🔎Finding a Science-Fiction/Fantasy Magazine to Subscribe To
Diversity in Outstanding SF/F Short Fiction
Stories with 🌈LGBT people: 2018 2017 2015-2016
Stories by 📚People of Color: 2018 2017 2015-2016
Monthly Ratings & Annual Outstanding Selections
📅2019: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
🏆Best SF/F: 2018 2017 2016 2015
🚀Hard SF: 2018 2017 2016 2015
✨High Fantasy: 2018 2016-2017
😱SF/F Horror: 2018 2016-2017
Showing posts with label Ratings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ratings. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 31, 2019
Sunday, September 15, 2019
September 2019 Ratings
5★ & 4★ Stories: 19; Time & Words: [10h] 💬186KRecommended By Stories: → Due next month
Total Stories: 89; Time & Words: [35h] 💬642K
Read How to Use RSR on the sidebar or this link to use this post.
Wednesday, September 4, 2019
New Filtering and Simplified Highlighting
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| Filter stories with the Show drop-down. |
Example: The image below shows the 2018 Best SF/F Novelettes filtered by 🏆Winners & Finalists (left), 📙TOC Only (center), and 👍Award Worthy & Recommended (right). The story "Nine Last Days on Planet Earth" is high in all three lists because it broadly appealed to award voters, year's best anthologists, and prolific reviewers, so it's marked with a red border to show how much the three lists differ in other stories.
Top of the award list is "The Only Harmless Great Thing", which didn't make the top of the year's best list or the reviewer's list possibly because it was sold as a "single" rather than part of a magazine. Top of the year's best list is "Intervention", which might have gotten less visibility for awards and reviews as part of an anthology rather than a magazine. Finally, the #2 story in the reviewer's list is "What is Eve?", whose absence from year's best anthologies or awards is a surprise.
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| Left: 🏆Winners & Finalists; Center: 📙TOC Only; Right: 👍Award Worthy & Recommended |
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| Highlight Recommended By... |
Besides these two big changes, there are three smaller changes:
- The search box has been moved from the hidden part of the floating toolbar into the "Jump To..." drop-down list.
- The (Publication) link for non-RSR-reviewed stories (ones with no image) is now expanded by default to show the publication.
- When the Recommended By: list of 🏆📙👍 is expanded by clicking the Details link, there will be a Summary link to contract the list back to emojis-only.
Observations
The new filtering makes it easy to analyze the best SF/F short fiction from 2015-2018 and make a few observations (click on the links to see the the stories discussed).- 🏆Winners Only: Since RSR started in 2015, the most awards won by a story is three (out of 13 we track), with two stories achieving that in 2016 and 2017. For 2018, five stories have won two awards each, with two winners left to be announced (British Fantasy in Oct, World Fantasy in Nov). We could get a 3- or even 4-award winner this year if "The Only Harmless Great Thing" (2 wins) or "The Tea Master and the Detective" (1 win) win one or both remaining awards.
- 🏆Winners & Finalists: Since 2015, the most award nominations earned by a story is eight, by "The Ballad of Black Tom" in 2016. This year we have 8 stories with 4 or more nominations (1 with 7), which is similar to 2017 (9 stories, 2 with 6), 2016 (7 stories, 1 with 8), and 2015 (7 stories, 1 with 6).
- 📙TOC Only: Since 2015, the most year's best TOC inclusions by a story is four (out of 14 we track). This happened to 5 stories in 2015, 2 stories in 2016, 4 stories in 2017, but no stories in 2018. The number is also down for inclusion in three year's best TOC, with just 2 stories this year versus 4-7 stories in previous years. One reason might be the absence of Gardner Dozois' year's best anthology if his choice of stories tended to overlap with Rich Horton's or Neil Clarke's.
Sunday, September 1, 2019
Dublin 2019 Recap
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| Eric & Greg @ WorldCon 77 in Dublin, Ireland |
The Hugo Awards
Winners
Our function at Rocket Stack Rank is to make it easier for people to find good short fiction and other information that could help them make informed nominations for the Hugos and other awards. We are not here to tell people how to vote. For that reason, we didn't offer suggestions for the final vote--not even a "this is how we're voting" post. For the same reason, we aren't going to reevaluate the stories that actually won the awards. We offer our congratulations to all the winners.
Losers
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| Best Fanzine finalists. We're seated behind George R.R. Martin. |
We offer our congratulations to Best Fanzine winner Lady Business, and to all the other finalists.
Wednesday, August 14, 2019
August 2019 Ratings
5★ & 4★ Stories: 10; Time & Words: [7h:20m] 💬132KRecommended By Stories: 24; Time & Words: [13h] 💬236K
Total Stories: 45; Time & Words: [21h] 💬384K
Read How to Use RSR on the sidebar or this link to use this post.
Sunday, August 11, 2019
Monday, July 15, 2019
July 2019 Ratings
5★ & 4★ Stories: 10; Time & Words: [6h:36m] 💬119KRecommended By Stories: 31; Time & Words: [15h] 💬272K
Total Stories: 70; Time & Words: [28h] 💬511K
Read How to Use RSR on the sidebar or this link to use this post.
Wednesday, July 3, 2019
New Recommenders and Improved Scoring
- 🏆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]
Saturday, June 15, 2019
June 2019 Ratings
5★ & 4★ Stories: 1; Time & Words: [20m] 💬6KRecommended By Stories: 11; Time & Words: [4h:19m] 💬78K
Total Stories: 32; Time & Words: [15h] 💬287K
Read How to Use RSR on the sidebar or this link to use this post.
Monday, June 3, 2019
Outstanding LGBT Science Fiction & Fantasy of 2018
This list could be useful for making nominations for the 2019 Gaylactic Spectrum Awards for Best Short Fiction (published in 2010-2018). Anyone can nominate through June 30, 2019. Stories from 2018 are below. For earlier stories, see Outstanding LGBT Science Fiction & Fantasy of 2017 and 2015-2016.
Wednesday, May 15, 2019
May 2019 Ratings
5★ & 4★ Stories: 10; Time & Words: [6h:14m] 💬112KRecommended By Stories: 32; Time & Words: [17h] 💬316K
Total Stories: 82; Time & Words: [33h] 💬597K
Read How to Use RSR on the sidebar or this link to use this post.
Wednesday, May 1, 2019
April 2019 Ratings
5★ & 4★ Stories: 4; Time & Words: [1h:30m] 💬27KRecommended By Stories: 16; Time & Words: [5h:42m] 💬103K
Total Stories: 34; Time & Words: [14h] 💬263K
Read How to Use RSR on the sidebar or this link to use this post.
Wednesday, April 24, 2019
Tuesday, April 2, 2019
Annotated 2019 Hugo Award Finalists
Here is the annotated 2019 Hugo Award finalists list, merged with RSR's 2018 Best SF/F list (aka our aggregated list of "outstanding" stories) for the first time, with the finalists highlighted in red, and sorted by score.
Observations
In the six sections below, the links support the claims in the text by jumping to a view of the table that highlights the stories and data being discussed.2019 Hugo Award Finalist
For New Visitors
If you haven't heard of us before, RSR consolidates recommendations from prolific SF/F short fiction reviewers (including RSR) in our monthly ratings, anthology ratings, and year-to-date ratings. For the best from past years, check out the News & Highlights section.Read How to use RSR on the right sidebar or at this link for more details.
You can follow RSR on Twitter, Facebook, RSS, or e-mail.
Retrospective
Eric and I started Rocket Stack Rank in 2015, right after Sasquan, where the short-fiction awards were ruined by a small group who exploited a flaw in the nominating rules to fill the ballot with a "slate" of low-quality works written by authors with right-wing politics. We thought a properly-designed web site could make it a lot easier for fans to find things to nominate for the Hugos.
From that beginning, we've read, rated, and reviewed over 3,000 stories. We've incorporated information from other reviewers, from anthologies, and from awards to compute a composite score to help readers identify outstanding stories without having to depend on our own ratings. We created a page describing all the legal ways to get hold of copies of older science-fiction/fantasy stories. And, in general, we're always looking for more things to add to the site that might benefit our readers.
From that beginning, we've read, rated, and reviewed over 3,000 stories. We've incorporated information from other reviewers, from anthologies, and from awards to compute a composite score to help readers identify outstanding stories without having to depend on our own ratings. We created a page describing all the legal ways to get hold of copies of older science-fiction/fantasy stories. And, in general, we're always looking for more things to add to the site that might benefit our readers.
We've learned an awful lot in in the past four years, but the most important lesson is that if you take care of your readers, they'll take care of you. Thank you again for remembering us this year, and we hope to see some of you in Dublin!
Friday, March 15, 2019
March 2019 Ratings
5★ & 4★ Stories: 11; Time & Words: [6h:45m] 💬122KRecommended By Stories: 37; Time & Words: [14h] 💬268K
Total Stories: 75; Time & Words: [27h] 💬500K
Read How to Use RSR on the sidebar or this link to use this post.
Wednesday, March 6, 2019
Annotated 2018 Sturgeon Award Finalists
Here is the annotated 2018 Sturgeon Award finalists list, merged with RSR's 2018 Best SF/F list (aka our aggregated list of "outstanding" stories) for the first time, with the finalists highlighted in red, and sorted by score.
The combination lets us analyze the Sturgeon finalists to see which stories that were broadly recognized as outstanding were left out, which magazines were over- or under-represented, how many were Campbell-eligible, and how RSR's own recommendations stack up with the Sturgeon Award jurors 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.
If you want to skip the analysis and just start reading, click here (to highlight free stories).
Friday, February 15, 2019
February 2019 Ratings
5★ & 4★ Stories: 13; Time & Words: [7h:55m] 💬143KRecommended By Stories: 32; Time & Words: [13h] 💬243K
Total Stories: 60; Time & Words: [24h] 💬443K
Read How to Use RSR on the sidebar or this link to use this post.
Sunday, February 3, 2019
Annotated 2018 Locus Reading List for Short Fiction
Here is the annotated 2018 Locus Recommended Reading List for short fiction, merged with RSR's 2018 Best SF/F list (aka our aggregated list of "outstanding" stories) for the first time, with stories from the Locus list highlighted in red, and sorted by score.
The combination lets us analyze the Locus list to see which stories that were broadly recognized as outstanding were left out, which magazines were over- or under-represented, which authors did particularly well (or not), how many were Campbell-eligible, 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 Monday April 15, 2019.
If you want to skip the analysis and just start reading, click here (to highlight free stories).
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