It’s New Year’s Eve and as a complete social failure, I’m stretching a several years-long streak of doing nothing on NYE by another year. Instead, this year I’ll drive the 18-year-old to a friend’s party, come home, and then see the new year in quietly with Marianne and Jess. I expect to do some kind of year in review blog and even to do some book stuff, but since no-one reads this thing anymore who even knows? I’ve been blogging since May 2002 and I’m not entirely sure why.

Today, so far has been a wasted say. Some 2020 reading is sitting on the coffee table, silently rebuking me for paying it so little attention, there’s stuff to do for work, and I’m not really listening to music because of my hearing these days. Fun times.

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

• Mission: Critical, (Solaris Books)
• The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume 13, (Solaris)
• Tor.com Publishing Editorial Spotlight #5  (Tor.com Publishing)

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

• Permafrost, Alastair Reynolds (Tor.com)
• Perihelion Summer, Greg Egan (Tor.com)
• The Gurhka and the Lord of Tuesday, Saad Z. Hossein (Tor.com)
• The Menace from Farside, Ian McDonald (Tor.com)

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

• The Coode Street Podcast [Episodes 341 – 361] [co-hosted with Gary K. Wolfe.]

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

I edit the Year’s Best Science Fiction anthology series for Saga Press. The first volume in the series will be published in mid-2020, and the second will appear in mid-2021.

I am currently reading for the 2020 volume and am looking for stories from all branches of science fiction — space opera to cyberpunk and beyond (pretty much, if you think it’s science fiction it is) — that were published anywhere in the world during 2019. Stories published in translation are eligible provided they appeared in English for the first time during 2019. If in doubt, please send your work.

Eligibility

This is a reprint anthology. Stories must have been published for the first time in English* between 1 January and 31 December 2019.

Deadline

The submission deadline for this year’s book is:

1 November 2019

Anything sent after this deadline will reach me too late. If a magazine, anthology, or collection you are in or that you edit is coming out before 31 December 2019 please send galleys or manuscripts so that I can consider the stories in time.

Publication date

The first volume of the series is scheduled for publication in mid-2020.

Format

Where possible, I prefer to receive book-length works in print (especially anthologies).  Books, stories etc can be sent to me via email. I prefer ePub, .mobi, .rtf or .doc files. PDFs are not accepted. I strongly suggest that authors check with their publishers that they are sending review copies out to me, as I don’t have the resources to follow-up every publisher to get material.

Postal address

When sending material please put “Year’s Best Science Fiction” on the envelope.

Jonathan Strahan
P.O. Box 544
Mt Lawley, WA 6929
Australia

Email submissions, recommendations, or information on publications can be sent to me via email at:

jonathan.strahan (at) gmail (dot) com

For publishers

I am eager to consider work you are publishing. If you produce a magazine, chapbook, collection or anthology with any original stories in it please let me know. I am happy to accept email submissions. The most important thing is to make sure that I get to consider the best science fiction and fantasy published in 2019.

If you are publishing online please email copies of stories to jonathan.strahan (at) gmail (dot) com as early as possible. This is particularly important for stories published between October and December which may otherwise be overlooked.

For writers

I do not need to receive manuscripts from authors of stories from venues that it’s likely I already receive regularly (I get Analog, Asimov’s, F&SF, Interzone, Black Static, Postscripts etc, but not many of the smaller ‘zines and publications).

Please do not send an SASE. This is not a submission, and I’m unable to return manuscripts or respond directly to stories sent to me.

Rights

If I am considering your story for inclusion in Year’s Best Science Fiction, I will be acquiring non-exclusive World anthology rights in English and foreign languages in print, audio and ebook.

News and information

I will be published an overview of science fiction in 2019 as an introduction to the volume. Please send news and information to jonathan.strahan (at) Gmail (dot) com.

I’m trying to encourage people who can afford to (and I mean afford!) to consider buying their short fiction and nonfiction when and where they can. Every outlet needs your support.

To help with this I’m going to put together a list of subscription options. The list below is just a beginning. Please pop additions/corrections in the comments and I’ll update the list. This is just a first pass, but every one of these publications offers great stuff you’re likely to enjoy!

• Analog Science Fiction and Fact (Trevor Quachri, ed.)
• Apex Magazine (Jason Sizemore ed.)
• Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine (Sheila Williams ed.)
• Beneath Ceaseless Skies (Scott H. Andrews ed.)
• Clarkesworld Magazine (Neil Clarke ed.)
• Fireside Quarterly (Pablo Defendi ed.)
• Fiyah Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction (Troy L. Wiggins & DaVaun Sanders eds.)
• Interzone (Andy Cox ed.)
• Lightspeed Magazine (John Joseph Adams ed.)
• Locus (Liza Trombi ed.)
• The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (Charles Coleman Finlay ed.)
• Uncanny Magazine (Lynne Thomas & Michael Damien Thomas eds.)