The Best Science Fiction of the Year Volume 5

Editor

INTRODUCTION:

The State of the Short SF Field in 2019

Neil Clarke

Last year, I altered the format of my introductions to incorporate some of the industry news and information that Gardner Dozois used to include in his annual year-in-review and merged it with my own. It was refreshing to hear that it was appreciated and it’s an honor to continue this tradition again this year.

The Business Side of Things

If we’re going to look at the big picture for science fiction magazines, we have to acknowledge that the last ten years have probably resulted in the most dramatic changes in their history. It’s in this window that we see the rise of a new generation of magazines, largely online, and the mass adoption of digital publishing. Through these changes, the financial threshold to start a magazine dropped considerably and new opportunities were created. This is very much paralleled by the rise of self-publishing and its impact on the broader field.

The big three magazines that existed prior to that change are Analog Science Fiction and Fact (analogsf.com), Asimov’s Science Fiction (asimovs.com), and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (sfsite.com/fsf). These are often referred to as the print digests, but calling them that is more of a reflection of history. In reality, they also have significant digital circulation which can sometimes outnumber their print readership. Similarly, the magazines that evolved in the digital space are often referred to as online magazines despite the fact that many have expanded into print, audio, and/ or ebooks. Following what the readers want, both groups have grown to be more alike.

Of course, there’s one major difference remaining: those that evolved from digital roots have a free online edition and the others don’t. This is not without consequences. The easy availability of free online fiction gives it an upper hand in visibility and helped in growing the audience for short fiction. This effect can also be dominoed when you consider the increased ease of pass-along—finding a story you love and sharing it with a friend—and the impact it has on the circulation longevity of a story. This advantage can effectively drown out equally excellent stories published in anthologies, collections, and magazines that don’t have an online edition. Judging by the assortment of best of the year anthologies like this one, quality at those once award-dominating publications has not dropped and still accounts for a significant percentage of the best stories, yet there haven’t been any finalists from any of those magazines in Hugo Award for Best Short Story category since their last appearance in 2012. It’s no surprise that readers less connected to short fiction have interpreted that the wrong way.

The other major consequence of free online fiction is on revenue and this is likely why you won’t see the big three make any efforts to adopt the practice. The majority of online markets sell digital subscriptions or offer other methods of support (donations, Patreon, Kickstarter, etc.), but while their total readership is considerably higher, paid readership is far lower than 10% of that number. (Tor.com is a notable exception. Owned by Tor Books, one of the leading genre publishers, their online edition is considered a marketing expense.) While the big three and most online markets pay their authors at the SFWA qualifying rate or better, the lower paid subscription rates result in the online markets paying their editors and staff considerably less, if anything. At a time in which we see a greater diversity of short fiction markets, this often hidden problem is significant and impacts the overall health and sustainability of the field.

To give you some sense of the scope of this problem, I picked three that have received award nominations for their fiction in the last five years and offer subscriptions: Clarkesworld (clarkesworldmagazine.com), Lightspeed (lightspeedmagazine.com), and Uncanny (uncannymagazine.com). Data they’ve reported to Locus Magazine (locusmag.com) reveals that in the last five years, online readership at Clarkesworld increased from 38,000 to 43,000, gaining 5,000; Lightspeed increased from 25,900 to 28,500, gaining 2,600; and Uncanny (a new magazine at the time) increased from 10,000 to 30,600, gaining 20,600. Subscriptions at Clarkesworld increased from 3,000 to 3,850, gaining 850; Lightspeed decreased from 2200 to 2150, losing 50; and Uncanny increased from 1,200 to 2,000, gaining 800. (Note: Uncanny holds an annual Kickstarter campaign, so their revenue is supplemented by that.) Each of these publications also has a podcast edition, which is not reflected in these numbers, but can increase their audience size by a significant amount. In the five year period, for example, Clarkesworld saw its podcast audience grow from 10,000 to 15,000. Escape Pod (escapepod.org), one of the oldest SF podcasts, had an audience of approximately 37,000 in 2019.

It’s interesting to note that it’s often the digests are actually the ones mentioned when readers are concerned about financial stability. Adding to the illusion of troubled times for the print digests comes from the paid circulation data that Locus Magazine and Gardner Dozois tracked and published over the years. Much of this data was made available via the Statement of Ownership print periodicals are required to publish each year. Other circulation details were provided by editors.

These subscription and newsstand numbers are often quoted with little insight into what it actually means to the field. Many have chosen to see this as an opportunity to declare the death of print or even short fiction. On the other hand, we have some people who, on looking at the wide array of markets, proclaim that we’re in a new golden age for short fiction. Both are guilty of looking at only a part of the picture.

Over the last five years, Analog has dropped from 14,316 print subscriptions to 10,372, a loss of 3,944; Asimov’s has dropped from 9,479 to 6,689, a loss of 2,790; and F&SF has dropped from 7,576 to 5,363, a loss of 2,213. That may seem disastrous, but it appears it’s actually symptomatic of a change in reading habits. In the same time period, Analog has risen from 6,040 digital subscriptions to 8,914, a gain of 2,874 and Asimov’s has risen from 7,573 to 10,584, a gain of 3,011. Unfortunately, F&SF does not report its digital subscription figures. These magazines also receive additional income from single issue newsstand sales and on average, this adds between two and three thousand print copies per month.

The total paid subscription numbers may be down for some in this window (Asimov’s shows a slight gain), but the income generated by the different formats is not equal. Annual US subscriptions to Analog and Asimov’s are $34.97 print and $35.88 digital. F&SF subscriptions are $39.97 print and $36.97 digital. While the prices for digital and print subscriptions are relatively similar, print subscriptions cost the publisher more due to printing and shipping, ultimately making the digital edition more profitable. The upwards trend in digital subscriptions should offset the declining print subscriptions and with increasing printing and postal costs eating into profits, this development is better for the long-term health of these publications.

Across the field, $1.99 or $2.99/month have become a standard price for subscriptions. This should be considered a bargain, or almost criminal at this point. The price point has remained largely unchanged over the years while books and other genre content have steadily increased. This stagnation, along with the slow growth in paying readers is becoming a more significant problem for the field. A simple increase of $1, to $2.99 and $3.99/month, would pump much needed resources back into the magazines and it wouldn’t surprise me to see this happen within the next few years.

Now is the time to seek out your favorite magazines and subscribe or renew for another year. If you don’t have one, I hope you’ll use the stories in this book as a guide. Look to the Permissions section to find out where your favorites were published and check them out.

Magazine Comings and Goings

The year started with the announcement that The Verge (theverge.com), a tech news website, would be launching Better Worlds, a series of ten original fiction stories, five animated adaptations, and five audio adaptations by a diverse roster of science fiction authors who take a more optimistic view of what lies ahead in ways both large and small, fantastical and everyday. The stories were published in January and February and included works by authors such as John Scalzi, Cadwell Turnbull, Kelly Robson, Karin Lowachee, Justina Ireland, and others.

It was a bit of a wild year for Compelling Science Fiction (compellingsciencefiction.com). In March, publisher and editor Joe Stetch announced that they were abandoning their free online edition and adopting a for-purchase-only business model. Stech cited the need to stabilize revenue after years of funding portions out of his own pocket. By September, things had changed again, announcing that he would be closing Compelling Science Fiction and that their December issue would be the last. The reason for halting publication is one of time. With my actual (paid) work, a baby to take care of, and some writing projects of my own, I can’t prioritize reading through the 500+ stories/month I receive when submissions are open (we have volunteers to help, but I’m still responsible for over 90% of submissions). I also haven’t been able to find the additional readership required to make the magazine financially viable without me. The story still manages to end on a happier note. In early January 2020, Stech announced that Compelling would return with him as editor and Flame Tree Press taking over as publisher.

The doors did close, however, at Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show (intergalacticmedicineshow.com). IGMS ceased publishing in June 2019 and later removed their paywall so their entire back catalog of stories would be available for free online. No reason was provided for the closure. IGMS was established in 2005 and was the longest-living and last of the paywall online magazines.

A similar situation occurred at Apex Magazine (apex-magazine.com), but instead of closing, editor Jason Sizemore announced that he was putting the magazine on indefinite hiatus after issue 120, with an Afrofuturism issue guest edited by Maurice Broaddus. It comes down to health and economics and family, he explained as he described recent medical issues and a desire to focus more time on his small press, Apex Books. Lesley Conner and I have not turned our backs on genre short fiction. We plan to do an open call anthology each year that will contain nearly as many words of short fiction as a whole year’s worth of zines. This isn’t the first time Apex has closed its door and I would not be surprised to see it return soon.

Continuing the trend, Richard Flores announced in December that he was closing Factor Four Magazine (factorfourmag.com) after six issues spanning a period of roughly one year. Their final issue was in July. Factor Four focused on stories under 1500 words.

Also in December, Future Science Fiction Digest (future-sf.com) editor Alex Svartsman announced that their sponsorship from the Future Affairs Administration had come to an end. Together we were able to publish a considerable amount of excellent international fiction, and we thank FAA for their help and support as the magazine launched and found its footing. While FAA is still considering their options regarding any future partnerships with us, at this moment they’re not affiliated with the magazine. Fortunately, Future SF has no plans to close, but the loss of funding has caused them to dial back their efforts. This resulted in their December issue being 20% the size of previous issues.

One might look at this section so far and think terrible times are ahead, but it isn’t necessarily the case. Markets come and go all the time in science fiction, but that can be a feature rather than a bug. The loss of a few may increase subscriptions at others or create an opportunity for someone new. Many magazines continued to face the challenges of being a small literary business and are still with us. Examples of longevity include Science Fiction World (www.sfw.com.cn), the Chinese science fiction magazine with the world’s largest circulation for a genre fiction magazine, at forty in 2019; The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction at seventy; and Analog Science Fiction and Fact, the oldest continually operating SF magazine, which will celebrate ninety years in 2020.

Last year, I noted that there appeared to be a batch of new print magazines making a go of it. Such ventures are complicated beasts, so it’s not surprising that I didn’t see many of those continue in 2019. However, we did have the launch of Infinite Worlds (infiniteworldsmagazine.com), a new limited-edition, print, throwback-style science fiction magazine in the spring. Two issues were published this year and the first issue of 2020 has been teased online.

Asimov’s Science Fiction had another strong year and continued to demonstrate why it’s one of the leading science fiction magazines. Among their 2019 highlights were stories by Ian R. MacLeod, Tegan Moore, Ray Nayler, Suzanne Palmer, Mercurio D. Rivera, Carrie Vaughn, Kali Wallace, and E. Lily Yu.

Analog Science Fiction and Fact approaches its big anniversary year with plans to apply a more retro cover design in 2020. In 2019, they published excellent stories by Marie Bilodeau, Craig DeLancey, Tom Green, and Alex Nevala-Lee.

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction had a pleasant mix of science fiction and fantasy stories in 2019. Some of my favorite stories were by Alex Irvine, Cassandra Khaw, Rich Larson, Lavie Tidhar, and Marie Vibbert.

Clarkesworld Magazine happens to be the magazine I edit, so I’ll refrain from significant comment and say that some of my favorites this year include stories by Rebecca Campbell, R.S.A. Garcia, A.T. Greenblatt, Bo-Young Kim, Suzanne Palmer, and A Que. Our 2019 content was supplemented by a series of South Korean translations paid for by a grant from LTI Korea.

In June 2019, Irene Gallo was promoted to Vice President, Publisher of Tor.com. This newly created role is dedicated to the Tor.com website and imprint. Many leading editors in the field are selecting the fiction for this site and imprint. Favorites from the two include works by Elizabeth Bear, S.L. Huang, KJ Kabza, Vylar Kaftan, Mary Robinette Kowal, Rich Larson, Ian McDonald, Annalee Newitz, and Alastair Reynolds.

Lightspeed Magazine published a balance of science fiction and fantasy. Among the stronger works of science fiction were stories by Carolyn Ives Gilman, Dominica Phetteplace, and Caroline M. Yoachim.

Uncanny Magazine published six issues and a Best of Uncanny anthology was published by Subterranean at the very end of the year. They published more fantasy than science fiction in 2019 and as in prior years, I thought that’s where the majority of their strongest stories lay. Maurice Broaddus contributes their strongest SF tale for the year.

UK veteran science fiction magazine Interzone (ttapress.com/interzone) and sister magazine Black Static (ttapress.com/blackstatic) returned to their bimonthly schedule in 2019. My favorite story in Interzone this year was by Maria Haskins.

Strange Horizons (strangehorizons.com), one of the oldest continually running online magazines, continued to publish issues on a weekly schedule. Sister magazine, Samovar (samovar.strangehorizons.com), is focused on translations and published three issues in 2019. This appears to be the only genre magazine that publishes translations alongside the story in its original language.

GigaNotoSaurus (giganotosaurus.org) appeared to go on a temporary hiatus in 2019, publishing only six stories. Much to my pleasure, they returned to regular production and finished the year back on their monthly schedule.

The list of existing genre magazines is quite lengthy, so I tend to keep the focus on those that had some important news or stories that impacted this project in some way. This should in no way imply that they are any less valuable to the field. Publications such as Abyss & Apex Magazine (abyssapexzine.com); Amazing Stories (amazingstoriesmag.com), Anathema (anathemamag.com); Andromeda Spaceways (andromedaspaceways.com); Aurealis, (aurealis.com.au); Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores (cosmicrootsandeldritchshores.com); Daily Science Fiction (dailysciencefiction.com), Diabolical Plots (diabolicalplots.com); DreamForge (dreamforgemagazine.com); Fireside Magazine (firesidefiction.com); Fiyah Magazine (fiyahlitmag.com); Fiction River (fictionriver.com); Flash Fiction Online (flashfictiononline.com); Galaxy’s Edge (galaxysedge.com); Helios Quarterly (heliosquarterly.com); James Gunn’s Ad Astra (adastrasf.com); Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet (smallbeerpress.com/lcrw); Mithila Review (mithilareview.com); Neo-Opsis (neo-opsis.ca); Omenana Magazine of Africa’s Speculative Fiction (omenana.com); On Spec (onspecmag.wordpress.com); Shoreline of Infinity (shorelineofinfinity.com); and so many more make up the wide array of flavors one can currently enjoy. You should sample them as well.

Interesting science fiction can also be found outside the standard publishing ecosystem for such things. Future Tense Science Fiction, a partnership between Slate, New America, and Arizona State University, continued to publish an assortment of quality fiction from a variety of authors. A notable feature of this series is that each story is accompanied by a response essay from a professional working in a related field. My favorites from their 2019 lineup include stories by Indrapramit Das and Ken Liu.

Shorter works can often be found at tech and science website Motherboard’s Terraform (motherboard.vice.com/terraform) and within the science magazine Nature as Nature Future (nature.com/nature/articles?type=futures). The New York Times even jumped into the fray with a new Op-Eds From the Future (nytimes.com/spotlight/future-oped) column featuring short works by a variety of names you may recognize.

And let’s not forget the wealth of stories you can listen to in podcast form. Many of the magazines listed above (Asimov’s, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, and Uncanny, for example) regularly make some or all of their stories available in audio. Other publications started in this format—though many are now making the text of stories available. Among these, The Escape Artists produce four of the more successful podcasts: Escape Pod, PodCastle (podcastle.org), PseudoPod (pseudopod.org), and Cast of Wonders (castofwonders.org). Other interesting fiction podcasts include Levar Burton Reads (levarburtonpodcast.com), The Drabblecast (drabblecast.org), Glittership (glittership.com), and StarShipSofa (starshipsofa.com).

Anthologies and Collections

There was an interesting assortment of anthologies this year. Five are represented by stories in this book, but it jumps to eleven when you include the recommended reading. If I had to pick my favorite, it would be Mission Critical, edited by Jonathan Strahan. It features some great stories by Tobias S. Buckell, Aliette de Bodard, Greg Egan, Yoon Ha Lee, and Peter Watts.

On another day, I could have just as easily picked Current Futures, edited by Ann VanderMeer. In honor of World Oceans Day in June 2019, XPRIZE recruited Ann to work with eighteen science fiction authors and artists from all seven continents. The end result was an online anthology of original short stories set in a future when technology has helped unlock the secrets of the ocean. My favorites here include stories by Kameron Hurley, Gwyneth Jones, Karen Lord, Malka Older, and Vandana Singh.

The Mythic Dream, edited by Dominik Parisien and Navah Wolfe, was a strong contender, even as a mixed genre anthology. The theme here focuses on reclaiming myths and features some excellent SF stories by John Chu, Indrapramit Das, and Ann Leckie.

Broken Stars, edited by Ken Liu, a follow-up to his successful Invisible Planets, featured works by Chinese science fiction authors. Several of these are reprints, but well worth the price of admission. I was particularly pleased to see stories by Cixin Liu and Han Song that were these works’ first appearance in English.

New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color, edited by Nisi Shawl is a multi-genre anthology of works by emerging and seasoned writers of many races. It features a wide range of stories, with my favorite written by Tobias S. Buckell.

The theme of politics was popular among anthologists this year. A People’s Future of the United States, edited by Victor LaValle and John Joseph Adams, features stories influenced by our deeply divided political times and explores new forms of freedom, love, and justice. I thought the best stories were by Charlie Jane Anders and Sam J. Miller. Do Not Go Quietly, edited by Jason Sizemore and Lesley Connor offered up an anthology of resistance stories. The best story here was by Karin Lowachee. And finally, If This Goes On, edited by Cat Rambo, assigned thirty writers to the task of projecting forward to see the effect of today’s politics and policies on our world a generation from now. My favorite here was by E. Lily Yu.

Other anthologies of note include Deep Signal, edited by Eric Olive, an oversized and illustrated anthology of speculative fiction where the art is as important as the fiction. Features a strong story from Aliette de Bodard. The Gollancz Book of South Asian Science Fiction, edited by Tarun K. Saint, is exactly what the title suggests. It’s a good introduction to SF from that region, even if it can be a bit uneven in places. Vandana Singh’s contribution to this book is a high point. At the moment, it’s only available as an import. Wastelands: The New Apocalypse, edited by John Joseph Adams, continues along the post-apocalyptic path of the other Wastelands anthologies. If you enjoyed those, you’ll likely find something you like here. My favorite here was by Elizabeth Bear.

That is hardly a complete list. My reading notes list at least a dozen other anthologies that contained original science fiction. While their stories may not have made this year’s lists, they still represent a valuable contribution to the field that I don’t want to diminish. Also important to the strength of the field are the many reprint anthologies published each year. With a few exceptions, this portion of the market is almost entirely the domain of the small press, indicating the important role they play in keeping older works in circulation.

Several reprint anthologies cover the year’s best spectrum, like this one. In 2019, other such volumes that included science fiction were: The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2020 edited by Rich Horton; The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume Thirteen edited by Jonathan Strahan (the last in this series); The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2019 edited by Carmen Maria Machado, series editor John Joseph Adams; The Year’s Best Military & Adventure SF: Volume 5 edited by David Afsharirad; Transcendent 4: The Year’s Best Transgender Speculative Fiction edited by Bogi Takács; and Best of British Science Fiction 2018 edited by Donna Scott. Of special note is Gardner Dozois’ final anthology, The Very Best of the Best: 35 Years of The Year’s Best Science Fiction, a fine contribution to his long career as an editor.

Single author collections were again quite common in 2019, including slightly more than usual from the larger publishers. These most frequently consist of previous published stories, but do occasionally include new works. Some of the year’s most notable include: Exhalation: Stories by Ted Chiang; Of Wars, and Memories, and Starlight by Aliette de Bodard; Radicalized by Cory Doctorow; The Best of Greg Egan by Greg Egan; Meet Me in the Future by Kameron Hurley; Big Cat and Other Stories by Gwyneth Jones; Hexarchate Stories by Yoon Ha Lee; All Worlds Are Real by Susan Palwick; Sooner Or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea by Sarah Pinsker; and The Trans Space Octopus Congregation by Bogi Takács.

The 2019 Scorecard

My selections for this year include twenty-eight works, up two from last year. For those interested in tracking the sources of the stories selected:

These categories represent a total of fourteen difference sources, which is three less than last year. This resulted in a drop of one in the magazine, anthology, and collection categories. If you care to break down the magazines by those that offer free online editions and those that don’t, the online publications had ten (down one) of the sixteen mentioned above.

Standalone works are those that were published on their own and not connected to any of the other categories. There were none included in last year’s list.

Short stories (under 7500 words) and novelettes (under 17500 words) were much more balanced this year with thirteen each. In 2018, there were eighteen and eleven respectively. Novellas (under 40000 words) decreased from three to two.

And from my Recommended Reading List:

I’ve added other to this listing because I’m not entirely sure how I’d like to categorize something that has been posted to someone’s Patreon account. It would be easy to argue that these are either standalone, part of an unofficial collection, or even a single-author magazine, depending on your perspective. Given that, it seemed prudent to leave it separate for now.

There were fifty-four stories on the recommended reading list last year and only forty-five this year. Magazines dropped by one and anthologies by four. Collections increased by two and standalone dropped by seven. The standalone category was the only surprise and I suspect that had more to do with the genre makeup of the 2019 catalog than anything else.

Between the recommended stories and those included in this book, that’s seven fewer stories overall. That said, I’m not left with the sense that the difference was reflective of any core differences in quality between the two years. Even the decline in the variety of markets represented is less worrisome when broken down by type. It feels safe to say that such fluctuations are a normal part of the year-to-year state of the market.

The International Effect

Last year, I made a point of highlighting how an increasing number of authors from outside the US, Canada, UK, and Australia writing communities were finding their way into English-language magazines and anthologies with increasing frequency. As an editor and reader, I see this as cause for celebration. As I said then, science fiction is at its best when it is incorporating and challenged by new ideas and perspectives. This recent influx will be of benefit to the future of the field both domestic and abroad.

Although efforts to broaden the market to include more works from around the world—including those written in English and translations—have happened on and off for decades, it appears as though this time around, it’s succeeding. There’s much speculation as to why things are different now. You can certainly credit some of this to the rise of digital submissions making it easier for international authors to submit work and, as before, it has dedicated individuals, like Ken Liu, who have championed or inspired. A more obvious difference is that this time around, there’s an effort to make international works part of magazines and anthologies not specifically dedicated to them. Those theme anthologies still happen, but they are greatly assisted by the presence of these authors across the greater sphere of short fiction projects. It’s becoming more difficult to find magazines that haven’t published works in any works in translation in recent times.

Notable anthologies highlighting international or translated science fiction in 2019 include: Broken Stars: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation edited by Ken Liu; Readymade Bodhisatva (South Korean SF) edited by Sunyoung Park and Sang Joon Park; Palestine +100 edited by Basma Ghalayini; Sunspot Jungle volumes 1 & 2 edited by Bill Campbell; The Gollancz Book of South Asian Science Fiction edited by Tarun K. Saint; and Best Asian Short Stories 2019 edited by Hisham Bustani.

Notable 2019 Awards

The 77th World Science Fiction Convention, Dublin 2019, was held in Dublin, Ireland, from August 15th to August 19th, 2019. The 2019 Hugo Awards, presented at Worldcon 77, were: Best Novel, The Calculating Stars, by Mary Robinette Kowal; Best Novella, Artificial Condition by Martha Wells; Best Novelette, If at First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again, by Zen Cho; Best Short Story, A Witch’s Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies, by Alix E. Harrow; Best Series, Wayfarers, by Becky Chambers; Best Graphic Story, Monstress, Volume 3: Haven, written by Marjorie M. Liu, illustrated by Sana Takeda; Best Related Work, Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works; Best Professional Editor, Long Form, Navah Wolfe; Best Professional Editor, Short Form, Gardner Dozois; Best Professional Artist, Charles Vess; Best Dramatic Presentation (short form), The Good Place: Janet(s),; Best Dramatic Presentation (long form), Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse; Best Semiprozine, Uncanny; Best Fanzine, Lady Business; Best Fancast, Our Opinions Are Correct; Best Fan Writer, Foz Meadows; Best Fan Artist, Likhain (Mia Sereno); Best Art Book, The Books of Earthsea: The Complete Illustrated Edition, illustrated by Charles Vess, written by Ursula K. Le Guin; plus the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, Jeannette Ng and Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book, Children of Blood and Bone, by Tomi Adeyemi.

The 2018 Nebula Awards, presented at a banquet at the Marriott Warner Center, Woodland Hills, CA, on May 18, 2019, were: Best Novel, The Calculating Stars, by Mary Robinette Kowal; Best Novella, The Tea Master and the Detective, by Aliette de Bodard; Best Novelette, The Only Harmless Great Thing, by Brooke Bolander; Best Short Story, The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington, by Phenderson Djèlí Clark; Best Game Writing, Black Mirror: Bandersnatch; Ray Bradbury Award, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse; the Andre Norton Award to Children of Blood and Bone, by Tomi Adeyemi; the Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award to Nisi Shawl and Neil Clarke; the Kevin O’ Donnell Jr. Service to SFWA Award to Lee Martindale; and the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award to William Gibson.

There was a bit of a controversy surrounding the Nebula Awards this year. A group of self-published SFWA members promoted several works in a way that felt very similar to the slates that caused so many problems with the Hugo Awards earlier in the decade. The Hugo Award rules have since been modified to make it more difficult for that method to be effective, but the SFWA didn’t have (and hasn’t added) a similar countermeasure. The person responsible for the slate has since apologized, claiming that they didn’t mean it the way it was perceived by the community at large. None of the finalists who were connected to this list withdrew their nominations, nor were any of them among this year’s winners.

The 2019 World Fantasy Awards, presented at a banquet on November 3, 2019, at the Marriott Los Angeles Airport Hotel in Los Angeles CA, during the Forty-fifth Annual World Fantasy Convention, were: Best Novel, Witchmark, by C.L. Polk; Best Novella, The Privilege of the Happy Ending, by Kij Johnson; Best Short Fiction (tie), Ten Deals with the Indigo Snake, by Mel Kassel and Like a River Loves the Sky, by Emma Törzs; Best Collection, The Tangled Lands, by Paolo Bacigalupi & Tobias S. Buckell; Best Anthology, Worlds Seen in Passing, edited by Irene Gallo; Best Artist, Rovina Cai; Special Award (Professional), to Huw Lewis-Jones for The Writer’s Map: An Atlas of Imaginary Lands; Special Award (Non-Professional), to Scott H. Andrews, for Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Plus Lifetime Achievement Awards to Hayao Miyazaki and Jack Zipes.

The 2019 John W. Campbell Memorial Award was won by: Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller.

The 2018 Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for Best Short Story was won by: When Robot and Crow Saved East St. Louis by Annalee Newitz.

The 2019 Philip K. Dick Memorial Award went to: Theory of Bastards by Audrey Schulman.

The 2019 Arthur C. Clarke Award was won by: Rosewater by Tade Thompson.

The 2018 James Tiptree, Jr. Memorial Award was won by: They Will Dream In the Garden, by Gabriela Damián Miravete and translated by Adrian Demopulos.

The 2018 Sidewise Award for Alternate History went to (Long Form): The Calculating Stars, by Mary Robinette Kowal and (Short Form): Codex Valtierra by Oscar (Xiu) Ramirez & Emmanuel Valtierra. A special achievement award was presented by Eric Flint.

The 2019 WSFA Small Press Award: The Thing in the Walls Wants Your Small Change by Virginia M. Mohlere.

In Memoriam

Among those the field lost in 2019 are:

Gene Wolfe, SFWA Grand Master, Science Fiction Hall of Fame inductee, winner of two Nebula Awards, four World Fantasy Awards, six Locus Awards, a Campbell Award, a BSFA Award, and many other honors, author of The Book of the New Sun series; Janet Asimov, author of several novels, including collaborations with her husband, Isaac; Carrie Richerson, author and two-time Campbell Award finalist; Alexander Siletsky, Belarusian author of primarily short fiction; Robert S. Friedman, publisher at The Donning Company and Rainbow Ridge Books; Michaelene Pendleton, short story author and copy editor; Carol Emshwiller, author, winner of the World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement award, winner of the World Fantasy Award, Philip K. Dick Award, and a two-time winner of Nebula Award; Allan Cole, author and frequent collaborator with Chris Bunch on the Sten series, television writer for shows such as The Incredible Hunk and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century; Adrish Bardhan, Bengali editor of India’s first science fiction magazine, recipient of the Sudhindranath Raha Award; Dennis Etchison, author, recipient of the Stoker Lifetime Achievement Award, winner of the British Fantasy Award and the World Fantasy Award; Milan Asadurov, author, translator, and founder of the Galaxy imprint in Bulgaria; Yoshio Kabayashi, Japanese editor and translator; Paul Abbamondi, short story author and comic artist. Paul also worked for me as a slush reader in the early days of Clarkesworld; Barry Hughart, author and winner of the World Fantasy Award; J. Neil Schulman, author and winner of the Prometheus Award; Robert N. Stephenson author, editor, and anthologist, winner of the Aurealis Award; Betty Ballantine, publisher and founder of several publishing houses, helped introduce mass market paperbacks to the US, inductee of the Science Fiction Hall of Fame, recipient of the President’s Award from SFWA, a World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement award, and a Special Committee Award at the 2006 Worldcon; Mikhail Achmanov, Russian author and translator, winner of the Alexander Belyaev Literary Prize; Brad Linaweaver, author, two-time winner of Prometheus Award, winner of the Phoenix Award; Melissa C. Michaels, author and SFWA’s first webmaster; Katherine MacLean, author, winner of the Nebula and Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Awards; Terrance Dicks, author, screenwriter, and script editor; Andrzej Polkowski, Polish translator; Michael Blumlein, author, nominated for the World Fantasy Award, the Stoker, and the Tiptree Award; Gahan Wilson, artist, author, recipient of the World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award; Vonda N. McIntyre, author, winner of the Hugo Award, three Nebula Awards, the Service to SFWA award, and the Clareson Award, founder of the Clarion West Writers Workshop.

In Closing

I always try to end these introductions on a positive note. The above list of people we loved and lost in 2019 makes that a bit more challenging, but as we mourn those who have left us, we also celebrate the new writers making their way through the field.

Each year, I try to single out a new/new-ish author that has impressed me and I believe to be someone you should be paying attention to. This year, I’ve selected the author who penned the last story in this book, A.T. Greenblatt. To be fair, I’m really stretching things by even calling her new-ish, but I think her inclusion is more than warranted. Aliza first started publishing her stories in 2010, but in the last few years her work has been consistently catching my eye. There’s definitely something important going on there and I believe we’ve only just begun to see the heights she is capable of. I can’t wait to read what comes next and encourage you to track down her work too.

Suzanne Palmer is an award-winning and acclaimed writer of science fiction. In 2018, she won a Hugo Award for Best Novelette for The Secret Life of Bots. Her short fiction has won readers’ awards for Asimov’s, Analog, and Interzone magazines, and has been included in the Locus Recommended Reading List. Her work has also been features in numerous anthologies, and she has twice been a finalist for the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award and once for the Eugie M. Foster Memorial Award. In May, DAW Books published the second book in her Finder’s Chronicles series, Driving the Deep. She currently lives in western Massachusetts and is a Linux and database system administrator at Smith College. You can find her online at zanzjan.net and on Twitter at @zanzjan.

THE PAINTER OF TREES

Suzanne Palmer

Igo down to the gate, swipe my security pass, and step through the ten-meter tall, still-opening doors into the last of the wild lands. I remove my boots at the threshold and set them on a rack for that purpose, then carefully wash my feet from the basin of rainwater, still chill from the night before. When the doors have closed and sealed again, I remove my clothes. There is no one on this side of the wall to see who would take either advantage or offense at my nakedness. I wash my body from the same basin, shivering from the shock of the cold, before I remove the plain linen cloth from its hook above the rack and wrap it around myself. And then I walk down the path to find the painter of trees.

The path curves over a small slope and then down a kilometer or so to the glade at the edge of a forest. The vegetation changes around me as I walk, from the familiar sharp-bladed grasses that have crept over the wall and seeded themselves along its perimeter, to the tiny, delicate frills of blue-green of the grass that first grew here, now in forced retreat. I know how soft they would be under my bare feet, how they would tickle, but also how easily they will crush and die, and though I know I will surely give into temptation one last time before they are gone forever, this time I keep to the stones.

The trees here are, outwardly, very similar to the trees of home, except for their smooth exteriors and symmetrical branching. Their leaves are wide, gold-green, open cones, grouped in threes at the end of each stem, which catch and hold rain for a long while after a storm. Cut a tree open, though, and you find neither rings nor wood at all, but hexagonal cells all tucked neatly together, larger the closer to the center they are. Each one is capable, if broken free, of starting a new tree by itself, but together they each serve different functions, observed to change over time as both external conditions and each cell’s internal position in the whole changes.

Mathematically, structurally, the trees are beautiful as they are naturally. Among them there are flashes of bright color, vibrant pigments carefully etched into shallow scratches in the trunks forming intricate, hypnotic patterns, no two the same, none less compelling than the others. There have been days I have spent hours staring at them, or at our archived 3-D images, and always there is that sense that some vast understanding of the meaning of being is just there, in the lines, waiting for me to finally understand.

From here, I can see signs the trees are dying.

The small valley has a river that winds through it, and I cross a bridge made of carefully placed stones to the far side. I can see the large stick-ball nests up in the canopy above, fewer with each visit, and I can smell smoke.

I find Tski tending to the fire as one of the nest balls, carefully extricated from its perch in the trees above and set upon stones, crackles and hisses in flame.

Tski sees me, and turns toward me—the Ofti don’t have heads, per se, with all the functions we think of as specific to heads integrated in with the rest of their singular, horizontal lump of a body the same color as the leaves above. It stands atop nine legs—it lost three in an accident, it told me once—that are fine, graceful arcs that end in three pieces that can come together as a sharp, dangerous point, or open to function like fingers.

I sit on the ground, eye level with it. After a while it speaks, a complex series of whistles, clicks, and trills, that my implant decodes for me.

I am sorry that Ceye has died, I say, and the implant moments later returns that in Tski’s own language.

Ceye ate the new grasses and became sick, Tski tells me. Ceye was afraid we would starve when the old grasses are gone, with your wall between us and other meadows.

There are no other meadows, though; that is why there is a wall. It was carefully placed so that you can’t see it from here, in the heart of the forest valley, but that was before we knew the animals here were intelligent tree-dwellers and could likely see from the canopy. But still, they cannot see over it, which is for the best.

Tski swivels its body again, back and forth for a few long minutes. It is thinking. Do your people eat the new grasses? it asked at last.

No, I say, because we do not.

Then why did you bring them?

It is part of our native ecosystem, I explain.

Even the soil and the air do not taste right any longer, Tski says, and it picks up a stick with its tiny finger-blades and pokes the fire.

In the silence, I look around the glade. Where are the others?

Desperate, Tski says. They have gone to look for hope.

There is no response to give to that. Will you paint Ceye’s tree? I ask instead.

When her nest is cold ash, and I can mix it with the colors, Tski says. "Only then will I paint. I am almost out of warm-sky-midday-blue, which we traveled to meadow-by-the-five-hills to obtain. I am too old to go, and only Ceye also knew the way. Unless you also could go?"

I can’t, I say. Because it is not there, but also because even if it was, it is not something the council would accept. There is no way forward except forward, they would admonish me, no path to success without steadiness of thought, purpose, and action.

The burning nest has collapsed down into itself, its once-intricate woven structure now a chaos of ember and ash.

It does not matter, Tski says at last. There are only the three others and myself left now, and there will be no one to paint for the last of us that goes.

The Ofti pokes the fire a few more times, then lays its stick carefully aside. Tomorrow, it says.

May I come watch?

I cannot stop you, Tski says.

If you could, would you?

Yes. But it is too late now. You are strange, squishy people and you move as if you are always in the act of falling, but instead it is everyone around you who falls and does not rise again, Tski says. And so it will also be with us.

Yes, I answer in turn. It is a good summation of who we are, and what we do: we are teeth on a cog, always moving forward and doing our part until we fall away and the next tooth takes up our work in turn.

I get up from the ground, my legs stiff, and stretch. Tomorrow, then.

I make the walk back to the gate without looking back, but my thoughts drag on me.

The Council members wait for the beginning chime, and all take their seats around the table with precise synchronicity, so that no one is ahead, no one is behind. The table is circular and is inlaid with a stylized copper cog design, so that each member is reminded that the way forward for each of them is with the others. This is how steadiness of purpose is maintained.

And hatred, Joesla thinks, as each face opposite perfectly reflects the righteous moral bankruptcy of their own. I propose, with some urgency, that we take whatever steps are necessary to preserve the remaining Ofti population and environs before it is lost forever.

We already have extensive samples— Tauso, to her left, says. He is the biological archivist, and his expression suggests he has found a personal criticism in her words.

Forgive me, your collection is unassailable in its diligence and scope. I was speaking in regards to the still-living population, Joesla interrupts.

It is already too late. Motas speaks from directly across the table. There is no leader among them by consensus, but Motas—always rigid, always perfect in his adherence to the letter of their laws—leads them anyway. There are only four left; they no longer have sufficient genetic diversity to survive, even if we did find some way to insulate them from the planetary terraforming changes.

With Tauso’s collection, we could bolster their gene pool, Joesla says.

To what end? A great expenditure of effort and resources for something that gives us nothing in return? Your proposal is backwards thinking, Motas says.

Not for the Ofti, Joesla counters. They have a unique culture and language that should not be discarded so hastily. I know it has been a long time since any of you have spent time among them, but—

The Ofti have no future. They are already gone, but for a few final moments, Motas interrupts. Does anyone here second Joesla’s proposal that we abandon our own guiding principles for this lost cause?

Many should, but none will or do. Tauso does not meet Joesla’s eyes—and why should he, she thinks bitterly, when he has what he is required to save already? His silence is a betrayal of both her and himself.

The matter is settled, then, Motas declares. Forward.

Forward, some portion of the council responds, some with enthusiasm, some less so. Tauso is silent with Joesla, but it is too late, too small a gesture in the face of his earlier cowardice, and she will not forgive him this day. Now there is a necessary discussion of high-speed rail lines, anticipated crop yields in the newly reformed soil, and planning for the next wave of colonists; they cannot linger for one member’s wasteful, wasted regret.

There is smoke rising from the glade again. I try not to hurry down the path—I remind myself that I am an observer here, nothing more—but if my steps are quicker than usual, who would there be to accuse me? No one else comes here.

Tski is hopping back and forth unsteadily, whether because of its missing legs or its great agitation, beside a large, roaring bonfire. It does not have its tending stick, and the flames spark and flare and crackle with uncontrolled abandon. Dimly within the bright fire I can make out three shapes, three nest balls.

What happened? I ask.

It takes several minutes for my translator to make sense of Tski’s distressed whistles, but at last it speaks: The others walked the circumference of the wall, back to where they started, and found no cause for hope. They have returned home and burned themselves. I tried to stop them, but I could not.

I see now its awkwardness of movement is because many of its remaining legs are burned.

I do not know what to do.

Sesh. Awsa. Eesn. That was their names, Tski says. Awsa and Eesn were children of my children. They should be here with their long lives ahead to remember my last days, and not this.

I am sorry, I say.

Are you? Tski asks. The fires still rage, and some of the native grass beside the stones has caught, but the Ofti either does not notice or ignores this. Does it matter which?

I don’t know, I say. Through the wavering heat and smoke, I can see that Tski had started already to paint Ceye’s tree, no doubt wanting to get it done before I could arrive and be an unwelcome witness. It must have been doing that when the others returned to end their lives, as there are leaves on the ground around the base of the trunk, their cones filled with different colors, and I can see the silvery lines of etching up the tree trunk that had not yet been filled. The effect is still mesmerizing, even so unfinished, and I feel momentarily lost in it again. Then the realization strikes me: with its legs burned, Tski will not be able to finish the painting, will not take me that one step closer to elusive understanding. And at that, my heart catches in my throat, and I feel now the loss that Joesla had warned us of like a million cuts in my skin. Too late, too late!

Can I help you paint? I ask.

It is the wrong thing to say. Go! Tski cries. These are not here for you, for your eyes or alien thoughts. These are our memories, made in love of one another, a declaration for future generations, and you have destroyed us. Leave now and do not return.

I stand there for a while. Tski watches the fires burn, and does not move to tend it, nor to throw itself upon it. The thought that Tski might burn the grove down once I am gone keeps me there longer, until at last the burning nests have been consumed and the grassfire has died out, leaving a three-meter blackened, jagged scar on the land, an indelible fracture that will never grow back.

Tski makes a sound that the translation implant cannot work with, perhaps because it is not a word, just inarticulate grief. I should not have come, should not have stayed this long. These conversations with Tski have not been forward-thinking, and I know this, and knew better, but yet I came. It is a defect in my commitment to my own people that I let strangeness and novelty tempt me.

I am sorry, I say again, and this time I leave.

I stay on the path, even though my feet want to walk upon the native grasses one last time, because I am certain I will not come again.

At the gate, I leave my linen shift, bathe again with the lukewarm water, and when the sun and meager breeze has left my skin chill and mostly dry I dress and gather my things and put my real life back on.

The gates open, and despite a life of training and my commitment to our ways and philosophies, this time I look back.

Tski is coming up the path toward me. It is moving with difficulty and obvious pain, made the worse by the urgency with which it is trying to catch up to me. I should not have looked back, should now turn and step through the gate and close the doors for this last time, but I cannot.

Tski stops a few meters from me, and almost collapses before it gathers its strength to stand tall again. Show me, it says.

What? I ask. I do not understand.

Show me what is now outside this wall, where once my children played and ran and climbed. Show me what you have done with my world, what you have that is so much better than us.

On my side of the wall, it is city under construction, a thousand identical structures for ten thousand people, all looking only forward, in the direction we, the council, point. There is no art, no individual movement away from the whole, nothing rare to puzzle over. It is an existence I am proud of, and proud of my part in, but it is only for us and I do not want to explain or justify any of it, nor have to face the council and explain myself.

No, I say.

Could you stop me? Tski asks.

Yes, I say.

Would you, if you could?

Yes, I say again.

Then stop me, Tski says, and it steps around me and heads toward the gates.

I take the small gun from my bag. All council members carry one for protection, for moments of dispensing justice, and although I have never used it except in training, it is solid and comfortable in my hand, and with it I kill Tski.

It crumples, and becomes still, and in the removal of its animation it becomes just a thing, a leftover bit of debris from this world that has been repurposed. Now, I can turn my back and proceed through the gates and return to this city of ours, and be whole and compliant in forward-thinking again.

Joesla speaks barely a moment after the council chime has rung and everyone has settled in their seats. The Ofti are extinct, she says. Three of the remaining population appear to have self-immolated, and the last was found dead at the exterior gates with significant burns. I recommend a necropsy to determine the cause.

Surely it must have succumbed to the burns? Motas says.

There may be things we can learn—

Counselor Tauso, do we have any incomplete biological or behavioral data that could still be obtained from this specimen, if retrieved? Motas asks.

Tauso looks miserable. His eyes are puffy, as if he has been crying, though none would ask and none would admit such a thing in his place. Tears only ever serve the past. No, he says, his voice barely a whisper, then he speaks again louder and more firmly. No.

Then what would you propose we learn from such a procedure, Counselor Joesla? Its death is sooner than we would have anticipated, but it was also inevitable, and its cause does seem self-evident.

I want to know why it crawled all that way, after being burned, to die at our gate, Joesla wants to say, but Motas is right, for all she hates it. The Ofti was old and injured. There is no purpose now, nothing to be gained, and whatever the Ofti wanted in its last moments was already lost to them. I feel it would be a matter of completeness of record, she says instead.

So noted, Motas says. Does anyone second that proposal?

There are hesitations, shared looks, mutual avoidance, but in the end, predictably, no one does.

There is the matter of the grove and it surrounding lands, Avel brings up, from Joesla’s right. We had spoken about keeping it as is, as an educational, historical attraction. If we wish to do so, we should act now before the remaining grass and trees deteriorate further; it would only be a matter of a week or two of work to encase everything individually so they are preserved in their current state.

It is a waste of space that could be used for something productive, Banad speaks up.

I would vote for preservation, Joesla says.

As would I, Tauso adds.

Motas turns to Avel. I propose you bring the full details of a preservation project to our next meeting, so we may view and assess its merits and costs objectively. Banad, if you have an alternate proposal, then likewise we need all the relevant specifics and an objective justification for why it is a better use of the space. Does anyone second me?

Tauso nods, and swallows. I do, he says.

Good. Forward, Motas says, and then they adjourn.

The grove looks the same as the last time I was here, but it feels empty.

It has not rained here in weeks—the moisture-laden clouds were needed elsewhere, with our fledgling farms—so the ash and small remains of the three burned nests have not washed away. I walk around them to where Tski had set up his leaves of paint, and I sit in front of them, and I look at the trees, dozens and dozens of them, here and in the forest behind, many freshly painted, many more marking the fading record of thousands of generations gone.

I still do not comprehend my own attraction, how this uncivilized, unrefined, unforward art can feel so alive, so in the moment, so connecting. So utterly alien. Perhaps it is the simple act of remembering the dead, when I come from a people where to mourn, to grieve, to remember those who are no longer part of the future, is the most foolish backward thinking of all.

Yet it is the painted trees that keep drawing me here, and they are still here; Tski was, ultimately, an obstacle to my full and peaceful enjoyment of them. Surely, though none of this would exist without the Ofti, now it is ours. Mine.

There is pride and relief as I think this, and also a deep shame that feels wrapped around the core of my being. Guilt is a backwards emotion and I disavow that shame, even if it will not leave me be. Instead, I find that the more I study them, the more the designs on the trees seem to be mocking me, forever locked away from my comprehension. Tski must have followed me, made me kill it, because it knew that by doing so it would steal this from me.

The worst is the half-finished memorial on Ceye’s tree. I should have stayed here that day and forced Tski back to work, forced it to finish this last tree, so that I could have the whole now, and walk away satisfied that I missed and lost nothing. But it is broken, like Tski is broken, and it is Tski’s doing that both should be so.

Forward, then.

I did not change my clothes nor leave my things at the gate; there is no fear of bringing microorganisms with me that could damage what is already, functionally, administratively dead. From my bag I take out blue paint that I had made in one of our autofab units. Holding it now against the blue in Tski’s leaf, I see mine is darker, not the right shade at all. But it will be close enough! Blue is blue. I use my fingers and I rub it on Ceye’s tree, press it into the scratches Tski left with my fingertips, until, breathing heavily from the exertion, I stand back again to admire my own accomplishment.

It is a mess, an inarticulate, artless smear.

I take several deep breaths, and then I go back in and I try again, using my fingernails instead of fingertips, trying to work with the flow of the lines, trying to find how it is supposed to go. I chip my nails, and several bleed before I give up, recap my jar of paint, and stand back to see that I have just made it worse.

I do not understand how I—I!—could fail at this frivolous thing that some dead animal moldering in the grass up the hill could comprehend and encompass. I had thought, in my arrogance, in my superior thinking, that after my practice on Ceye’s tree I would for my last act here paint Tski’s tree, and no one would ever know it was me. And thus I would be preserved, and every one of my people who looked here for generations would remember me, even if they did not know they did so. Then I would not just be one undifferentiated tooth on a cog gear, turning forward, resisting backward with all the others, but a fixed point.

I feel in that instant that all I have accomplished is to immortalize my own foolishness, to forever diminish everything I have ever reliably and competently accomplished under a shadow of mockery. Furious—at myself, at Tski for forcing my hand, at this entire planet—I throw down my jar of paint. I had sealed it, but it hits one of the rocks just right (just wrong!) and shatters, and paint droplets fly everywhere—not just onto the disaster I’ve made of Ceye’s tree, but onto others nearby.

No! I cry out loud, and I sink to my knees in the dying grasses and am consumed by my own rage and horror.

Joesla stands, trying not to