Year's Best series for Prime Books

Last Update: 17 March 2007
NEW: Complete Table of Contents now available for the 2007 books.

My Home Page.

Comments? e-mail reaches me at richard.horton@sff.net.

As a short fiction reviewer I have for years read as much of the new short SF and Fantasy published each year in English as I can, including all the prominent magazines, all the major online sites, and numerous small-press magazines, smaller websites, dozens of original anthologies, and chapbooks and story collections, for a total of somewhat over 1500 stories a year, in the neighborhood of 10,000,000 words per year. I naturally have listed my favorite stories every year in what I called a "Virtual Best of the Year" list, which was great fun to do, and also easy in the sense that I didn't have to hew to any particular word count limit. But in 2006, Sean Wallace at Prime Books asked me to compile two anthologies -- Science Fiction: The Best of the Year and Fantasy: The Best of the Year. Now I had to make the hard choices to limit each book to 125,000 words -- and those were hard choices. But I'm very proud of the books. The series continues in 2007 with a third book added: Space Opera.

2007

I'll just list the Table of Contents for the books, with a link to Amazon for pre-ordering if you wish.

Science Fiction: The Best of the Year 2007 Edition


"Another Word for Map is Faith", Christopher Rowe (F&SF, August 2006)
"Okanoggan Falls", Carolyn Ives Gilman (F&SF, August 2006)
"Saving for a Sunny Day", Ian Watson (Asimov's, October/November 2006)
"The Cartesian Theater", Robert Charles Wilson (Futureshocks)
"Hesperia and Glory", Ann Leckie (Subterranean #4)
"Incarnation Day", Walter Jon Williams (Escape From Earth)
"Exit Before Saving", Ruth Nestvold (Futurismic, August 2006)
"Inclination", William Shunn (Asimov's, April/May 2006)
"Life on the Preservation", Jack Skillingstead (Asimov's, June 2006)
"Me-Topia", Adam Roberts (Forbidden Planets)
"The House Beyond Your Sky", Benjamin Rosenbaum (Strange Horizons, September 4, 2006)
"A Billion Eves", Robert Reed (Asimov's, October/November 2006)

Fantasy: The Best of the Year 2007 Edition


"Journey Into the Kingdom", M. Rickert (F&SF, May 2006)
"The Water Poet and the Four Seasons", by David J. Schwartz (Strange Horizons, May 1, 2006)
"Pol Pot's Beautiful Daughter (Fantasy)", Geoff Ryman (F&SF, October/November 2006)
"The Osteomancer's Son", Greg van Eekhout (Asimov's, April/May 2006)
"Salt Wine", Peter Beagle (Fantasy Magazine #3)
"The Original Word for Rain", Peter Higgins (Zahir, Spring 2006)
"The Lineaments of Gratified Desire", Ysabeau Wilce (F&SF, July 2006)
"Journey to Gantica", by Matthew Corradi (F&SF, January)
"Irregular Verbs" by Matthew Johnson (Fantasy Magazine #4)
"A Fish Story", Sarah Totton (Realms of Fantasy, October 2006)
"The Night Whiskey", Jeffrey Ford (Salon Fantastique)
"A Fine Magic" by Margo Lanagan (Eidolon 1)
"Naturally" by Daniel Handler (Zoetrope, Spring)
"Moon Viewing at Shijo Bridge", Richard Parks (Realms of Fantasy, April 2006)
"Citrine: A Fable", Elise Moser (Room of One's Own, July)
"A Siege of Cranes", Benjamin Rosenbaum (Twenty Epics)

Space Opera 2007 Edition (This is due in July.)


"Have You Any Wool", Alan De Niro (Twenty Epics)
"Lehr, Rex", Jay Lake (Forbidden Planets)
"Lady Be Good", John G. Hemry (Analog, April 2006)
"Kansas, She Says, is the Name of the Star", R. Garcia y Robertson (F&SF, July 2006)
"Every Hole is Outlined", John Barnes (Baen's Universe, October 2006)
"The Plurality of Worlds", Brian Stableford (Asimov's, August 2006)
"Dead Men Walking", Paul J. McAuley (Asimov's, March 2006)
"The Muse of Empires Lost", Paul Berger (Twenty Epics)
"Catastrophe Baker and the Cold Equations", Mike Resnick (Golden Age SF)
"Thousandth Night", Alastair Reynolds (One Million A.D.)

2006

Here are my first books, from 2006.

Science Fiction: The Best of the Year 2006 Edition


"Triceratops Summer", by Michael Swanwick (Amazon.com Shorts)
"Bank Run", by Tom Purdom (Asimov's, October-November 2005)
"A Coffee Cup/Alien Invasion Story", by Douglas Lain (Strange Horizons, February 7, 2005)
"The Edge of Nowhere", by James Patrick Kelly (Asimov's, June 2005)
"Heartwired", by Joe Haldeman (Nature, March 24, 2005)
"The Fate of Mice", by Susan Palwick (Asimov's, January 2005)
"The King of Where-I-Go", by Howard Waldrop (Sci Fiction, December 7, 2005)
"The Policeman's Daughter", by Wil McCarthy (Analog, June 2005)
"Bliss", by Leah Bobet (On Spec, Winter 2004/2005)
"Finished", by Robert Reed (Asimov's, September 2005)
"The Inn at Mount Either", by James Van Pelt (Analog, May 2005)
"Search Engine", by Mary Rosenblum (Analog, September 2005)
"You, by Anonymous", by Stephen Leigh (I, Alien)
"The Jenna Set", by Daniel Kaysen (Strange Horizons, March 14, 2005)
"Understanding Space and Time", by Alastair Reynolds (Novacon 2005 Program Book)

Fantasy: The Best of the Year 2006 Edition


"Pip and the Fairies", by Theodora Goss (Strange Horizons, October 3, 2005)
"Comber", by Gene Wolfe (Postscripts, Spring 2005)
"Three Urban Folk Tales", by Eric Schaller (Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet #16)
"Wax" by Elizabeth Bear (Interzone, December 2005)
"The Emperor of Gondwanaland", by Paul Di Filippo (Interzone, January-February 2005)
"CommComm", by George Saunders (The New Yorker, August 1, 2005)
"Five Ways Jane Austen Never Died", by Samantha Henderson (Fortean Bureau, March 2005)
"Fancy Bread", by Gregory Feeley (TEL:Stories)
"Sunbird", by Neil Gaiman (Noisy Outlaws)
"The Secret of Broken Tickers", by Joe Murphy (Realms of Fantasy, August 2005)
"On the Blindside", by Sonya Taaffe (Flytrap, May 2005)
"Jane", by Marc Laidlaw (Sci Fiction, February 16 2005)
"Is There Life After Rehab?", by Pat Cadigan (Sci Fiction, August 17, 2005)
"Two Hearts", by Peter Beagle (F&SF, March 2005)
"Super-Villains", by Michael Canfield (Son and Foe #1)
"Empty Places", by Richard Parks (Realms of Fantasy, December 2005)
"Invisible", by Steve Rasnic Tem (Sci Fiction, March 2, 2005)
"By the Light of Tomorrow's Sun", by Holly Phillips (In the Palace of Repose)
"The Gist Hunter", by Matthew Hughes (F&SF, June 2005)