My Year in Books and Stuff – 2019

What a long, strange year it’s been. Lots and lots of work, for which I’m deeply grateful. And, with the new year not far away, it seems like the right time to update you on everything I’ve had out this year.

It was a year when I edited three new anthologies, a single-author collection, four novellas for Tor.com Publishing (with a handful more in train), six stories for Tor.com, appeared on and produced 23 episodes of The Coode Street Podcast episodes, acted as reviews editor for Locus for the 17th consecutive year, and I was lucky enough to be a tutor at Clarion West in July!

My sincere thanks to everyone at Tor.com, Solaris, Gollancz, and Locus, and to Gary Wolfe, my patient podcast co-host.

Fiction edited in 2019

Anthologies

As a guide, fiction in Mission: Critical is science fiction, and probably most relevant for the Hugo and Nebulas.  The novellas range from hard science fiction to weird  fantasy.

Novellas

Novelette

  • By the Warmth of Their Calculus, Tobias S. Buckell (Mission Critical)
  • Rescue Party, Aliette de Bodard (Mission Critical)
  • This is Not the Way Home, Greg Egan  (Mission Critical)
  • Zeitgeber, Greg Egan (Tor.com, 9/25/19)
  • Genesong, Peter F. Hamilton (Mission Critical)
  • Something in the Air, Carolyn Ives Gilman (Mission Critical)
  • Dislocation Space, Garth Nix (Tor.com, 12/11/19)

Short story

  • The One Who Was There, John Barnes (Mission Critical)
  • Hanging Gardens, Gregory Feeley (Mission Critical)
  • Mutata Superesse, Jason Fischer and Sean Williams (Mission Critical)
  • The Empty Gun, Yoon Ha Lee (Mission Critical)
  • Lost in Splendour, John Meaney (Mission Critical)
  • Devil in the Dust, Linda Nagata (Mission Critical)
  • More Real than Him, Silvia Park (Tor.com, 8/5/19)
  • The Agreement, Dominica Phettaplace (Mission Critical)
  • Ice Breakers, Kristine Kathryn Rusch (Mission Critical)
  • Blood is Another Word for Hunger, Rivers Solomon (Tor.com, 7/24/19)
  • The Fires of Prometheus, Allen M. Steele (Mission Critical)
  • In Xanadu, Lavie Tidhar (Tor.com, 11/6/19)
  • Cyclopterus, Peter Watts (Mission Critical)
  • The Time Invariance of Snow, E. Lily Yu (Tor.com, 14/4/19)

Editor, Short-Form (Hugos)/Professional Achievement (WFA)

  • Jonathan Strahan (Mission Critical, The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Thirteen, Tor.com Publishing Editorial Spotlight #5, The Best of R.A. Lafferty, Permafrost, Perihelion Summer, The Gurhka and the Lord of Tuesday, The Menace from Farsi, Tor.com stories, Locus [reviews editor]

Best Fancast/Podcast

I hope you’ll consider supporting the talented people that I’ve worked with during the year.

Awards Eligibility – 2018

It’s a new year and the various awards will soon be open for nominations and so on.  There is a lot of wonderful fiction out there and, having been fairly busy during 2018, I’ve been lucky enough to help what I think are some really excellent works of fiction that I think are worthy of your consideration.

It was a year when I edited two new anthologies, three novellas for Tor.com Publishing (and a bunch more in train), five stories for Tor.com, appeared on and produced 21 episodes of The Coode Street Podcast episodes, and acted as reviews editor for Locus for the 16th consecutive year.

Fiction edited in 2018

Anthologies

As a guide, fiction in Infinity’s End is science fiction, and probably most relevant for the Hugo and Nebualas.  The novellas range from hard science fiction to weird  fantasy.

Novellas

  • Time Was, Ian McDonald, Tor.com Publishing, April 2018
  • Black Helicopters, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Tor.com Publishing, May 2018
  • The Million, Karl Schroeder, Tor.com Publishing, August 2018

Novelette

Short story

  • “Last Small Step”, Stephen Baxter (Infinity’s End)
  • “Prophet of the Roads”, Naomi Kritzer (Infinity’s End)
  • “Black Friday”, Alex Irvine (Tor.com, 13/5/18)
  • “Swear Not by the Moon”, Seanan McGuire (Infinity’s End)
  • “Longing for Earth”, Linda Nagata (Infinity’s End)
  • “A Portrait of Salai”, Hannu Rajaniemi (Infinity’s End)
  • “Talking to Ghosts at the Edge of the World”, Lavie Tidhar (Infinity’s End)
  • “Yiwu”, Lavie Tidhar (Tor.com, 23/5/18)
  • “Kindred”, Peter Watts (Infinity’s End)
  • “The Synchronist”, Fran Wilde (Infinity’s End)

Editor, Short-Form (Hugos)/Professional Achievement (WFA)

  • Jonathan Strahan (Infinity’s End, The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Twelve, Black Helicopters, Time Was, The Million, Tor.com stories, Locus [reviews editor]

Best Fancast/Podcast

I hope you’ll consider supporting the talented people that I’ve worked with during the year.

One things ends, another begins…

The first volume of The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year appeared way back in 2007. There’d been talk about it coming out the year before, so I’ve probably been working on the series consistently for the thirteen years or more it’s taken to get to the volume that will be out this April from Solaris.

During that time I’ve worked with multiple editors, two publishers (four if you look back), an editing partner (Marty Greenberg), and hundreds of fabulous, talented writers. I’m grateful to each of them for every minute of it. But volume thirteen is the end of the road for the series. It’s done. Complete. I thought it would go on forever, but that’s not to be.

The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year will finish this April, meaning that for the first time since 2006 I don’t have a commitment to edit a series of books. Infinity wound up in July and now the best of the year. So it goes…or so it appears.

Actually, I’m not done. I can’t tell you what’s happening – I wish I could, but I want the ink dry on the contract before I do – but I will be editing a new year’s best series for 2020. It’s a change of theme for the year’s best and a move from the UK to New York for the publisher, and I’m actually delighted with this. It’s pretty huge. My editor is fabulous (in fairness, all of my editors have been), the publishing house is an exciting one, and I think the revamped series will be exciting to work on.

So, on to 2019. I’ll issue a call for stories as soon as I can, but for the moment, publishers please keep sending me work. The Year’s Best goes on…!

Episode 341: 2018 Year in Review

The Coode Street Book of the Year

After another long hiatus, Jonathan and Gary return with a ramble saying farewell to 2018 (actually recorded when it was still 2018 in Chicago and already 2019 in Perth).

This time we look back on some of our favourite novels, novellas, collections, anthologies, and nonfiction from the past year, agreeing enthusiastically about Sam J. Miller’s Blackfish City, Kelly Robson’s Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach, Gardner Dozois’s The Book of Magic, Alec Nevala-Lee’s Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction (diverting into a side discussion of whether “golden ages” actually mean anything), and several other books and stories which one or both of us liked. We also name Blackfish City as our official Coode Street Book of Year!

Did we draw any insightful conclusions about the overall health of the field last year, or what the field seems to be becoming? Of course not, but we have our opinions, and we had some fun. And who knows? We should be back sooner than you’d think.