The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2020 Edition (ed Rich Horton, Prime Books 2020)

Rich has published the TOC of this volume on his Blogspot site here, which I’ve taken the liberty of reproducing below, with the aim of annotating when/if I read some of the stories (as I’m currently only buying pure SF anthologies).

Addendum : just noted that Rich has 4x stories from each of Analog, Asimovs, Clarkesworld and F&SF. Co-incidence or editorial decision???

Further addendum : the paperback edition was evidently eventually published in August 2021.

“The Savannah Problem” by Adam-Troy Castro (Analog, 1-2/19)

“Love in the Time of Immuno-Sharing” by Andy Dudak (Analog, 1-2/19)

“Empty Box” by Allison Mulvihill (Analog, 11-12/19)

“At the Fall” by Alec Nevala-Lee (Analog, 5-6/19)
Also chosen by Neil Clarke in his take on the Year’s Best SF, where I read it and you can read what I thought about it here.

“Anosognosia” by John Crowley (And Go Like This)

“Tourists” by Rammel Chan (Asimov’s, 3-4/19)

“At the Old Wooden Synagogue on Janower Street” by Michael Libling (Asimov’s, 9-10/19)

“The Ocean Between the Leaves” by Ray Nayler (Asimov’s, 7-8/19)
Also chosen by Neile Clarke in his take on the Year’s Best SF, where I read it and you can read what I thought about it here.

“Cloud” by Michael Swanwick (Asimov’s, 11-12/19)

“Cloud-Born” by Gregory Feeley (Clarkesworld, 11/19)

“Give the Family My Love” by A.T. Greenblatt (Clarkesworld, 02/2019)
Also chosen by Neil Clarke in his take on the Year’s Best SF for this year, which I read it and you can read what I thought about it here.

“Tick Tock” by Xia Jia (Clarkesworld, 5/19)

“The Visible Frontier” by Grace Seybold (Clarkesworld, 07/2019)

“Secret Stories of Doors” by Sofia Rhei (Everything is Made of Letters)
I read this in Jonathan Strahan’s take on the Year’s Best SF and enjoyed it immensely. Read what I said here.

“miscellaneous notes from the time an alien came to band camp disguised as my alto sax” by Tina Connolly (F&SF, 3-4/19)

“Mighty are the Meek and the Myriad” by Cassandra Khaw (F&SF, 7-8/19)

“Shucked” by Sam J. Miller (F&SF, 11-12/19)

“How to Kiss a Hojacki” by Debbie Urbanski (F&SF, 5-6/19)

“Green Glass: A Love Story” by E. Lily Yu (If This Goes On, edited by Cat Rambo)
I read this in Jonathan Strahan’s take on the Year’s Best SF and enjoyed it. Read what I thought of it here

“Fix That House!” by John Kessel (Interzone, 9-10/19)

“Ink, and Breath, and Spring” by Frances Rowat (Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, 11/19)

“The Death of Fire Station 10” by Ray Nayler (Lightspeed, 10/19)

“The Archronology of Love” by Caroline M. Yoachim (Lightspeed, 04/19)
I read this in Jonathan Strahan’s take on the Year’s Best SF, but it didn’t do as much for me as it might have. Read my thoughts here.

“The Fine Print” by Chinelo Onwualu, (New Suns, edited by Nisi Shawl)

“The Virtue of Unfaithful Translations” by Minsoo Kang (New Suns, edited by Nisi Shawl)

“Bark, Blood, and Sacrifice” by Alexandra Seidel (Not One of Us, 10/19)

“Mnemosyne” by Catherine MacLeod (On Spec, 04/19)

“A Country Called Winter” by Theodora Goss (Snow White Learns Witchcraft)

“And Now His Lordship is Laughing” by Shiv Ramdas (Strange Horizons, 09/20/19)

“The Girl Who Did Not Know Fear” by Kelly Link (Tin House, Summer 2019)

“The Hundredth House Had No Walls” by Laurie Penny (Tor.com, 09/11/19)

“Knowledgeable Creatures” by Christopher Rowe (Tor.com, 03/06/19)

“Vis Delendi” by Marie Brennan (Uncanny, 3-4/19)

“The Migration Suite: A Study in C Sharp Minor” by Maurice Broaddus (Uncanny, 7-8/19)

“A Catalog of Storms” by Fran Wilde (Uncanny, 1-2/19)
Also included by Jonathan Strahan in his take on the year’s best SF and I read it in that volume and you can read my thoughts here.

Conclusion

As stated above, I haven’t bought this volume as I’m just buying the pure SF volumes at the moment, due to lack of shelf space and lack of time for reading.

If you want to cross reference with the other Year’s Best volumes here are the links

Neil Clarke’s ‘Best Science Fiction of the Year Volume 5’

Jonathan Strahan’s ‘Year’s Best Science Fiction Volume 1

One thought on “The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2020 Edition (ed Rich Horton, Prime Books 2020)

  1. The first in the new Year’s best science fiction..taken over by Saga..rather grimly misses the mark.One story belongs not just in horror but in extreme horror and quite a few just plain nasty.

    So sad..since discovering the Open Library been galloping through
    Gardner’s oevre and reinforced my new enthusiasm for SciFi/fantasy.
    Have all the Hortons and order in for 2020.
    V

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