The short fiction field is always in a state of flux. Despite that, there’s a surprising number of magazines, podcasts, collections, and anthologies published each year. There’s no shortage of stories to choose from and keeping up with the volume is no small task. Even reading throughout the year, I still end up with a considerable amount of catching up to do at the end. Looking over my notes, I observed ninety-five magazines and forty-three anthologies publishing new stories in 2022. There were over two thousand five hundred stories in the magazines alone.
Beyond reading and listening to the stories, I also follow the blogs and social media accounts of many publishers, ranging from some of the biggest in the field to those just getting started. I gather data and news for these introductions throughout the year and regularly update my notes as I hear from editors via email, Discord, Zoom, or at conventions. Despite the large number of venues publishing short fiction, it’s still very much a small community. News travels fast.
The damage done by the pandemic continues to be felt, though has slowly become less pronounced each year. The prices for both paper and shipping remain high and appear unlikely to improve in the foreseeable future. Had digital editions not become such a widely adopted medium in the previous decade, the damage to the field would have been considerably more significant.
Looking at bookstores and newsstands, one might even assume genre print magazines to be on their last legs. Instead, I’ve noticed a small increase in the number of magazines available in print editions. These include: Analog, Asimov’s, Bourbon Penn, Clarkesworld, Cossmass Infinities, Dark Matter, The Dread Machine, Dreamforge, Fusion Fragment, Galaxy’s Edge, Infinite Worlds, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Luna Station Quarterly, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (F&SF), Interzone, Metaphorosis, On Spec, Planet Scumm, Pulphouse, Pulp Literature, Reckoning, Shoreline of Infinity, Space and Time, Underland Arcana, Weird Tales, and Wyldblood. I wouldn’t call this a trend, but it’s a good sign for those that prefer physical copies . . . you just have to dig a bit deeper to find them.
The venues with the largest print circulations–Analog, Asimov’s, and F&SF–are produced using offset printing techniques and have traditional newsstand distribution. The nature of this model is only economically viable for publications with larger print runs. A new magazine publisher would likely sustain devastating losses while they attempted to grow their audience. Wisdom has kept many from going that route.
With few exceptions (notably Interzone in the UK–perhaps the most visually attractive print magazine), the others use print-on-demand (POD) technology. At one time, this would have meant sacrificing quality, but that hasn’t been the case for years now. In fact, it often results in a higher quality of paper and cover stock than used by the magazines producing offset editions. This lower bar to entry has allowed more publishers to embrace print without the financial risks of the old model. Instead, copies are printed as needed and sold directly or through online retailers. The downside is that this results in a higher cover price and narrower distribution.
Another slow-moving trend is the increase in the publication of translations in magazines. This year, I discovered them in Apparition Lit, Apex, Asimov's, Asymptote, Clarkesworld, The Dark, Dark Matter, Future Science Fiction, InterNova, Samovar, Slice Magazine (which is, admittedly, not genre-focused), Tor.com, Uncanny, and World Literature Today (also non-genre). Clarkesworld and Samovar continue to be leaders in this area, but the return of German magazine Internova is a welcome sign for people looking to embrace more international literature. The most commonly translated languages continued to be Chinese, Russian, and Spanish, but I also saw translations from Dutch, French, Italian, Japanese, Swedish, and others.
In order to facilitate more international stories being published, changes need to happen in the way story submissions are received. The open submissions process that editors employ to find both new works and new authors is critical to the field’s health. The pandemic was probably the greatest disruption to this process since the advent of digital submissions, but both led to positive improvements. Over the last few years, editors noted a variety of anomalies including sharp increases in works from new writers, slowdowns in productivity from regulars, or even regional increases/decreases. In 2022, more editors began reporting that things were stabilizing in a healthy way, maintaining some aspects of the positive elements that had been experienced.
Not all published work comes from open submissions. Solicited fiction–stories that publishers directly ask authors to write specifically for them–actually saw an increase in 2022. In prior years, the lion’s share of this activity was isolated to three publications–Tor.com, Future Tense Fiction, and Uncanny–but the arrival of a newcomer, Sunday Morning Transport, added forty-eight more to the number of cases reported for the year. Even so, solicitation was still responsible for less than five percent of all of the stories I read from magazines.
Solicitation, as a practice, is actually much more common with anthologies. Historically, editors were expected to identify “anchor” authors around which an anthology could be marketed. Magazine subscriptions are rarely impacted by the appearance of a specific author (because they are only in a single issue), but an anthology can be made profitable by the loyal fans of a handful of authors, assuming they buy the book. Marketing value has been used as justification for the practice for as long as I can remember and, given the way this industry operates, I don’t expect the practice to end anytime soon. New authors may dislike solicitations, but it’s established authors—who were once new themselves—saying yes that makes them viable.
Looking back at 2022, it’s clear that there were inklings of trouble on the horizon. Generative “AI” struck the art community first. New tools quickly captured the attention of the public with their six-fingered and unusual art, but soon these were being used to mimic the styles of professional artists and interfere with people’s livelihoods. Toward the end of November, OpenAI released ChatGPT, a Large Language Model (LLM) capable of generating text, and suddenly people began using it to write emails, letters, and really awful stories.
It wouldn’t take long for the art and literary communities to figure out that these technologies were trained on wide datasets of text and images taken from the Internet without the knowledge or permission of the authors, publishers, artists, and other rights holders. As the year came to a close, there was growing concern and upset among the creative community and an enthusiasm from outside (particularly among tech circles) that was destined to clash.
Others began to look at these as opportunities to cut costs or make easy money by replacing artists, authors, translators, narrators, and other skilled creators. As the year ended, “AI” works began appearing in the submission queues of a handful of well-known magazines with open submissions policies. The numbers were small enough that it didn’t raise an immediate concern, but things would quickly escalate over the next few months. That, however, is a story for the 2023 state of short fiction.
If we were only judging the health of the field by the quantity and wide range of stories being published today, it would be easy to call these good, perhaps even great, years. That, however, is like evaluating the health of all restaurants by focusing only on their menus. With a few exceptions, short fiction is published by for-profit businesses, and even when it isn’t, there are still costs to cover. We need to look beyond the stories themselves to get a sense of the health of the field. If you want that variety to continue, we need a healthy and sustainable ecosystem.
The fact that we have this variety now is not necessarily an indication of good health. If you take a closer look at the majority of genre magazine publishers, you’ll discover that many have unpaid or significantly underpaid staff. It’s not shocking that some portion of the field will consist of amateur, hobbyist, or volunteer workers. The problem is that the field is entirely too reliant on unpaid or underpaid labor. This has become an expectation for those entering the field and creates the unstable foundation our current wealth of short fiction is built on.
A potential source for this expectation is that the field has been cash-starved for long enough that many no longer believe that it’s possible to be professional in the same sense we use the word with athletes. The idea of working for one of these magazines as a career is an alien concept for most of the people staffing or even running genre magazines. Many do their work for the good of the community, a noble and altruistic mindset, but one that also creates a class barrier for those who want to do this work, yet need to be paid. That’s a loss for the entire field and one that should be upsetting enough to push back against. If we can advocate for better pay for fast food workers, we can and should do the same for people working in short fiction.
The digital age made it cheaper and easier to launch magazines. That has been the primary driver for the sharp increase in venues coming and going over the years. The budgets for many of these projects are set by calculating the cost of web hosting, stories, and art, with little or no emphasis paying the staff or publisher. Staff pay has long been a “someday” goal across wide swaths of the field but currently, none of the digital-era magazines can boast having even one full-time paid staff member. A few have reached very part-time status, but at present, it’s only a handful of print-era magazines–Asimov’s, Analog, and F&SF–that satisfy that metric, something they’ve done from the beginning. Several others of their era successfully did the same, though did not survive into the digital age. (This knowingly ignores the publications, like Tor.com, that are paid for by, or are part of, larger businesses. They are different and equally rare beasts.) Despite the significant growth the field has experienced, there has been a net decrease in the number of career-capable publications.
It would be naive to suggest that free online fiction has had nothing to do with it, but its impact is more complicated and significantly intertwined with the positives we’ve seen. The rapid increase in free online fiction can be directly tied to the significant growth in global short fiction readership that has happened since. Prior to that, magazine circulations had been slowly declining for years.
Reading and writing are inherently linked in this respect. During the boom that followed online fiction, there were also sharp increases in the number of people writing and submitting work to magazines. Like every new generation before them, their presence has had a defining impact. Their voices led the field as it grew in both the number of markets and types of stories available to readers.
Visibility is a huge advantage for online publishing. Stories are internationally available on publication, easily shared with other readers, and tend to stay available for extended periods of time in the online archives most of these publications maintain. It has become so entwined with their method of marketing that ending or dialing back this form of publishing would be extremely disruptive to their business.
It’s interesting to note that the publishers of some online newspapers and non-genre magazines have adopted the approaches of limiting the number of free articles per month or hiding archives behind a paywall. This is a deliberate attempt on their part to rein in their Pandora’s Box of free online content and encourage payment without eliminating some of the benefits it brings to the table. It’s unclear how successful these changes have been, but I haven’t observed any genre publications following suit.
However, coming at it from the other side, print-era magazines that eschewed the free online movement have instead opted to publish limited selections of stories or articles on their websites. Of the digital-era magazines, FIYAH stands as one of the few paid-access-only publications and has no signs of changing. New publication Sunday Morning Transport also comes close by making selected works available for free, but requires payment for the rest. Other magazines have attempted subscriber-first models that grant early access to stories and articles before making them available online, but most people appear content to wait.
For several years now, I’ve observed that short fiction—particularly among magazines—has been underpriced. Selling short fiction, even when you don’t have a free edition, has become more challenging. Despite the large increase in overall readership, paid readership has lagged far behind. For publishers offering their stories for free, the subscribing or supporting rate is often well below ten percent of their total readership and very little moves that needle. The presence of free works even impacts the publications that don’t offer free fiction. When so much is available for free, there’s little incentive for some readers to pay for short stories at all. There’s little danger of running out of things to read.
There’s a palpable fear that increasing the cover or subscription price of a magazine could end in a net loss as readers move to cheaper alternatives. As a result, those prices have remained largely unchanged over the last decade. Over the same period, the industry standard per-word rate for short fiction (as set by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association, SFWA) has increased by over thirty-seven percent. Increases have also happened across every other service those publications rely on (web hosting, printing, shipping, etc.) Across the genre, every other literary format has increased prices. None of them, however, face significant challenges from free alternatives.
The pricing issue is something that I’ve been discussing with other editors for years. For a time, it seemed like several in the field were ready to act, but the pandemic made everyone more cautious. That was not the time to rock the boat. Costs, particularly for those producing print editions, continued to rise. While some of those magazines had shifted from monthly to bi-monthly schedules to save printing and shipping costs years earlier, the time bought via those savings was being quickly erased. It’s likely that situation which has triggered a one-dollar price increase on the cover price of print issues of Analog, Asimov’s, and F&SF this year. Across the industry, however, digital prices remained unchanged this year.
Complicating matters even further, towards the end of 2022, Amazon surprised magazine publishers by announcing that they would exit the digital and print subscription marketplace in September 2023. They referred to this as a “difficult decision” but no reason was offered and publishers had not previously seen any reason to be concerned.
It would be fair to describe Amazon’s subscription program as a key moment in turning digital subscriptions into a viable revenue stream for many magazines. It stabilized the revenue streams of several digital-era publications and offset the declining print subscriptions of the print-era magazines. Losing it will be a blow to both publishers and the readers that had grown accustomed to the very reader-friendly ecosystem that placed new magazines on their devices every month or so.
At the time of the announcement, the following magazines were in their program: Asimov’s, Analog, Apex, Clarkesworld, The Dark, Fantasy, Forever, Galaxy’s Edge, Lightspeed, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Nightmare, and Uncanny. For many of them, Amazon subscriptions represented a significant percentage of their annual revenue. While they will have several months to migrate existing subscribers to new platforms, Amazon will not be providing them with contact information for digital subscribers or a means by which they can directly communicate with those readers. This has the potential to strike a devastating blow to some of the more successful magazines in the field and likely ripple outward from there and into 2024.
It seems unlikely that the previously mentioned price freezes on digital subscriptions will be sustained in the wake of this news. Subscriber losses will be inevitable and the difference will need to be made up elsewhere. That said, it’s hard to argue that magazines aren’t overdue for this change and worth more than the modest increases likely to come in the near future.
Amazon’s plans don’t stop there, however. Coinciding with the end of their subscription offerings, they are seeking to convince publishers to join a Kindle Unlimited program that has been specifically geared toward magazines. Initially, this offer was only extended to a handful of the genre magazines, but they later reversed course and offered it to all of them.
If you are unfamiliar with Kindle Unlimited, it’s a monthly subscription that provides you with access to a large range of mostly independently published books. Publishers receive monthly payments based on the number of pages read by members. Magazines are initially being offered a flat annual payment, but one that equates to anywhere from thirty to fifty percent of what Amazon once paid them. Unlike books, magazines are not expected to maintain an exclusive relationship with Amazon. It does, however, paint the decision to end traditional subscriptions in a different light. Clearly, a mechanism to collect, distribute, and provide customer support for subscriptions will be maintained, so it’s less likely to be driven by any potential cost savings (unless you consider the pay publications receive). We’ll likely never officially know why they didn’t opt to maintain both programs.
Amazon’s departure leaves a significant void in the area of digital subscriptions. While several app-based options exist in the Apple and Google stores, they pay publishers considerably less and offer PDF-based replica editions rather than the more traditional reflowable ebook layouts that genre magazine readers have demonstrated a preference for. Barnes & Noble has a digital newsstand presence, but it can’t deliver to the Kindle devices of former subscribers and, at present only Analog, Asimov’s, Clarkesworld, and Forever are available there. A much broader range of genre publications than Amazon had are offered via independent online outlet, Weightless Books (weightlessbooks.com), and they offer a deliver-to-Kindle option. Don’t let the vintage website design fool you. Weightless has always been very good to short fiction magazines and readers. I highly recommend them.
A number of publishers already offer direct subscription options and Amazon’s departure will likely lead to an increase in those offering them in the coming year. Many have also adopted Patreon as a means of subscribing or supporting them throughout the year. While technically a crowdfunding platform, Patreon’s model is designed around recurring projects, so subscriptions can start at any time and don’t require intervention until you want to end it. Of the various crowdfunding platforms, Patreon appears to be the most successful as a growth platform for publishers.
Kickstarter, the eight-hundred-pound gorilla of crowdfunding, remains a dominant force in the field. Many magazines have utilized Kickstarter campaigns to effectively secure first-year funding to get off the ground. It’s also been well-utilized for many anthologies. Kickstarter, however, is built around a one-and-done model of fundraising. Several publications currently use them for annual campaigns, but this is where the weakness of the platform comes into play. Subscribers from one year to the next need to manually restart subscriptions during a limited window of time. As a result, it is not uncommon for there to be bigger fluctuations from year-to-year and they mostly trend toward flat or declining participation. It is not known for its growth opportunities which, if we’re looking for more financial stability in the field, can be a problem. Kickstarter campaigns have, however, demonstrated that people are often willing to pay more than the traditional subscription price. That should be a reassuring data point for publishers as they make pricing considerations in the years ahead.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least mention one concern that has cropped up among some editors in the last year, and that is the slow-motion car crash that is happening with Twitter. Many magazines have made Twitter their primary or only means of communication with the broader community. It is frequently used to promote Kickstarter campaigns for books and magazines, perform subscription drives, get the word out about new issues, and much more. While the follower counts for magazine accounts plummeted briefly, within a few months they had returned to or exceeded their previous levels. The danger, it turns out, was not immediate, but did serve as a warning against putting all your marketing eggs in one basket. If anything, this scare may become an opportunity as more magazines are now setting up shop on other platforms, building mailing lists, and finding new methods to engage with their communities. If done right, they should not only have more reach than they had previously, but will also be better prepared for any further platform shenanigans. Instead of seeing this as a looming disaster, I choose to see this as an opportunity to reach more readers, which can only be a good thing.
Let’s step back and take a look at some of the industry data we have on subscriptions. For starters, we’ll look at the three magazines with paid staff:
Over the last five years Analog has dropped from 11,401 print subscriptions to 8,436, a loss of 2,965; Asimov’s has dropped from 7,109 to 5,685, a loss of 1,424; F&SF has dropped from 6,688 to 4,945, a loss of 1,743. Asimov’s and Analog raised the cost of their print subscription prices in 2022, so that may have contributed to, or financially offset, a portion of their losses. During the same time period, Analog has dropped from 8,788 to 8,400, a loss of 388; Asimov’s has dropped from 10,578 to 9,300, a loss of 1,278. Last year was the first time that Analog’s digital sales were higher than print, but they fell to practically even this year. Asimov’s has consistently sold more digital than print subscriptions since 2017. F&SF doesn’t share digital subscription data, but it’s probably safe to assume their subscription profile leans more toward digital as well.
This is the first time since I started doing this analysis that there were losses on both the digital and print sides over a five-year window. We don’t want the numbers moving in this direction, but it’s also not a reason to panic. Additional data for Asimov’s and Analog demonstrated an increase in individual copies at newsstands and higher sell-through rates and I’ve already mentioned the price increases on print subscriptions. Measures are clearly being taken and these caveats suggest it’s more complicated than it would appear in a straight surface analysis of what I’ve presented. It’s also important to note that the year we’re comparing against was an unusually big growth year for digital subscriptions. Looking at the year-to-year data for F&SF, it appears that the bulk of the five-year losses were sustained before 2022. There were losses this year, but a considerably smaller percentage than previous years. Without the information on digital subscriptions, it’s difficult to say what’s happening here, particularly with digital subscriptions being a stronger source of revenue. Next year’s data would normally help paint a clearer picture, but with the Kindle subscriptions ending and KU lump-sum payments entering the equation, I’m afraid it will only get foggier.
The data from digital publications was a bit murkier and incomplete this year, particularly among the older publications. Two data points, Clarkesworld and Uncanny, show gains in digital subscribers over the last five years. Clarkesworld moving from 3800 to 4100, a gain of 300, and Uncanny moving from 1600 to 2700, a gain of 1100. The paid subscription numbers for these two magazines are most likely the highest of their cohort, but they are still significantly behind the three previously mentioned magazines. Despite this, there is some hope created by the largely upward trajectories. It isn’t that way for everyone, but enough are headed in the right direction to provide some hope.
While I’ve come to be somewhat distrustful of reported online readership data–largely due to a lack of standards in the way they count them–I think it’s safe to say that the better-known online editions of magazines have readerships of anywhere from thirty to sixty thousand people for their fiction. These magazines currently lag in paid readership but are connected with fans and have a potential to grow. If only a small percentage of those audiences could be converted to paying readers, things would be a lot more stable for magazines.
Subscriptions aren’t the only form of revenue but, across the field, they represent the lion’s share of revenue for most publishers . . . and there’s no sign of that changing. Single and back issue sales are commonly the second-largest slice of the pie. Advertising revenue has been in decline for ages and has faded well into the background. Some publishers have been successful in securing grants, but it’s more common to find those outside the US than within. The field’s non-profit magazines can take tax-deductible donations, but that appears to be just as challenging as building a subscriber base.
A few publications live in a different reality from the others. By being a part of or sponsored by larger organizations, like Tor.com’s relationship with Tor Books and Future Tense Fiction as a partnership of Slate, New America and Arizona State University, they are removed from some of the concerns holding most of the field back. They don’t live or die on the basis of subscriptions or financial support from readers. Instead, they count on the parent company getting something of value out of it. There have been several such magazines in the history of the field, like the venerable Sci Fiction, and their problems tend to be unique to the internal politics of parent organizations. While they can and often do have influence on the field, they don’t provide a replicable path forward for the broader short fiction community.
In assessing the health of the field, I’ve largely focused on the financial and staffing aspects because that is where it is at its weakest. The looming threats of generative “AI” and disruptions to the subscriber bases of some of our most well-known publications are an imminent threat to that overall health in the coming year. As always, it is our community that will determine whether or not these disruptions cause us to lose individual markets or the variety that we’ve come to enjoy.
Ninety-two-year-old veteran, Analog Science Fiction and Fact (analogsf.com) continues to have the highest documented paid readership among the English language genre magazines. Once again, outside of the flash fiction (1,000 word or less) magazines, Analog published more total stories combined across all lengths than any other magazine this year and the most original short stories and novellas. My favorite works were by Deborah L. Davitt, Jay Werkheiser & Frank Wu, Jessica Reisman, and Hannah Yang, the latter two of which are included in this volume.
Asimov’s Science Fiction (asimovs.com), which shares a publisher—Dell Magazines—with Analog, has the highest digital paid readership among the English-language genre magazines. They published more novelettes than any other publication in 2022. As I’ve come to expect, they had another strong year, publishing excellent stories by M. Bennardo, Greg Egan, Ray Nayler, Suzanne Palmer, Susan Palwick, Alastair Reynolds, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and Nick Wolven. Five stories are included in this anthology.
In the interest of transparency, Clarkesworld (clarkesworldmagazine.com), is the magazine I publish. They published the second-highest volume of total stories, short stories, and novellas of the 2022 magazines, as well as the highest number of translated works. I was particularly fond of the stories by Nadia Afifi, R.S.A. Garcia, Thomas Ha, S.L. Huang, Isabel J. Kim, Naomi Kritzer, Leonard Richardson, and Marie Vibbert. Four stories were selected for inclusion in this year’s volume.
FIYAH (fiyahlitmag.com), a quarterly publication focused on speculative fiction by and about Black people of the African Diaspora published four issues in 2022, including two themed issues. They continued to hold their annual Ignyte Awards, but took a break from hosting FIYAHCON this year. Publisher Troy Wiggins received a well-deserved 2022 SFWA Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award for his contributions to the speculative fiction community. My favorite science fiction story from them was by Adelehin Ijasan.
Future Tense Fiction (slate.com/technology/future-tense), a partnership between Slate, New America, and Arizona State University, continues to publish a mix of science fiction stories paired with companion non-fiction articles. This is one of the more reliable sources for science fiction stories that has cropped up within venues not commonly known for genre fiction. Their 2022 lineup included strong stories by Brenda Cooper, A.T. Greenblatt, Premee Mohamed, and Cat Rambo, two of which can be found here.
GigaNotoSaurus (giganotosaurus.org) founder, Ann Leckie, stepped down from her roles at the magazine after eleven years. Current editor LaShawn M. Wanak is the new owner of the publication.
Andy Cox’s TTA Press produced a single double issue of Interzone (interzone.press) before handing the reins over to Gareth Jelley and MYY Press. Jelly intends to continue publishing the magazine in print and launched an online sister magazine, Interzone Digital.
Lightspeed (lightspeedmagazine.com) publishes an even balance of fantasy and science fiction throughout the year and a significant number of reprinted modern classic stories. Among their best stories were works by Julianna Baggott, Tobias S. Buckell, Grace Chan, Peter Watts, three of which are included in this anthology.
This was Sheree Renée Thomas’ first full year as the editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (fandsf.com), having started with the March/April 2021 issue, and one of the best in recent memory. My favorite stories from this year included works by Meg Elison, J.C. Hsyu, Innocent Chizaram Ilo, Ai Jiang, Charles Andrew Oberndorf, and Rajeev Prasad. I’ve included three of their stories in this year’s volume.
Strange Horizons (strangehorizons.com) publishes a new issue every Monday and this year that included four special issues focused on criticism, Southeast Asian SFF, extractivism, and music. Their strongest stories were by R.S.A. Garcia, Isabel J. Kim, and Mae Juniper Stokes. Its sister publication, Samovar (samovar.strangehorizons.com), has a focus on works in translation and remains one of the few outlets that publishes works in both English and their original languages.
After a slightly lower-volume year in 2021, Tor.com (online magazine, not to be confused with Tordotcom Publishing or Tor Books) published just one more story this year. This count, however, includes the LeVar Burton Reads contest winners co-presented with FIYAH. Works are edited by a variety of Tor and well-known freelance editors from across the field. Their best science fiction works were by Kemi Ashing-Giwa, Indrapramit Das, Rich Larson, and Ian R. MacLeod. Larson’s story is reprinted here this year.
Uncanny (uncannymagazine.com) continues to be a strong market for fantasy, but published several science fiction stories as well. Samantha Mills’ story was a notable stand-out.
After a promising launch in 2021, Spanish-English bilingual magazine, Constelación announced a six-month hiatus, but never returned. The website has since vanished.
In an announcement that caught readers by surprise, veteran flash fiction magazine, Daily Science Fiction (dailysciencefiction.com) announced that after twelve years and more than three thousand stories, it would go on hiatus in December. No reason has been publicly stated.
Fireside (firesidefiction.com) closed in spring, after publishing its 103rd issue. Publisher Brian J. White cited “major increases last fall to my responsibilities at my day job and a series of difficult life events,” as well as the fact that the magazine was “still losing a lot of money each month” as reasons for closing. Favorite 2022 stories included works by Grace Chan and Somto Ihezue.
Future Science Fiction (future-sf.com) announced that it was going on hiatus at the end of 2022 after five years of publication. FSF was a good source for international science fiction, so losing them is a blow to readers looking for those works. Editor Alex Shvartsman cited the time commitment of a quarterly magazine as the primary factor. An anthology project he will helm in 2023 will likely lead to future stories being published on the site, but doesn’t necessarily suggest a future direction for the magazine. Their strongest story this year, written by Xing Fan, appears in the recommended reading list.
After nearly a decade of publication, Lackington’s (lackingtons.com) went on hiatus after a single 2022 issue. The publisher has committed to keeping back issues available online and in ebook editions.
Lamplight (lamplightmagazine.com) closed in June, shortly after its tenth anniversary. Jacob Haddon indicated that this was a decision nearly two years in the making. The low numbers of subscriptions made it unsustainable.
Land Beyond the World (landbeyondtheworld.substack.com) closed after publishing a single story in 2022. No explanation was provided, but stories are still currently available on their website.
Mithila Review (mithilareview.com) published a single hopepunk-themed issue in 2022, but has decided to switch from magazine to themed anthology format moving forward.
Factor Four (factorfourmag.com), a flash fiction magazine, has returned after closing in 2019. Twelve new issues were posted to their website this year.
Hex Literary (hexliterary.com) is based at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Massachusetts and publishes flash fiction and shorter works on a “weekly-ish” schedule.
Internova (internova.worldculturehub.net) is the third incarnation of a German magazine that focuses on publishing international science fiction in English. Two issues were published.
Interzone Digital (interzone.digital) is a sister publication to veteran UK magazine Interzone, launched by its new publisher, Gareth Jelley, shortly after its purchase.
Old Moon Quarterly (oldmoonpublishing.com) is an independent magazine that published two issues of mostly weird and sword-and-sorcery fiction in its first year.
Radon Journal (radonjournal.com) is a triannual online journal with an emphasis on science fiction, anarchism, transhumanism, and dystopia. They published two issues in 2022.
Rikka Zine (rikka-zine.com) is a Japanese-English bilingual magazine with an emphasis on world science fiction. Their first issue was published in November.
Seize The Press (seizethepress.com) published five issues in their first year and focuses on “dark speculative fiction and anticapitalist sci-fi, fantasy and horror pop culture analysis.”
Space Fantasy (spacefantasymag.com) published one issue and aims to feature stories that “challenge our relationship with space—past, present, and future.”
Solarpunk (solarpunkmagazine.com) is a bi-monthly magazine with an emphasis on utopian, solarpunk themes. They published six issues in their first year.
The Sunday Morning Transport (www.sundaymorningtransport.com) is perhaps the most well-funded new publication to launch in 2022. Employing Substack, SMT releases stories every Sunday morning. Works are solicited from some of the field’s better-known authors and span a range of science fiction and fantasy. Stories by Yoon Ha Lee, Analee Newitz, C.C. Finlay are among their best.
Tasavvurnama (tasavvurnama.com) is a quarterly publication that aims to create a place for imaginative short stories from South Asia. Four issues were released in 2022. The name comes from “Tasavvur,” which means imagination in Urdu/Hindi.
Wyngraf (wyngraf.com) published two issues of mostly cozy fantasy stories. Their name originates in “Wyngrāf,” an Old English compound word that means “wondrous grove.”
There’s currently a very rich assortment of magazines being published. Unfortunately, I don’t have the space to talk about them all, but I’d like to call attention to some of the others I read in the last year: Abyss & Apex (abyssapexzine.com), Anathema (anathemamag.com), Andromeda Spaceways (andromedaspaceways.com), Apex (apex-magazine.com), Apparition Lit (apparitionlit.com), Augur (augurmag.com), Aurealis (aurealis.com.au), Baffling (bafflingmag.com), Bards & Sages (bardsandsages.com), Beneath Ceaseless Skies (beneath-ceaseless-skies.com), Bourbon Penn (bourbonpenn.com), Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores (cosmicrootsandeldritchshores.com), Cossmass Infinities (cossmass.com), Dark Matter (darkmattermagazine.shop), Diabolical Plots (diabolicalplots.com), DreamForge Anvil / DreamForge (dreamforgemagazine.com), Eita! (eitamagazine.com), Electric Spec (electricspec.com), Etherea (ethereamagazine.com), Flash Fiction Online (flashfictiononline.com), Forever (forever-magazine.com), Frozen Wavelets (frozenwavelets.com), Fusion Fragment (fusionfragment.com), Galaxy’s Edge (galaxysedge.com), Grimdark (grimdarkmagazine.com), Heroic Fantasy Quarterly (heroicfantasyquarterly.com), Hexagon (hexagonmagazine.ca), HyphenPunk (hyphenpunk.com), Infinite Worlds (infiniteworldsmagazine.com), James Gunn's Ad Astra (adastrasf.com), Kaleidotrope (kaleidotrope.net), khōréō (khoreomag.com), Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet (smallbeerpress.com/lcrw), Little Blue Marble (littlebluemarble.ca), Luna Station Quarterly (lunastationquarterly.com), Metaphorosis (magazine.metaphorosis.com), Mythaxis (mythaxis.co.uk), Neo-Opsis (neo-opsis.ca), New Myths (newmyths.com), Omenana (omenana.com), On Spec (onspecmag.wpcomstaging.com), ParSec (pspublishing.co.uk/parsec-79-c.asp), Planet Scumm (planetscumm.space), Pulphouse (pulphousemagazine.com), Pyre (pyremagazine.com), Reckoning (reckoning.press), Sci Phi Journal (sciphijournal.org), Shoreline of Infinity (shorelineofinfinity.com), Space and Time (spaceandtime.net), Terraform (vice.com/en/topic/terraform), The Arcanist (thearcanist.io), The Dread Machine (thedreadmachine.com), The Future Fire (futurefire.net), Three Crows (threecrowsmagazine.com), Translunar Travelers Lounge (translunartravelerslounge.com), Underland Arcana (underlandarcana.com), Weird Tales (weirdtales.com), Worlds of Possibility (juliarios.com/worlds-of-possibility), and ZNB Presents! (zombiesneedbrains.com). My apologies to anyone I accidentally missed.
Audio fiction, particularly in the form of podcasts, has become a very important part of the short fiction ecosystem. Here you’ll find a very rich assortment of new and previously published science fiction works published in audio form every month ranging from multiple narrator shows like Simultaneous Times (podomatic.com/podcasts/spacecowboybooks) or Dust (watchdust.com/listen/) to single narrator led productions like Levar Burton Reads (levarburtonpodcast.com).
Over the years, many of our magazines have embraced this medium. Analog, Apex, Asimov’s, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, Uncanny, and others have podcasts as a means of reaching more readers/listeners. Some magazines, such as EscapePod (escapepod.org), Cast of Wonders (castofwonders.org), Podcastle (podcastle.org), and StarShipSofa (starshipsofa.com), originally began as podcasts and later expanded into online text and other formats as well. Everything converges in this field.
Podcasts are responsible for introducing a significant number of new readers and listeners to the field and, for many, it’s their preferred method of reading. As you might expect, the production quality of shows can vary in quality, but there is almost certainly something for everyone among the wide range of new and archived podcasts currently available on most major platforms. If you haven’t checked them out, you can do so for free directly at their websites or frequently via iTunes, Spotify, Google, Amazon, and many more.
Anthologies and collections have always played an important role in short fiction but, with rare exception, have fallen from grace in the eyes of the field’s biggest publishers. That said, Tordotcom Publishing should be commended for publishing two original anthologies this year: Africa Risen, edited by Sheree Renée Thomas, Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, and Zelda Knight, and The Way Spring Arrives and Other Stories, edited by Yu Chen and Regina Kanyu Wang.
What makes these even more interesting is that they’re a temporary departure from the “big-name author” model we’ve typically seen employed to sell an anthology (both to the publisher and readers). Being focused on authors with regional connections–Africa and China respectively–the contributors may not be as widely known to American readers. That regional themes could be seen as a significant enough marketing point to overcome this—and warranted two projects in a year at a major publishing house—is a very positive sign for international science fiction projects. It’s a risk that I hope pays off and paves the way for more.
Both anthologies include strong works. I particularly enjoyed the stories by Steven Barnes and Wole Talabi in Africa Risen and have reprinted Wole’s here. The Way Spring Arrives and Other Stories contains enjoyable stories by Xia Jia, Zhao Haihong, and Nian Yu, the latter of which is also in this volume. I recommend seeking out both anthologies if you enjoy these stories.
Continuing the international start, another anthology that caught my eye was The Best of World SF II edited by Lavie Tidhar. Unlike the first volume, this one contains a lot of original works, a departure for a series that contains the word “best” in the title. Pan Haitian and Julie Nováková wrote the strongest of the originals.
Editor Jonathan Strahan managed to get two original anthologies–Someone in Time and Tomorrow’s Parties–published this year. The former is a themed anthology of time-travel romance stories featuring strong stories by Zen Cho, Seanan McGuire, and Catherynne M. Valente. The latter focuses on the Anthropocene, an era of dramatic and violent climate change and includes several interesting works by Sarah Gailey, Malka Older, Justina Robson, and Tade Thompson. Of the two, I prefer Tomorrow’s Parties, but found stories from both worth in this anthology.
Reclaim the Stars, edited by Zoraida Córdova, was marketed as a young adult anthology of stories that take you to the stars. It was published by Wednesday Books, an imprint of Macmillan. Daniel Jose Older has the strongest contribution in this volume.
Living in the space between anthology and collection was The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer by Janelle Monáe, someone you may more likely know from her music. Here the stories are co-written with a variety of authors. My favorite was “Timebox Altar(ed)” co-written with Sheree Renée Thomas.
The majority of anthologies continue to find homes in the small press or as part of Kickstarter campaigns. This can make them harder to find, but the gems can make them well worth seeking out.
Bridge to Elsewhere, edited by Alana Joli Abbott and Julia Rios and published as part of a Kickstarter campaign, is an anthology of space-based adventures. It includes two strong stories from A.T. Greenblatt and S.L. Huang, one of which is reprinted here.
Meteotopia: Futures of Climate (In)Justice, edited by Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay, Ana Rüsche, and Francesco Verso, was published as a joint project between CoFUTURES and Future Fiction. My favorite story in this one was by Chinelo Onwualu and it's included in this volume.
New Voices in Chinese SF, edited by Neil Clarke, Xia Jia, and Regina Kanyu Wang, was one of the stretch goals for last year’s collection of stories by Xia Jia. This anthology showcased Chinese authors that had not been previously published in English, making them “new” to English language readers, but sometimes well-known to Chinese readers. Favorite stories here include works by Liang Qingsan and Congyun “Mu Ming” Gu, the latter of which you’ll read here.
Grist’s Imagine 2200 is a contest for climate fiction that ends up being presented like an online anthology, so I’m counting it as one. This year’s group included a strong story by Rich Larson.
New Worlds, edited by Nick Gevers and Peter Crowther, is the rebirth of the magazine (with editor Michael Moorcock’s blessing) as an anthology series published by PS Publishing in the UK. I particularly enjoyed Gwyneth Jones’ contribution.
Night, Rain, and Neon, edited by Michael Cobley, is a cyberpunk and post-cyberpunk anthology published by Newcon Press. They even timed the release of the book to match the same date Wiliam Gibson’s Neuromancer was published. TR Napper has the strongest story.
Among the other anthologies received were Brave New Worlds edited by S.C. Butler and Joshua Palmatier, Corporate Catharsis, DON’T TOUCH THAT! edited by Jaymee Goh, Fission #2 Volume 1 edited by Eugen Bacon and Gene Rowe, Fission #2 Volume 2 edited by Eugen Bacon and Gene Rowe, Freetaly: Italian Science Fiction edited by Francesco Verso, Galaxy Awards 1 edited by Latssep and Francesco Verso, Kalicalypse edited by Tarun K. Saint, Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay, and Francesco Verso, Lost Worlds & Mythological Kingdoms edited by John Joseph Adams, Mafaverna: Democracy edited by Jana Bianchi and Diogo Ramos, No Game for Knights edited by Larry Correia and Kacey Ezell, Noir edited by David B. Coe and John Zakour, Opulent Syntax: Irish Speculative Fiction edited by Don Duncan and dave ring, Other Covenants: Alternate Histories of the Jewish People edited by Andrea D. Lobel and Mark Shainblum, Our Move Next edited by Franc Summers and Kelly-Eve Koopman in collaboration with Vasti Hannie, ROBOSOLDIERS: Thank You for Your Servos edited by Stephen Lawson, Rogue Artists: An Origins Anthology edited by E.D.E. Bell, Shattering the Glass Slipper edited by Crystal Sarakas and Rhondi Salsitz, Snaring New Suns, Speculative Works from Hawai’i and Beyond edited by Tom Gammarino, Bryan Kamaoli Kuwada, D. Keali’i MacKenzie, and Lyz Soto, Sword & Planet edited by Christopher Ruocchio, The Future's So Bright edited by Elyse Russell, The Reinvented Heart edited by Jennifer Brozek and Cat Rambo, This All Come Back Now: An Anthology of First Nations Speculative Fiction edited by Mykaela Saunders, Trenchcoats, Towers, and Trolls: Cyberpunk Fairy Tales edited by Rhonda Parrish, Trouble the Waters: Tales from the Deep Blue edited by Sheree Renée Thomas, Unlimited Futures: Speculative, Visionary Blak+Black Fiction edited by Rafeif Ismail and Ellen van Neerven, Weird World War IV edited by Sean Patrick Hazlett, and Worlds Long Lost edited by Christopher Ruocchio and Sean CW Korsgaard.
Since short story collections typically consist of previously published works, I don’t often find many stories in them to consider for this anthology. Sadly, it felt like there were fewer published this year than in previous years. Despite that, I still managed to find several that are worth checking out, including: The Adventurists by Richard Butner, Memory's Legion: The Complete Expanse Story Collection by James S.A. Corey, Night Shift by Eileen Gunn, The Dark Ride: The Best Short Fiction of John Kessel by John Kessel, The Inconceivable Idea of the Sun by Anil Menon, Boys, Beasts & Men by Sam J. Miller, The Best of Lucius Shepard: Vol. 2 by Lucius Shepard, Utopias of the Third Kind by Vandana Singh, Where You Linger & Other Stories by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam, and All the Hometowns You Can't Stay Away From by Izzy Wasserstein.
The science fiction community offers a wide variety of awards to recognize various achievements in the field. The short fiction categories–and those for the people and places that publish them–have been significantly disrupted by the arrival of quality free online fiction. Its increased visibility, ease of sharing, and longer shelf life give it a significant advantage over stories published in paywalled magazines and anthologies. As attitudes toward campaigning for awards have become more permissive, online fiction has also benefited disproportionately.
If you were to go by the awards, you might be mistakenly led to believe that some of our most successful magazines and anthologies are failing or underperforming. This year’s scorecard suggests much more balance and conversations with other best of the year editors presents a consensus opinion that the best works are more distributed across the field than the awards would have you believe.
My selections for this year include thirty-one works, matching last year’s quantity. Here is how they break down by where the stories originally appeared:
| Stories Included | Percentage | Sources | |
| Magazines | 23 | 74.2% | 8 |
| - Paywall | 10 | 32.3% | 3 |
| - Free Ed. | 13 | 41.9% | 5 |
| Anthologies | 8 | 25.8% | 7 |
| Collections | 0 | 0% | 0 |
| Standalone | 0 | 0% | 0 |
These represent a total of fifteen different sources, one less than last year, but in keeping with recent years. Magazines represented four more stories, but one less venue. The balance shifted by two more toward magazines with free editions, but given that paywalled magazines are in the minority, the gap could easily be higher. This demonstrates the high level of quality produced by those magazines. The total number of stories from anthologies decreased by three from last year, but the number of sources increased by one. Since collections typically include previously published works, last year’s two stories were a short-lived and unusual departure.
Standalone works are those that were published on their own and not connected to any of the other categories. Most commonly, these are separately published novellas. There were two included three years ago, but none since.
The field’s many awards rank short fiction based on word count into categories, most commonly short stories, novelettes, and novellas. Within short stories (works under 7500 words), there are additional carve-outs for flash (works under 1,000 words) and drabbles (exactly 100 words), but they tend to be included in short stories for the purpose of awards.
Given the limited financial resources and per-word payment model for short fiction, it shouldn’t be surprising that short stories represent the lion’s share of what gets published. Novelettes (under 17,500 words) tend to have better representation in anthologies and larger magazines. Novellas (under 40,000 words) represent the smallest portion of the field. However, over the last decade, the format has enjoyed a renaissance of sorts. Serialized novels are a rarity for today’s magazines but, surprisingly, I found them in Asimov’s and Galaxy’s Edge this year. Works of that length are not considered for this anthology.
In this year’s selections, short stories declined from twenty-two to nineteen, which is still better than two years ago. Novelettes jumped back up to eleven from last year’s seven, which makes up for some of last year’s losses. Novellas dropped from two to one. Even with an anthology this big, it can be difficult to include more than two or three novellas due to their size.
A note on novellas: Tordotcom Publishing is widely considered the leader here and dominates this category in various awards. Quality novellas, however, can be found in a much wider variety of sources than those awards reflect. Magazines–most commonly Asimov’s, Analog, F&SF, and Clarkesworld, and no fewer than six others published at least one in 2022–and publishers–like Tachyon (tachyonpublications.com), Neon Hemlock (neonhemlock.com), and Subterranean Press (subterraneanpress.com), among others–remain reliable sources for novellas.
And from the recommended reading list:
| Stories Included | Percentage | Sources | |
| Magazines | 30 | 63.8% | 14 |
| - Paywall | 9 | 19.1% | 3 |
| - Free Ed. | 21 | 44.7% | 11 |
| Anthologies | 15 | 31.9% | 11 |
| Collections | 1 | 2.1% | 1 |
| Standalone | 1 | 2.1% | 1 |
There were forty-seven stories on the recommended reading list this year, up from forty-six in 2021. Magazines decreased by one and anthologies increased by eight. Collections decreased by four and standalone decreased by two. There are thirty-three short stories, nine novelettes, and five novellas on the recommended reading list.
When you combine the recommended reading list with those included in this book, there are seventy-eight works from twenty-eight different sources. Both the quantity of stories and number of sources increased by one over last year. This is certainly a good period of time for fans of short fiction, even if the publishers themselves still struggle.
The 80th World Science Fiction Convention, Chicon 8, was held September 1–5, 2022, in Chicago, Illinois. The 2022 Hugo Awards, presented at Worldcon 80, went to: Best Novel, A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine; Best Novella, A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers; Best Novelette, “Bots of the Lost Ark” by Suzanne Palmer; Best Short Story, “Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather” by Sarah Pinsker; Best Series, Wayward Children by Seanan McGuire; Best Related Work, Never Say You Can’t Survive by Charlie Jane Anders; Best Graphic Story or Comic, Far Sector, written by N.K. Jemisin, art by Jamal Campbell; Best Dramatic Presentation (long form), Dune, screenplay by Jon Spaihts, Denis Villeneuve, and Eric Roth, directed by Denis Villeneuve, based on the novel Dune by Frank Herbert; Best Dramatic Presentation (short form), The Expanse: Nemesis Games, written by Daniel Abraham, Ty Franck, and Naren Shankar; directed by Breck Eisner; Best Editor, Short Form, Neil Clarke; Best Editor, Long Form, Ruoxi Chen; Best Professional Artist, Rovina Cai; Best Semiprozine, Uncanny Magazine, publishers and editors-in-chief Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas; managing/poetry editor Chimedum Ohaegbu; nonfiction editor Elsa Sjunneson; podcast producers Erika Ensign & Steven Schapansky; Best Fanzine, Small Gods, Lee Moyer (Icon) and Seanan McGuire (Story); Best Fancast, Our Opinions Are Correct, presented by Annalee Newitz and Charlie Jane Anders, produced by Veronica Simonetti; Best Fan Writer, Cora Buhlert; Best Fan Artist, Lee Moyer; plus the Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book, The Last Graduate, by Naomi Novik, and the Astounding Award for Best New Writer, Shelley Parker-Chan.
The 2021 Nebula Awards, presented during a virtual ceremony, on May 21, 2022, went to: Best Novel, A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark; Best Novella, And What Can We Offer You Tonight by Premee Mohamed; Best Novelette, “O2 Arena” by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki; Best Short Story, “Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather” by Sarah Pinsker; Best Game Writing, Thirsty Sword Lesbians; Ray Bradbury Award, WandaVision: Season 1; the Andre Norton Award to A Snake Falls to Earth by Darcie Little Badger; the Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award to Petra Mayer, Troy L. Wiggins, and Arley Sorg; the Kevin O’Donnell Jr. Service to SFWA Award to Colin Coyle; and the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award to Mercedes Lackey.
The 2022 World Fantasy Awards–presented during a ceremony in New Orleans, Louisiana on November 6, 2022, during the Annual World Fantasy Convention–were: Best Novel, The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri; Best Novella, And What Can We Offer You Tonight by Premee Mohamed; Best Short Fiction “(emet)” by Lauren Ring; Best Collection, Midnight Doorways: Fables from Pakistan by Usman T. Malik; Best Anthology, The Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction (2021) edited by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki; Best Artist, Tran Nguyen; Special Award (Professional), Marjorie Liu & Sana Takeda, for Monstress Volume Six: The Vow; Special Award (Non-Professional), to Tonia Ransom for Nightlight: A Horror Fiction Podcast. Lifetime Achievement Awards to Samuel R. Delany and Terri Windling. This year’s judges were C.S.E. Cooney, Julie Crisp, C.C. Finlay, Richard Kadrey, and Misha Stone.
The 2022 Locus Awards, presented during a virtual ceremony on June 25, 2022, went to: Science Fiction Novel, A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine; Fantasy Novel, Jade Legacy by Fonda Lee; Horror Novel, My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones; Young Adult Novel, Victories Greater Than Death by Charlie Jane Anders; First Novel, A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark; Novella, Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells; Novelette, “That Story Isn’t the Story” by John Wiswell; Short Story, “Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather” by Sarah Pinsker; Anthology, We’re Here: The Best Queer Speculative Fiction 2020, edited by C.L. Clark & Charles Payseur; Collection, Even Greater Mistakes, by Charlie Jane Anders; Magazine, Tor.com; Publisher, Tor Books; Editor, Ellen Datlow; Artist, Charles Vess; Non-Fiction, Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1950–1985, edited by Andrew Nette & Iain McIntyre; Illustrated and Art Book, The Art of Neil Gaiman & Charles Vess’s Stardust, by Charles Vess; Special Award, The Codex Writers’ Group.
The IGNYTE Awards, presented during a virtual ceremony on September 17, 2022, went to: Best Novel, A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark; Best Novel YA, A Snake Falls to Earth by Darcie Little Badger; Best Middle Grade, Root Magic by Eden Royce; Best Novella, And This is How to Stay Alive by Shingai Njeri Kagunda; Best Novelette, “The Future Library” by Peng Shepherd; Best Short Story, “If the Martians Have Magic” by P. Djèlí Clark; Best in Speculative Poetry, “Post Massacre Psyche Evaluation” by Abu Bakr Sadiq; Critics Award, Alex Brown; Best Science Fiction Podcast, khōréō; Best Artist, Morgan Madeline; Best Comics Team, Nubia: Real One, L.L. McKinney & Robyn Smith; Best Anthology/Collected Works, We’re Here: The Best Queer Speculative Fiction 2020, edited by C.L. Clark & Charles Payseur; Best in Creative Non-Fiction, “We Are the Mountain: A Look at the Inactive Protagonist” by Vida Cruz; Ember Award, Tananarive Due; Community Award, The Submission Grinder.
The 2022 Dragon Awards, presented during Dragon Con on September 7, 2022, went to: Best Science Fiction Novel, Leviathan Falls by James S.A. Corey; Best Fantasy Novel, Book of Night by Holly Black; Best Young Adult/Middle Grade Novel, A Dark and Starless Forest by Sarah Hollowell; Best Military Science Fiction or Fantasy Novel, A Call to Insurrection by David Weber, Timothy Zahn, & Thomas Pope; Best Alternate History Novel, The Silver Bullets of Annie Oakley by Mercedes Lackey; Best Media Tie-In Novel, Star Wars: Thrawn Ascendancy: Lesser Evil by Timothy Zahn; Best Horror Novel, The Book of Accidents by Chuck Wendig; Best Comic Book, Immortal X-Men by Kieron Gillen & Mark Brooks; Best Graphic Novel, Dune: House Atreides Volume 2 by Brian Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson, & Dev Pramanik; Best Science Fiction or Fantasy TV Series, Stranger Things; Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Movie, Dune; Best Science Fiction or Fantasy PC/Console Game, Elden Ring; Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Mobile Game, Diablo Immortal; Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Board Game, Star Wars Outer Rim: Unfinished Business; Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Miniatures/Collectible Card / Role-Playing Game, Magic: The Gathering, Dungeons & Dragons: Adventures in the Forgotten Realms.
The 2022 Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for Best Short Science Fiction was won by “Broad Dutty Water: A Sunken Story” by Nalo Hopkinson.
The 2022 Philip K. Dick Memorial Award went to Dead Space by Kali Wallace and a special citation went to The Escapement by Lavie Tidhar.
The 2022 Arthur C. Clarke Award was won by Deep Wheel Orcadia by Harry Josephine Giles.
The 2021 Otherwise Award (previously the James Tiptree, Jr. Memorial Award) was given to Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki and Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon.
The 2022 WSFA Small Press Award went to “Eight Mile and the City” by Steven Harper.
The 2022 Sidewise Award for Alternate History was announced on September 3, 2022, at Chicon 8. Winners were “Gunpowder Treason” by Alan Smale for short form and Civilizations by Laurent Binet, translated by Sam Taylor, for long form.
Among those the field lost in 2022 are:
Mirosław Kowalski, editor, head of Poland’s Supernova sf/fantasy publishing imprint; John Jos. Miller, author and Wild Card series contributor; Willie Siros, NASFIC Chair and Worldcon GoH, ran Adventures in Crime and Space bookstore; Rick Cook, novelist and short story author; Ron Goulart, book reviewer, author of many novels, book reviewer, and Marvel contributor; Dave Wolverton (a.k.a. Dave Farland), Writers of the Future winner, author of the Runelords series, the Ravenspell series, the Serpent Catch series, and books in the Star Wars universe; J. Brian Clarke, novelist and short story author; Holger M. Pohl, author, editor and columnist for the fanzine Fantasyguide; Richard L. Tierney, short story author and poet, co-author of several Red Sonja novels; Ashley Bryan, children’ author and illustrator, winner of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award and the Newbery Honor; Angélica Gorodischer, author and World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award winner; Tom Dupree, author, co-editor of Full Spectrum 5; Barry McGhan, publisher of Science fiction Pseudonyms and Teaching Tomorrow: A Handbook of Science Fiction for Teachers; Eduardo Goligorsky, author, anthologist, and book critic; Don Tumasonis, author and winner of the IHG Short Form Award; Melissa Mead, short story author and novelist; Faren Miller, author and first full-time employee of Locus; Michel Henricot, author, painter, and sculptor; Kira Soshinskaya, illustrator and translator of numerous books into Russian; Jon M. Harvey, editor of Bathlus and Fantasy Media, edited several Cthulhu anthologies, winner of the British Fantasy Award; Shirley Hughes, Kate Greenaway Medal-winning illustrator of numerous children’s books; Peter Caras, cover artist of several horror novels as well as Avengers and The Spider pulp novels; Priscilla Tolkien, youngest and last surviving child of J.R.R. Tolkien, served as the honorary Vice President of the Tolkien Society and as a trustee for the Tolkien Trust; Joe Krush cover artist; Steve Redwood, short story writer and novelist; Bill Johnson, author and winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novelette; Joël Houssin, author and winner of Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire and Prix Apollo; Rafael Llopis, author, anthologist, and translator of works from English into Spanish; Patricia MacLachlan, author and Newbery recipient; Celâl Kandemiroglu, cover artist and designed graphics for several video games; Carlos Emílio Corrêa Lima, author, poet, culture activist, and editor; David McKee, writer and illustrator; Majid Tubya, novelist; Valerio Evangelisti, author, winner of the Imaginaire and Urania Awards; Marshall Arisman, cover artist; Pam Chillemi-Yeager, author and co-editor of Fantasque; Serhiy Dyachenko, author and screenwriter, winner of the Aelita Prize, and named (with his wife) as the Best Writers in Europe at the 2005 Eurocon; Patricia A. McKillip, author of the Riddle Master of Hed trilogy, multiple winner of the World Fantasy Award, World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award recipient; George Perez, artist involved in The Avengers, The New Teen Titans, and Crisis on Infinite Earths, guest of honor at the 2017 NASFIC; Atanas P. Slavov, author, founder of Terra Fantasia, the first SF club in Bulgaria, winner of three Eurocon Awards; Henry Mavrodin, cover artist, Peter Lamborn Wilson (aka Hakim Bey), author and co-editor of an issue of Semiotext[e] SF; Barbara Paul, author and Star Trek novelist; Ken Kelly, artist with frequent covers for DAW; Geoffrey H. Goodwin, author, essayist, and interviewer; Billy Wolfenbarger, poet and author; Dorothy Heydt, author, edited the first Star Trek Concordance and created one of the first Vulcan languages; Tom Chmielewski, novelist and treasurer for the Clarion Foundation; Ni Kuang, wrote the screenplay for Fists of Fury and also wrote several wuxia novels; Alan Kubatiyev, author, Russian translator of H.G. Wells, Michael Moorcock, and Ursula Le Guin; Vincent Michael Simbulan, author and anthologist; Barbara Delaplace, author, winner of the HOMer Award, Campbell nominee; Herbert W. Franke, theoretical physicist, author, and computer artist, Worldcon Guest of Honor; Eric Flint, author, editor, publisher, well-known for his 1632 series and contributions in working with new authors, NASFIC Guest of Honor; Valjeanne Jeffers, author, editor of Genesis Science Fiction Magazine; Michael Ambrose, author, edited The Argonaut and Macabre; publisher of Argo Press; David Ireland, author and artist; Dennis Nolan (a.k.a. Jane Mitchell), cover artist for several books by Orson Scott Card, Jane Yolen, Susan Shwartz, and Andre Norton; Albert E. Cowdrey, author and World Fantasy Award winner; Alexei Panshin, author, Nebula and Hugo Award winner; Celia Correas de Zapata, leading scholar of Latin American women authors, edited the anthology Short Stories by Latin American Women: The Magic and the Real; Philip Mann, author and winner of the Vogel Award for services to science fiction, fantasy, and horror; Peter Straub, author, World Horror Grandmaster, IHG Living Legend, and recipient of Lifetime Achievement Awards from World Fantasy and the Stokers; Maureen K. Speller, reviewer, editor, librarian, winner of the Nova Award for Best Fan Writer; Charles Partington, author, editor of Alien Worlds and Something Else, publisher of several issues of New Worlds, co-founder of Savoy Books; Chandler “Chan” Davis, author, Worldcon Fan Guest of Honor; Bob A. Madle, believed to have been the last surviving member of the first Worldcon and the first US SF convention, Worldcon Fan Guest of Honor, TAFF delegate, Hugo finalist, co-founder of PSFS, the Carolina SF Society, and First Fandom, Big Heart Award recipient, First Fandom Hall of Fame inductee, winner of the Sam Moskowitz Archive Award; Feliks W. Kres, author, editor of multiple magazines aimed at young writers; Tom Maddox, author, teacher, and co-wrote two episodes of The X-Files with William Gibson; Ned Dameron, artist, worked for Donald M. Grant, Underwood-Miller, and TSR; Andrey Marytanov, author of several novels, including Conan pastiches, under the pseudonym Olaf Bjorn Loknit; Rico Gehrke, author and finalist for Kurd Laßwitz Preis; Henry Morrison, agent whose clients included Roger Zelazny, Samuel R. Delany, Patricia Keneally-Morrison, Dean Koontz, and Eric Van Lustbader; David Sherman, author, co-author of the Starfist series; Anne Harris, author, winner of the first Spectrum Award, Nebula Award finalist; Greg Bear, author, winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards, former SFWA President, Worldcon Guest of Honor, helped found what became the San Diego Comic-Con International; Ray Nelson, author and Philip K. Dick collaborator, recipient of the Rotsler Award, First Fandom Hall of Fame inductee; Richard Bober, artist for numerous covers beginning in the 1970s, including several Gene Wolfe novels; Peter Goodfellow, artist that provided covers for Philip K. Dick, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, and Olaf Stapledon; Kim Mohan, author, editor for gaming magazines Ares and Dragon, editor at Amazing Stories, anthologist.
It’s important to me to end these introductions on a positive note, particularly after noting just how much talent the field has lost over the last year. I can think of no better way than to look to the future and the people who are just beginning to find their place in our community. They are a continually renewing source of inspiration and hope for the future and we find so many of them within the borders of short fiction.
Each year, I try to single out a new, or new-ish, author that has impressed me. As always, there’s no shortage of people to choose from. The short list forms rather quickly, but narrowing it down to one can be harder some years than others. After some deliberation, I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s no one better to represent the current group than Isabel J. Kim.
Since publishing her first story, “Homecoming is Just Another Word for the Sublimation of the Self” in Clarkesworld in 2021, nine more have appeared in the pages of Clarkesworld, khōréō, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Cast of Wonders, Lightspeed, Fantasy, and Strange Horizons. They’ve demonstrated an impressive range and have been recognized with a 2021 Subjective Chaos Kind of Award, a 2021 Shirley Jackson Award, several finalist placements (and a win) in the Clarkesworld Readers’ Poll, multiple appearances on the Locus Recommended Reading list, and reprints in year’s best anthologies. That’s an impressive run for such a short window of time and is a fantastic start to any career.
She has one story in this anthology and another on the recommended reading list. Choosing which one to reprint was a challenge. Seek out her other works when you're done with this anthology. You won’t be disappointed.