Грег Иган: The Year's Best Science Fiction, Volume 1

So, how was the year in science fiction? To be honest, it was a bit of a roller coaster. One of the signature, and most explosive, moments of the year took place onstage at the Hugo Awards in Dublin, Ireland, at the 77th World Science Fiction Convention. Hong Kong–born British fantasy writer Jeannette Ng took to the stage to accept the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best New Writer and in a whirlwind speech both called out award namesake John W. Campbell for his political and racial views, and emotionally responded to events taking place in Hong Kong. Ng’s speech was powerful, emotive, and acted as a tipping point for change. Within two weeks Dell Magazines, sponsor of the award, announced that they would be renaming the Campbell Award as the Astounding Award—something that had apparently been under active consideration as part of the 2020 90th anniversary celebrations for Analog —and within a month the Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction had renamed the Campbell Conference the Gunn Center Conference, and there was talk they also may rename their Campbell Award. Then in mid-October the Tiptree Motherboard somewhat controversially announced that they would be renaming the James Tiptree Jr. Literary Award as the Otherwise Award in recognition of complications and sensitivities surrounding the late James Tiptree. These actions were consistent with a move for change that has been evident in SF since the World Fantasy Award was redesigned in 2015, when a caricature of the late H. P. Lovecraft was replaced for similar reasons, and for the most part were welcomed and seen as a step forward.

Things weren’t quite as explosive on the book publishing scene. I don’t follow the comings and goings at book publishers or the opening, merging, or shuttering of publishing houses very closely, so I won’t attempt to provide you with a detailed assessment of the business, at least at publisher level. To this observer, things seemed pretty normal: some tumult, some success, but overall steady-as-she-goes. Certainly, these are challenging times for publishing houses and booksellers, but it has ever been so, and the pressure to diversify, to change and evolve, is relentless. The lauded editor and publisher Malcolm Edwards announced his departure from Gollancz, a company he’d been instrumental in developing, and a retirement party was dutifully held. Hardly any time had passed before it became clear that the retirement was more of a pause, as an announcement came that Edwards—the editor of J. G. Ballard and William Gibson, among others—would be heading a revived André Deutsch imprint that would publish SF as part of its roster. In similar news, Harry Potter publisher Arthur A. Levine announced he was leaving Scholastic after twenty-three years to form his own independent publishing company.

A few other examples aside, 2019 did not seem to see the kind of large-scale changes in SF publishing that we’ve seen in recent years, with no real equivalent to the changes at Orbit several years ago or Tor more recently, though Simon & Schuster’s decision to move Saga Press, their popular science fiction and fantasy imprint and publisher of this book, to Gallery was notable, as the company repositioned it for further growth. Late in the year, respected and award-winning editor Navah Wolfe left the imprint. Also notable was Penguin Random House’s decision to shutter prestigious nonfiction imprint, Spiegel & Grau. Running against the closure trend, a buoyant Tor Books announced a new horror imprint, Nightfire, which focuses on horror and dark fantasy and will launch its first titles in 2020.

Although SF in translation seemed more successful than at any other time I can remember, VIZ Media announced it would pause its long-running and widely respected Japanese translation imprint, Haikasoru, after completing publication of Yoshiki Tanaka’s Legend of the Galactic Heroes . There’s no indication if the imprint will be revived in the future, but it will be missed and was a vital part of the SF-in-translation scene. Also of note was the closure of Europa SF, the European Speculative Fiction Portal, at the end of 2019 after seven years of providing English-language news and information covering European fandom; the formation of the China Science Fiction Research Institute with “the aim of supporting the development of the sci-fi industry and related literary and artistic endeavours”; and the establishment of the Chilean Asociación de Literatura de Ciencia Ficción y Fantástica, which was founded in mid-2019. Science fiction is, as we shall see, all around the world.

Small and independent publishers play a vital role in the field, pioneering new voices, preserving history, and championing alternative points of view. While many independent presses seemed to have had strong years—most notably Subterranean Press, which published a number of the year’s best books—others struggled. Sadly, Crossed Genres Publications announced it was on indefinite hiatus and expected to close permanently once inventory was sold; Curiosity Quills Press announced it was stopping print publishing until it could clear outstanding royalty payments; and, most controversially, among allegations of late payments, nonpayments, and accusations of various improprieties, Canadian independent publisher ChiZine announced founders Sandra Kasturi and Brett Savory would be standing down from all publishing-related duties and Christie Harkin would assume the role of interim publisher. The future of the press is not known as I write.

What do all of these, and the no doubt many other changes I’ve missed, have to say about the state of things? I’m not sure. I think book publishing is in solid shape and I am optimistic about the decade ahead. Print, ebook, and audio sales are strong, independent booksellers are flourishing, and self-publishing has settled into a well-established path that carries none of the stigma that it once did. I am a little more cautious, though, about the state of short fiction and magazine publishing, which strikes me as being in a much more precarious situation, which we’ll get to next.

There’s no way to know how many SF short stories are published each year. Respected industry trade journal Locus (www.locusmag.com) has in the past estimated that over three thousand genre short stories are published annually, but that seems conservative, with stories now appearing in multiple-author anthologies, single-author short story collections, print and digital magazines, as part of Patreon and other fundraising platforms, in newsletters, as part of think tank projects, as individual stories sold online, and just about everywhere else. I don’t know how much of an indication of scale it is, but the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) currently lists forty short fiction markets that professionally publish speculative fiction of one kind or another, Locus identifies seventy, and online information source the Internet Speculative Fiction Database (www.isfdb.org) lists 862 short fiction magazine issues of one kind or another published during the year. And this, of course, excludes almost everything published outside the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, or in any language other than English. Suffice it to say, there are a lot of stories published every year in a lot of different places.

One change that happened early in the year that set the tone for 2019, even if it didn’t define it, was the announcement in January that SFWA would increase their minimum payment rate for professional short fiction markets (the SFWA pro rate) to eight cents per word from September 1, 2019. The main impact this announcement had, beyond the important push to increase payment to short fiction writers, was on where authors looking for professional markets choose to submit their work. It’s possible some markets will struggle to pay the higher rate and that it may impact their ability to attract top work, but it is nonetheless welcome.