- 🏆Lambda: Lambda Literary Awards (LGBT)
- 🏆Stoker: Bram Stoker Awards (Horror)
- 🏆Tiptree: James Tiptree, Jr. Award (Gender)
- 📙BTakacs/📙KMSzpara: Transcendent (Trans) edited by Bogi Takacs or K.M. Szpara
- 📙DAfsharirad: Year's Best Military & Adventure SF edited by David Afsharirad
- 📙EDatlow: The Best Horror of the Year edited by Ellen Datlow
- 📙SBerman.G: Wilde Stories (Gay) series edited by Steve Berman [ended 2017]
- 📙SBerman.L: Heiresses of Russ (Lesbian) series edited by Steve Berman [ended 2015]
- 👍MHaskins: Sci-Fi & Fantasy Short Fiction Roundup @ BN.com [started 2018]
We've also changed the scoring to give more weight to awards. Previously, a story got +2 points for being an award finalist, included in a "year's best" anthology or recommended by a prolific reviewer. Now, all award finalists/winners are worth one more point, so general SF/F awards are worth +3 points (+4 for winners), subgenre awards are worth +2 points (+3 for winners), and magazine awards are worth +1 point (+2 for winners). The extra points reflect the greater competition (fewer slots) and more decision makers (multiple versus one) for awards over "year's best" anthologies and reviewers.
We've created a 2nd tier of subgenre "year's best" anthologies. The previous set of six "year's best" anthologies (minus PGuran's The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror) are now considered 1st tier general SF/F, still worth +2 points, and the new set of six (plus PGuran) are considered 2nd tier subgenre, worth +1 point. Inclusion in a "year's best" that's subgenre rather than general SF/F is worth less because there's less competition for the same number of slots in an anthology. Also, like with subgenre awards, we won't add stories from subgenre anthologies that we didn't review unless they receive multiple recommendations by the time the annual Locus Recommended Reading List is announced in February.
Finally, all RSR story lists (monthly, yearly, annotated, outstanding) will show the latest recommendations. We refactored the data so recommendations are now in central easy-to-update annual tables referenced by each story list, rather than copied into each list. If a list notes an update but doesn't show it yet (due to stale files in the browser cache), press Ctrl F5 to do a "hard refresh" to force the browser to reload from the server.
Here are three noteworthy results from the new changes. It's most noticeable with novelettes and short stories because there are some high-scoring stories with many awards but few or no inclusions in "year's best" anthologies, and vice versa, and adding an extra point for awards nudges the former above the latter (as desired). Novellas rarely get included in "year's best" anthologies because of their length and standalone ones aren't covered by many prolific reviewers of short fiction so their scores consist mainly of awards.
- 2017 Best SF/F Short Stories
Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™ 🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆📙👍👍 by Rebecca Roanhorse went from 4th to 2nd over two highly anthologized stories. - 2016 Best SF/F Novelettes
You'll Surely Drown Here If You Stay 🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆📙📙👍 by Alyssa Wong went from 3rd to 1st over two highly anthologized stories. - 2015 Best SF/F Novellas
The New Mother 🏆🏆🏆🏆📙📙👍 by Eugene Fischer probably gained the most in relative rank with the new recommenders because it's a Tiptree winner (+3) and included in SBerman's lesbian "year's best" anthology (+1). In addition, we learned there are three Sturgeon winners each year (1st, 2nd, 3rd place), not just one, and this story came 2nd so that's another point.
Since this post, we've added ��₂SJones (annual Best New Horror anthology edited by Stephen Jones) and ��ABrown (monthly Tor.com Short Fiction Roundup by Alex Brown).
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