonio (eds)' "Stories: All New Tales" (read first 4 stories online - not including this one): Not read.
17. Margo Lanagan's "The Miracle Aquilina"; Jonathan Strahan & Marianne S Jablon (eds)' "Wings of Fire": Not read.
18. Pat Cadigan's "The Taste of Night"; download in three parts; Nick Gevers & Marty Halpern (eds)' "Is Anybody Out There?": Not read.
19. Bruce Sterling's "The Exterminator's Want-Ad"; download; Shareable, 22 June 2010: Not read.
20. Christopher Barzak's "Map of Seventeen"; Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling (eds)' "The Beastly Bride and Other Tales of the Animal People": Not read.
21. Maureen McHugh's "The Naturalist"; download; Subterranean Online, Spring 2010: Not read.
22. Sara Genge's "Sins of the Father"; Asimov's, December 2010: Not read.
23. Geoffrey A Landis' "The Sultan of the Clouds"; Asimov's, September 2010: Not read.
24. John Kessel's "Iteration"; download; Strange Horizons, 13 September 2010: Not read.
25. Diana Peterfreund's "The Care and Feeding of Your Baby Killer Unicorn"; Holly Black & Justine Larbalestier (eds)' "Zombies vs Unicorns": Not read.
26. Lavie Tidhar's "The Night Train"; download; Strange Horizons, 14 June 2010: I think I've read it; but I don't remember anything of it now.
27. Ian Tregillis' "Still Life (A Sexagesimal Fairy Tale)"; download; Apex magazine, 4 October 2010: Not read.
28. Genevieve Valentine's "The Zeppelin Conductors' Society Annual Gentlemen's Ball"; download; Lightspeed, July 2010: Not read.
29. Rachel Swirsky's "The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen's Window"; download; Subterranean Online, Summer 2010: Not read. 

Related.

1. Previous volumes in this series: Vol 4 (2010), Vol 3 (2009).
2. Competing "best of 2010" anthologies: Dozois', Hartwell/Cramer's, Horton's.
3. Fiction originally published during 2010.
4. My "best of 2010" list (links others' lists at bottom).
5. "Best of" lists; "good" fiction; "good" online fiction.
6. Works of Jonathan Strahan.
7. Short fiction anthologies, collections, magazines (only old pulps); all short fiction.
8. Pre-order at Amazon.com.

Note: I normally update list posts like this when I read one of the stories, find a new online link, etc. This post was last updated on 4 December 2010.