Awards season is once again  moving into full swing, with nominations now open for the Nebula Awards, Hugo Awards and World Fantasy Awards.

Having been fairly busy during 2015, I’ve been fortunate enough to help publish a number of what I think are really excellent works of fiction that I think are worthy of your consideration. It was a year when I edited or co-edited new novellas for Tor.com, a collection of Jack Vance fiction (Grand Crusades, the final book in the series of Vance reprints), two anthologies (see below),  appeared on and produced than 48 episodes of The Coode Street Podcast episodes, and acted as reviews editor for Locus.

The anthologies, of which I’m very proud, are:

Meeting Infinity (Solaris)
The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Nine (Solaris)
As a guide, fiction in Reach for Infinity is science fiction, in Fearsome Magics is fantasy/dark fantasy, and in Subterranean Magazine is mixed.

Fiction edited in 2015

Short story

• Memento Mori, Madeline Ashby (Meeting Infinity)
• Aspects, Gregory Benford (Meeting Infinity)
• Rates of Change, James S.A. Corey (Meeting Infinity)
• In Blue Lily’s Wake, Aliette de Bodard (Meeting Infinity)
• Body Politic, Kameron Hurley (Meeting Infinity)
• Drones, Simon Ings (Meeting Infinity)
• Emergence, Gwyneth Jones (Meeting Infinity)
• Cocoons, Nancy Kress (Meeting Infinity)
• The Cold Inequalities, Yoon Ha Lee (Meeting Infinity)
• The Falls, Ian McDonald (Meeting Infinity)
• Exile from Extinction, Ramez Naam (Meeting Infinity)
• Outsider, An Owomoyela (Meeting Infinity)
• Desert Lexicon, Benjanun Sriduangkaew (Meeting Infinity)
• Pictures from the Resurrection, Bruce Sterling (Meeting Infinity)
• All the Wrong Places, Sean Williams (Meeting Infinity)

Novelette

• My Last Bringback, John Barnes (Meeting Infinity)

Novella

• The Last Witness, K.J. Parker (Tor.com)

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

• Jonathan Strahan (Meeting Infinity, The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Nine, Locus [reviews editor], Grand Crusades)

Best Fancast

• The Coode Street Podcast [Episodes 215 – 261] [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 Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year anthology series for Solaris Books. The tenth volume in the series will be published in May 2016, and the eleventh will appear in May 2017.

I am currently reading for the 2016 volume, and am looking for stories from all branches of science fiction and fantasy: space opera to cyberpunk, fairy tales to the slipstream, or anything else that might qualify. If in doubt, please send it.

Eligibility

This is a reprint anthology. Stories must have been published between 1 January and 31 December 2016 to be considered.

Deadline

The submission deadline for this year’s book is:

 1 November 2016

Anything sent after this deadline will reach me too late. If a magazine, anthology, or collection you are in or you edit is coming out before 31 December 2016 please send galleys or manuscripts so that I can consider the stories in time.

Publication date

The eleventh volume of the series is tentatively scheduled for publication in May 2017.

Format

Where possible, I prefer to receive book-length works in print, but this is optional.  Books, stories etc can be sent to me via email. I prefer ePub, .mobi, .rtf or .doc files. PDFs are acceptable but not preferred. 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 “Best SF/F of the Year” 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 during 2016.
• 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.
• If I am considering your story for inclusion in  The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, I will be acquiring non-exclusive World anthology rights in English and foreign languages in print, audio and ebook.

I think this is as late as I’ve ever done this, but here we go! I have the all-clear, so without further ado, here’s the table of contents (in alpha order) for The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Vol 10.

As I said last year, while there are one or two stories that got away, and while if I had a smidgeon more room I might have opted for a novella in one spot, I’m basically very happy with this list.

1. “City of Ash”, Paolo Bacigalupi
2. “The Heart’s Filthy Lesson”, Elizabeth Bear
3. “The Machine Starts”, Greg Bear
4. “The Winter Wraith”, Jeffrey Ford
5. “Black Dog”, Neil Gaiman
6. “Jamaica Ginger”, Nalo Hopkinson & Nisi Shawl
7. “Drones”, Simon Ings
8. “Emergence”, Gwyneth Jones
9. “Dancy vs. the Pterosaur”, Caitlin R. Kiernan
10. “Another Word for World”, Anne Leckie
11. “The Game of Smash and Recovery”, Kelly Link
12. “The Pauper Prince and the Eucalyptus Jinn”, Usman T. Mailk
13. “Botanica Veneris: Thirteen Papercuts by Ida Countess Rathangan”, Ian McDonald
14. “Little Sisters”, Vonda McIntyre
15. “Calved”, Sam J. Miller
16. “Ghosts of Home”, Sam J. Miller
17. “The Deepwater Bride”, Tamsyn Muir
18. “The Empress in Her Glory”, Robert Reed
19. “A Murmuration”, Alastair Reynolds
20. “Oral Argument”, Kim Stanley Robinson
21. “Water of Versailles”, Kelly Robson
22. “Capitalism in the 22nd Century”, Geoff Ryman
23. “The Karen Joy Fowler Book Club”, Nike Sulway
24. “The Lily and the Horn”, Catherynne Valente
25. “Blood, Ash, Braids”, Genevieve Valentine
26. “Kaiju maximus®: ‘So Various, So Beautiful, So New’”, Kai Ashante Wilson
27. “Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers”, Alyssa Wong

The striking cover art, inspired by an Ian McDonald story, is by Domenic Harman.  The book is available to pre-order in all of the usual places, so please do!

Finally, I am hard at work on finishing the manuscript for the book, but I can announce I’m reading for the 2017 volume.

The Coode Street Podcast (www.coodestreetpodcast.com) is co-hosted by Jonathan Strahan and Gary K. Wolfe and is produced by Coode Street Productions. The podcast debuted in May 2010 and has released 261 episodes up to 31 December 2015. Each episode features interviews and discussion about science fiction and fantasy, often with major figures in the science fiction field. Episodes are published weekly, with a hiatus over the Christmas period. The podcast has been nominated for the Hugo Award (three times), the British Science Fiction Award, and the Ditmar Award (four times).

Listenership for the Coode Street Podcast grew for the fifth consecutive year in 2015, with a total of 48 full-length episodes and three mini-episodes published during the year, up from 42 full-length episodes in 2013 and 2014. The listenership for the podcast increased by 52.1% over the previous year, with a total of 133,501 downloads (episode plays) during the year. Average listenership for individual episodes increased by 33.1% (from 2081 in 2014 to 2781) in 2015. This can be considered to be the average size of the listening audience. Interest in the podcast also increased, with feed hits growing by 44% to 1,148,322 across the year.

Guests that appeared on the podcast during 2015 included Adam Roberts, Aliette de Bodard, Alisa Krasnostein, Bill Schafer, Cecelia Holland, Charlie Jane Anders, Cheryl Morgan, Chris Brown, Deborah Biancotti, Eileen Gunn, Elizabeth Hand, Gene Wolfe, Guy Gavriel Kay, Harlan Ellison, Ian McDonald, Ian Mond, James Bradley, James Morrow, Jim Minz, Joe Abercrombie, Joe Monti, John Clute, John Scalzi, Karin Tidbeck, Kelly Link, Ken Liu, Kim Stanley Robinson, KJ Parker, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Linda Nagata, Liza Trombi, Margo Lanagan, Michael Swanwick, Nina Allan, Nisi Shawl, Pamela Sargent, Paolo Bacigalupi, Paul Kincaid, Samuel R Delany, Scott Westerfeld, Sean Williams, Sean Wright, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Suzy McKee Charnas, Tehani Wessely, William Gibson, and Zen Cho.

Highlights for the year included trialling syndicating the podcast with Tor.com. Episodes were published on the Sunday of each week on Coode Street, and then republished on Tor.com on Tuesdays. This trial ran from February to November, concluding with Episode 256. Listenership for the podcast via Tor.com is not included in the statistics in this summary, and the Coode Street Podcast will not be offered via Tor.com in 2016. We would like to thank Tor.com and Irene Gallo for partnering with us during the year and hope we can find other opportunities to work together in future.

During the year we presented the first ever interview with World Fantasy Award winning writer K.J. Parker, and helped reveal Parker as a pseudonym for British writer Tom Holt. The episode was published April 21, 2015. Other highlights included talking to Ian McDonald about Luna, William Gibson about The Peripheral, Samuel R. Delany, Harlan Ellson and Kim Stanley Robinson. We also regularly featured Locus editor Liza Trombi on the podcast, discussing forthcoming books.

The most popular episodes of the year were:

1. Episode 245: Ian McDonald and Luna (3,333)
2. Episode 246: Aliette de Bodard and The House of Shattered Wings (2,756)
3. Episode 230: K J Parker and the history of a writer (2,672)
4. Episode 253: SF Lectures, The Martian and more (2,637)
5. Episode 238: Kim Stanley Robinson and Aurora (2,634)
6. Episode 242: Time runs out for the Hugos and more (2,619)
7. Episode 207: Kameron Hurley (2,508)
8. Episode 236: On books to look for… (2,398)
9. Episode 250: Forthcoming books with Liza Trombi (2,388)
10. Episode 231: Ian Mond, James Bradley and the 2015 Hugo Novel Shortlist (2,298)

The Coode Street Podcast will resume in January 2016.