Here we are in the fifth volume of the Long List Anthology: More Stories From the Hugo Award Nomination List—that's a half decade of anthologies, and close to a million words of fiction! There are some authors in here that you'll recognize from previous volumes, and some authors that are new to the series.
This year's cover art is “Poisson D'Arte” by Amanda Makepeace, who you may recognize from the cover art for Volume Three and Volume Four. I am very glad to work with her! For these anthologies the artist has very free reign to propose and work up their own design from scratch, and it's so much fun to see how the art turns out.
If you don't follow the Hugo Awards, I suggest that you do—anyone can nominate and vote if you pay for a Supporting Membership to that year's WorldCon. One of the perks of the Supporting Membership is that you get the Hugo Packet, downloadable copies of many of the works on the final ballot. After the Hugo Award ceremony, they also publish a longer list of nominated works, which is the basis of this anthology.
I sincerely hope you enjoy these stories as much as I have!
—David Steffen, December 2019—