As I’ve done in the past, I’ve tallied up all the "honorable mentions" in the 26th annual Year’s Best Science Fiction, and reported the ones attributed to periodicals below.  This is sort of my "state of the markets" survey.

You will note that there are some on the list (e.g., Paradox) that are now discontinued, and others (e.g., Clockwork Phoenix), which are technically anthologies rather than periodicals.  I’m treating CP as a periodical because, well, it appears periodically.

One could go into a lengthy analysis if one so chose, but I’ll just point out a few  things I noticed:

• Postscripts, OSCIGMS, Electric Velocipede and Futurismic did much better in the HMs-per-year department than they have in previous years.
• Subterranean, Aeon, WoTF, Nature and Weird Tales all seem to have fewer HMs-per-year than in previous years.
• A few relative newcomers (Clockwork Phoenix, tor.com, Beneath Ceaseless Skies) have a comparatively high number of HMs.
• As a loyal booster of GUD, I’d be remiss in failing to point out its two HMs.

I like to do this survey because I think that inclusion or HM in one of the Year’s Best anthologies is a better indication of quality (and a good place to submit to) than the SFWA list, which is based primarily on pay rates.  That said, of course an HM in YBSF is a reflection of the editor’s own tastes (Dozois has said he doesn’t like the editorial process at On Spec or Andromeda Spaceways, for example).  So take the list with that bit of salt.

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Tagged as: honorable mentions markets year's best sf

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