News & Highlights

🔎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

The Mythic Dream, edited by Dominik Parisien and Navah Wolfe

[Anthology]

★★★☆☆

(Mythological SF/F) A reimagining of 18 mythic stories with new perspectives and different settings. (107,092 words; Time: 5h:56m)

October 2019 Ratings

5★ & 4★ Stories: 3; Time & Words: [1h:08m] 💬21K
Recommended By Stories: → Due next month
Total Stories: 39; Time & Words: [14h] 💬255K
Read How to Use RSR on the sidebar or this link to use this post.

Outstanding SF/F Horror of 2018

Although horror isn't our focus, we do review horror stories that turn up in our regular magazines, so in honor of Halloween, here are 30 outstanding SF/F horror stories from 2018 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 30 out of 340+ best SF/F stories from 2018. 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).

Outstanding Hard Science Fiction of 2018

Here are 27 outstanding hard science fiction stories from 2018 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 27 out of 340+ best SF/F stories from 2018. 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).

September 2019 Ratings

5★ & 4★ Stories: 19; Time & Words: [10h] 💬186K
Recommended By Stories: 51; Time & Words: [23h] 💬432K
Total Stories: 89; Time & Words: [35h] 💬642K
Read How to Use RSR on the sidebar or this link to use this post.

Mission Critical, edited by Jonathan Strahan

[Anthology]

★★★★☆ Mission Accomplished!

Stories where people, human or otherwise, were working on a mission or plan and something went terribly wrong (129,331 words; Time: 7h:11m)

New Filtering and Simplified Highlighting

Filter stories with the Show drop-down.

You can now filter stories in a table to show only the ones recognized with SF/F 🏆awards, 📙year's best anthologies, or prolific 👍reviewers. Click the "Show:" drop-down list in the table header and choose one of the options (see image on the right). This is an easy way to dis-aggregate scores to see which stories received the most recognition by each type of recommendation for readers who favor one type over a combined score of all three.

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.

Left: 🏆Winners & Finalists; Center: 📙TOC Only; Right: 👍Award Worthy & Recommended

Highlight Recommended By...

Another big change was moving the "Recommended By..." drop-down list from the hidden (expandable) part of the floating toolbar into the main "Highlight..." drop-down list (see image on the right). That'll reduce the clicks needed to highlight by recommender from 4 to 2 and also make it easier to find for new users.

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.

Feel free give us feedback in the comments. Thanks.

Dublin 2019 Recap

Eric & Greg @ WorldCon 77 in Dublin, Ireland

Last month, Eric and I attended Dublin 2019 (the 77th World Science-Fiction Convention) in Dublin, Ireland. This was our fifth WorldCon, and, as a result, it marks the fourth anniversary of Rocket Stack Rank.

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

Best Fanzine finalists. We're seated behind George R.R. Martin.

Rocket Stack Rank itself was a nominee for Best Fanzine, finishing 6 out of 6 but beating No Award. We weren't sure what to expect since we've had kind of a lazy year in terms of special articles, but we were proud just to be nominated. In particular, we enjoy the extra events and attention that come with being a finalist, and we thank our loyal fans who nominated and voted for us. You folks make it all worthwhile!

We offer our congratulations to Best Fanzine winner Lady Business, and to all the other finalists.

August 2019 Ratings

5★ & 4★ Stories: 10; Time & Words: [7h:20m] 💬132K
Recommended 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.

New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color, edited by Nisi Shawl

[Anthology]

★★★☆☆

Eighteen original works of fantasy and science fiction by top authors of color. (89,832 words; Time: 4h:59m)

July 2019 Ratings

5★ & 4★ Stories: 10; Time & Words: [6h:36m] 💬119K
Recommended 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.

New Recommenders and Improved Scoring

RSR now includes ten new (to us) Recommenders:

• 🏆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]

That brings our total recommenders to 13 🏆awards, 12 "year's best" 📙anthologies and 11 prolific 👍reviewers across the Best SF/F of 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 YTD.

June 2019 Ratings

5★ & 4★ Stories: 1; Time & Words: [20m] 💬6K
Recommended 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.

Outstanding LGBT Science Fiction & Fantasy of 2018

June is Pride Month, and here are 33 outstanding stories with LGBT characters from 2018 that were either 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).

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.

May 2019 Ratings

5★ & 4★ Stories: 10; Time & Words: [6h:14m] 💬112K
Recommended 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.

April 2019 Ratings

5★ & 4★ Stories: 4; Time & Words: [1h:30m] 💬27K
Recommended 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.

Everything Change, Volume II, edited by Angie Dell and Joey Eschrich

[Anthology]

★★★☆☆ Average

(Climate SF) This year’s finalists for Arizona State University’s Everything Change Climate Fiction Contest (42,489 words; Time: 2h:21m)

Although this is an anthology, it is offered free online, both as eBook downloads and as web pages for the individual stories.

Annotated 2019 Hugo Award Finalists

Update 10/20/19: Tagged 2 🏆British Fantasy Award winners (click link to highlight). (More)

Update 9/2/19: Tagged 1 🏆Eugie Award winner (click link to highlight).
Update 8/24/19: Tagged 20 stories in 📙BASFF year's best anthology TOC + 33 honorable mentions (click link to highlight).
Update 8/24/19: Tagged 3 🏆Hugo Award winners (click link to highlight).
Update 7/25/19: Tagged 9 🏆World Fantasy Award finalists (click link to highlight).
Update 7/23/19: Tagged 5 🏆British Fantasy Award finalists (click link to highlight).
Update 7/7/19: Tagged 35 stories listed as honorable mentions in 📙NClarke's year's best anthology (click link to highlight).
Update 6/30/19: Tagged 3 🏆Locus Award and 1 🏆Sturgeon Award winners (click link to highlight).
Update 6/1/19: Tagged 5 🏆Eugie Award finalists (click link to highlight).
Update 5/19/19: Tagged 3 🏆Nebula Award winners (click link to highlight), 3 🏆Analog and 3 🏆Asimov's Readers Poll winners.
Update 5/12/19: Tagged 33 stories in 📙PGuran's year's best anthology (click link to highlight).
Update 5/8/19: Tagged 26 stories in 📙RHorton's year's best anthology (click link to highlight).
Update 5/8/19: Tagged 30 🏆Locus Award finalists (click link to highlight).
Update 5/8/19: Tagged 2 🏆Shirley Jackson Award finalist (click link to highlight).
Update 4/22/19: Tagged 1 🏆BSFA Award winner (click link to highlight).

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

Thank you for nominating Rocket Stack Rank for the 2019 Hugo Award for Best Fanzine! We deeply appreciate the continuing loyalty of our readers, and we look forward to continuing to serve you.

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.

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!