Outstanding High Fantasy of 2020

Here are 19 outstanding high fantasy stories from 2020 that were finalists for major SF/F 🏆awards, included in "year's best" SF/F 📙anthologies, or recommended by prolific 👍reviewers in short fiction (see Q&A). That's 19 out of 250+ best SF/F stories from 2020. A story's score is the sum of the +n points in it's "Recommended By" list (click the Details link to see the awards, year's best, and reviewers and the points).

For our purposes, we define "high fantasy" as a fantasy story that takes place in a secondary world. That is, something like Lord of the Rings, where Middle Earth is clearly not in the past or future of our world.

We've included portal fantasies, provided the destination is a secondary world.

Observations:
Click the links to highlight the stories discussed.

• 14 are free online (highlighted in default view), 8 have podcasts.
• Among 📚publications, it should be no surprise that Beneath Ceaseless Skies has the most high fantasy stories here with 9 stories (40%).
• Among ️️✒️authors, none had more than one story in the list.