The Best of Strange Horizons 2018

written by David Steffen

Strange Horizons is a freely available online speculative fiction zine that also publishes nonfiction and poetry.  Their editors-in-chief are Jane Crowley and Kate Dollardhyde.  Their senior fiction editors are Lila Garrott, Catherine Krahe, An Owomoyela, and Vajra Chandresekera, and their podcast is edited, hosted, and usually read by Anaea Lay.  They publish a variety of styles of stories and have regularly attracted award nominations in recent years.  All of the stories and poetry in the zine are published in the podcast.  In 2018, Strange Horizons published about 50 stories .

Stories that are eligible for this year’s Hugo awards are marked with an asterisk (*).

The List

1.“The Fortunate Death of Jonathan Sandelson” by Margaret Killjoy**
Hacker uses compromised drones to harass high-level executives of world-wrecking corporations, but is accused of murder.

2.“Some Personal Arguments In Support of the BetterYou (Based On Early Interactions)” by Debbie Urbanski*
This is a really interesting point of view piece, in favor of the “BetterYou”, a copy of yourself that fits some definition of an ideal you who joins your family.

3.“Variations On a Theme From Turandot by Ada Hoffman*
Very meta-story about evolving permutations of a play repeated over and over.

4.“Copy Cat” by Alex Shvartsman and K.A. Teryna*
What could a cat do to keep its home after its owner dies?

5.“Venus Witch’s Ring” by Inda Lauryn*
Make a deal with a devil, and the bargain is never what you expect.

Honorable Mentions

“The Trees of My Youth Grow Tall” by Mimi Mondal*

“Dying Lessons” by Troy L. Wiggins*

“Her Beautiful Body” by Adrienne Celt*

The Best of Strange Horizons 2017

written by David Steffen

Strange Horizons is a freely available online speculative fiction zine that also publishes nonfiction and poetry.  Their editors-in-chief are Jane Crowley and Kate Dollardhyde.  Their senior fiction editors are Lila Garrott, Catherine Krahe, An Owomoyela, and Vajra Chandresekera, and their podcast is edited, hosted, and usually read by Anaea Lay.  They publish a variety of styles of stories and have regularly attracted award nominations in recent years.  All of the stories and poetry in the zine are published in the podcast.  This list covers all of the stories published since the last Best of Strange Horizons list posted here on November 9, 2015.  In that timeframe, Strange Horizons published about 53 stories (it’s hard to get an exact count because the poetry podcasts are mixed in the same feed).

This year they posted extra episodes as part of a Resistance special issue after the US presidential inauguration in January, and hosted a special issue in October for Arabic translations.

This year they added a new feature when they reached a fundraising goal to add Spanish translations.

Stories that are eligible for this year’s Hugo awards are marked with an asterisk (*).

 

The List

1. “Krace is Not a Highway” by Scott Vanyur*
An AI designed to monitor highway repair conditions keeps on going, doing its best, after societal collapse.

2.  “Utopia, LOL?” by Jamie Wahls*
A person woken up in the extreme far future where humanity is organized by a benevolent AI master, guided by one of the few humans still coherent enough to guide him.

3.  “Oshun, Inc.” by Jordan Ifueko*
Goddesses who live by eating shards of people’s souls try to find ideal candidates.

4.  “Owl Vs. the Neighborhood Watch” by Darcie Little Badger*
A young modern-day Apache woman who is visited by Owl as a harbinger of unspecific disaster does her best to guard her neighborhood against it as best she can.

5.  “Three May Keep a Secret” by Carlie St. George*
Two teenagers help each other fight elements of their past that are literally haunting them.

Honorable Mentions

“Sasabonsam” by Tara Campbell*

“The Dead Father Cookbook” by Ashley Blooms*

“Only Calculate the Motion of Heavenly Bodies” by Marcia Richards*

 

 

 

 

 

Best of Strange Horizons Podcast

written by David Steffen

Strange Horizons is a freely available online speculative fiction zine that also publishes nonfiction and poetry.  They publish a variety of styles of stories and have regularly attracted award nominations in recent years.

All of the stories and poetry in the zine are published in the podcast.

History

When Mary Anne Mohanraj founded Strange Horizons in the year 2000, online publications were often looked down upon in many circles as inferior to print magazines–not getting much attention come award season and that sort of thing.  Since then the attitude has shifted greatly and many of the award honors every year go to online publications.  I believe Strange Horizons is the oldest of those online publications that regularly draws that kind of honor, and Strange Horizons has done a lot to turn around fandom’s opinion about online publications.

Mary Anne Mohanraj was Editor-in-Chief of Strange Horizons until 2003.  Susan Marie Groppi was Editor-in-Chief from 2004 through 2010.  The current Editor-in-Chief is Niall Harrison and the current fiction editors are Julia Rios, An Owomoyela, Catherine Krahe, and Lila Garrott.  There have been other fiction editors in the past, but I’m honestly not sure where to find a full list.

Strange Horizons is a nonprofit organization in the US and is run entirely run by volunteers so that all the money goes toward licensing the publication rights for the content.  Most of their funding comes from their annual fundraising drive, which ended a few days ago.

One of the rewards for reaching goals in their 2012 fund drive was to start producing a fiction podcast, which began publishing in January 2013.  Anaea Lay is the host and also narrates most of the stories.  There is also a poetry podcast if that suits your fancy–I am focusing on the fiction podcast here because I don’t understand poetry well enough for my opinion to be of much value.  Since then, all of Strange Horizons stories also appear on the fiction podcast.

Best Episodes

1. “The Game of Smash and Recovery” by Kelly Link
Wonderfully weird story of two siblings waiting on a strange planet for their parents.

2.  “Broken-Winged Love” by Naru Dames Sandar
Story of a dragon parenting a child with a damaged wing.

3.  “The Suitcase Aria” by Marissa Lingen
A castrato magician hunts an opera house murderer.

4.  “Why Don’t You Ask the Doomsday Machine?” by Elliot Essex
From the POV of a machine that outlasts civilization after civilization.

5.  “Din Ba Din” by Kate McLeod
Living days completely out of order, often years apart.

6.  “Such Lovely Teeth, Such Big Teeth” (part 1 and part 2) by Carlie St. George
A modern story of Big Bad Wolves.

7.  “What We’re Having” by Nathaniel Lee
A skillet serves the food that we’re having tomorrow.

8.  “ARIECC 1.0” by Lillian Wheeler
POV of AI meant to help people with traffic and weather issues.

9.  “Among the Sighs of the Violencellos” by Daniel Ausema
A very interesting and evocative mix of fun elements, including fantasy hero tropes.

10.  “Significant Figures” by Rachael Acks
Alien masquerading as human tries to protect Earth from other aliens. My favorite character is a waffle iron.

 

Honorable Mentions

“The Innocence of a Place” by Margaret Ronald
Cool epistolary tale trying to piece together evidence of a mysterious series of events that happened in the early 20th century, with a historian’s notes on the subject.

“Dysphonia in D Minor” by Damien Walters Grintalis
A world where music is used to build things, and a story about the people who do this as an occupation.

“20/20” by Arie Coleman
Time travel is used to change the result of medical treatment plans that turned out to be incorrect.

“The Visitor”  by Karen Myers
Very cool alien POV and its first contact with humans.

“Never the Same” by Polenth Blake
A sociopath who has learned to function even in a society that scans for sociopaths and treats them differently tries to make a positive difference in an SFnal world.

 

The Best of Podcastle 2011

written by David Steffen

Podcastle’s going strong under the continued editorship of Dave Thompson and Anna Schwind. In 2011, they published 52 feature length episodes (from episodes 138-189), and 9 flash episodes (flash episodes 58-66), as well as 4 special feature stories from the Alphabet Quartet.

Generally, it was a pretty strong year, I think. I had plenty of material to fill the list with. There was one episode that got under my skin in a bad way, that I had trouble shaking, but I want to keep these lists about the positive, so that’s all that I’ll say about it here.

1. As Below, So Above by Ferrett Steinmetz
I’m surprised this one didn’t appear on the Drabblecast. Bloodthirsty giant squid point of view character, mad scientists, all with a nice mix of theology.

2. The Parable of the Shower by Leah Bobet
Modern Biblical story that begins with an angel visit… in the shower. Fun stuff.

3. The Ghost of Christmas Possible by Tim Pratt and Heather Shaw
I’ve seen so many adaptations of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol that I’d thought I’d never see another one that really seemed original. But this one pulled it off. It’s a mashup of the original and William Hope Hodgson’s Carnacki the Ghost Hunter who is called in by Ebenezer to investigate the strange visitations.

4. The Paper Menagerie by Ken Liu
Fair warning: this is a very sad one. A son’s story about growing up with an immigrant mother. The characters in this one seemed especially genuine.

5. Abandonware by An Owomoyela
A boy finds an apparently prophetic computer program in his dead sister’s belongings.

6. Stereogram of the Gray Fort, In the Days of Her Glory by Paul M. Berger
Two perspectives on a set of events taking place after the humans have lost the war with the Fae.

7. Hart and Boot by Tim Pratt
This story is based on the known life of Wild West outlaw Pearl Hart and her mysterious partner in crime, Joe Boot. This takes the known events of her life and fills in the gaps.

Honorable Mentions

A Hunter’s Ode to His Bait by Carrie Vaughn

Balfour and Meriwether in the Adventure of the Emperor’s Vengeance by Daniel Abraham

Beyond the Sea Gates of the Pirates of Sarskoe by Garth Nix