Every year I end up spending a lot of time thinking and writing about the best science fiction and fantasy of the year. I started doing it for fun back in the 1980s and ended up doing it professionally starting back in the 1990s. I suppose it’s somewhere between insider pool and “Hey, read this!”

Basically, i spend a month talking to people about this. From early December through to early January I pour over year end lists, seasonal gift lists, emails from experts, notes from friends, and so many, many more people and lists emerge. I play a part in the main Locus Recommended Reading List and I help compile the Locus Short Fiction Recommended Reading List, and I compile my own table of contents for my best of the year.

This is work, but it’s also fun. And there’s always something overlooked. So every day for the next month I’m going to both you on Facebook and Twitter, and post stuff on my blog too. I want YOUR favorites of 2014. There are only two rules:

1. the book or story must have been published for the first time in English in 2014, and
2. you must LOVE it.

I want you to copy this and retweet it. I want you to tell friends. I’m going to try to respond to everyone and to look at new stuff as much as I can. And it will likely change what I recommend and what I think was the best of the year.

You can recommended anything to me, but I especially want:

• your favorite novels of the year
• your favorite short story collections of the year
• your favorite anthologies of the year
• your favorite short story of the year

Please recommended away! The hash tag is #BestSFF2014. Get involved! Tweet! Retweet!

Next week I climb aboard a Qatar Airways jet for the first time and head to Washington DC (via sunny Doha) where I will be attending the 2014 World Fantasy Convention.

I fully expect there to be talking, drinking, more talking, and lots of time spent with friends both old and new across the four days of the event (along with a little business).

I hadn’t thought I’d be doing anything official or in-person this trip. Instead, it was supposed to be a quiet, informal time. That hasn’t quite worked out. While I won’t be doing any signings or panels, I will be recording several episodes of The Coode Street Podcast (with Gary K. Wolfe).

At the moment we have plans to record episodes with convention Guest of Honor Guy Gavriel Kay,  long-time friends and collaborators Jack Dann & Gardner Dozois, writers Helen Marshall and Robert Shearman, and possibly others (depending on time).

Exciting, for me at least, is that Gary and I will also record only the second ever episode of the Podcast to be presented in front of a live audience (having recorded #200 in London in August). We’ll be joined by good friends Peter Straub and Caitlin R. Kiernan for this:

The Literary Uses of Fantasy
Time: 4pm-5pm, Nov. 8, Conference Theater

Panelists: Jonathan Strahan, Gary K. Wolfe, Peter Straub, Caitlin R. Kiernan

Description: The Coode Street Podcast discusses the literary uses of fantasy with Peter Straub and other special guests.  Why do writers clearly capable of realistic, character-driven stories choose to introduce fantastic elements, some of them extreme, into their stories?  What does the fantasy enable them to do that the more realistic narrative doesn’t?

Please consider joining us for what should be a lot of fun.   I also hope to announce some ‘official’ times Gary and I will be in the convention bar if you just want to stop by and say hi.