Update 2/20/26: Tagged 2 🏆Apex Reader's Choice winners (click link to highlight).
Update 2/16/26: Tagged 8 🏆Uncanny Reader's Poll winners and finalists (click link to highlight).
Update 2/1/25: Tagged 14 🏆Clarkesworld Reader's Poll finalists (click link to highlight).
Update 1/27/26: Tagged 2 🏆RUSA Reading List winners and finalists (click link to highlight).
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Here is the annotated 2025 Locus Recommended Reading List for short fiction, merged with RSR's 2025 Best SF/F list (aka our aggregated list of "outstanding" stories from 2025 that score 2 or more based on 👍reviewers, 🏆awards, and year's best 📙anthologies). All the stories are grouped by length and score, with stories from the Locus list highlighted in red.
The merge lets us analyze the Locus list to see which stories that were broadly recognized as outstanding were left out, which publications stood out, which authors did particularly well (or not), how many were eligible for the Astounding Award, and how RSR's own recommendations stack up with Locus reviewers in general.
As with every RSR annotated list, there are links galore to the stories, their authors, the magazines, any award nominations/wins or "year's best" anthology inclusions, and search-links to find other reviews.
Anyone can vote for the Locus Awards at this link. Due date is Thursday April 1, 2026.
If you want to skip the analysis and just start reading, click here (free stories highlighted).
Observations
(These observations are based on story scores as of February 27, 2026. The scores will automatically update and new stories enter RSR's Best SF/F list as 🏆award finalists, winners, and year's best 📙anthologies are released through November 2026.)
For the most part, we're going to focus on ways in which we differ with the Locus List. This should not overshadow the fact that we think they've produced an excellent list that reflects the hard work we know they put into it.
In the section below, the links support the claims in the text by jumping to a view of the table that shows the stories and data being discussed.
1. Overlooked 💬Stories
The Locus List contained many of the stories we expected to see there, but there were a few omissions that surprised us, given how broadly popular some of these stories were.
- 5 of the top 10 short stories in RSR's list were in the Locus list.
- Three are from horror magazines or podcasts not covered by RSR.
- 6 of the top 9 novelettes in RSR's list were in the Locus list.
- This is pretty good overlap.
- 4 of the top 6 novellas in RSR's list were in the Locus list.
- This is pretty good overlap.
- Conversely, here's a view that shows the 62 stories in the Locus list from publications not reviewed by RSR. Forty of them have non-zero scores because they were recommended by one or more of the prolific reviewers we follow. Over the course of 2026, more will gain scores as award finalists, winners and year's best anthologies are announced.
2. Notable 📚Publications
A publication stands out if it has much more (or less) than an average percentage of its original stories included in the Locus list. Here, we'll define "average" to mean about 10% to 20%, which is roughly the typical percentage of a publication's stories recommended by RSR each year.
- Publications getting an average share of its stories in the Locus list include Asimov's (8/58, 14%), Clarkesworld (15/85; 18%), Lightspeed (9/94, 10%), Strange Horizons (5/39; 13%).
- Publications with a below average share include Analog (2/110; 2%), Apex (0/29, 0%), Beneath Ceaseless Skies (4/52, 7%), F&SF (0/8, 0%), and Uncanny (4/43; 9%).
- Publications with an above average share include Reactor (14/35, 40%) and paid-only books from Tor novellas (8/17; 47%). One or both of these publications also had above-average representation the last four years (2024, 2023, 2022, 2021).
- Fans of magazines not reviewed by RSR are welcome to provide the % (and #) of stories included in the Locus list for those magazines in the comments below.
3. Notable ✒️Authors
The merged RSR & Locus list, grouped by author, shows 214 stories by 188 authors. Of authors with 3+ stories in the RSR and/or Locus lists, here are the ones that stood out.
- Authors in both lists: Ray Naylor (3), Carrie Vaughn (3)
- Authors only in RSR's list: None
- Authors only in Locus' list:None
4. ✍New Writers
The Locus list includes 14 stories from Astounding Award-eligible writers, 6 in year 1 and 8 in year 2 of eligibility, versus the 7 in year 1 and 13 in year 2 stories from RSR's 2025 Best SF/F list. Eligibility is based on ISFDB, which can be wrong or incomplete, so please feel free to note corrections in the comments.
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