One such case happened this year. Late last year, I was informed that the January 2017 issue of Wired would contain several science fiction stories, and I added them to my list of works to be considered for this book. Unfortunately, Wired decided to also publish the stories individually on their website mid/ late 2016, making them ineligible in 2017. By the time this was discovered, it was too late to consider them for the previous volume. It’s a shame, as it’s likely one or more would have made it at least as far as the recommended reading list. However, since the stories are still online, you can check them out for yourself at www.wired.com/magazine/the-scifi-issue.
The twenty-six stories that did get selected for this year’s volume came from thirteen different venues. I had hoped that would have been more, but some of the better stories from some of the other markets were more fantasy-oriented than appropriate for this anthology. Ten of the stories came from online magazines, six from print magazines, and ten from anthologies. This includes two novellas, eleven novelettes, and thirteen short stories. Overall, a stronger than average showing from the small press this year.
As always, I like to wrap things up with some of the people and things I’d like to draw special attention to for their work this year. The quantity and categories may change from year to year, but such is my nature. Before I start, I would also like to include a special thank you to friend and colleague Sean Wallace for his assistance and support with this anthology.
Best Anthology
Sadly, the larger publishers aren’t producing many original science fiction anthologies these days. I only saw a handful in my reading this year. However, the small press has been actively trying to fill that void, and this was one of the years they had the upper hand. Of the ten stories selected from anthologies, seven came from small press projects. The best original anthology of 2017 was Extrasolar, edited by Nick Gevers and published by PS Publishing. At this time, the only edition of this fantastic anthology is a somewhat expensive UK hardcover. I’m hoping that there will be a trade paperback or ebook edition released in the future so more people can enjoy it.
Best New Writer
Of all the categories, this is my favorite and a great note to end on since the state of short fiction can be best defined by the quality of its new voices. Some years, it might be someone who’s been steadily publishing good stories but has recently risen to a new level. Other years, like this one, it will be an author eligible for the Campbell Award for Best New Writer—someone whose first professional sale was in the last two years. The opening story in this anthology was Vina Jie-Min Prasad’s first professional sale, and she has since landed other fine stories at Uncanny and Fireside Magazine—one of which you’ll also find in my recommended reading list at the end of this book. Although hardly an expansive catalog of stories, this category is very much about quality over quantity. Trust me, this is a writer you’ll definitely be hearing more about in the future.
Thanks for reading my thoughts on the state of the short SF field in 2017. Now, go read some of the best stories published that year!
Vina Jie-Min Prasad is a Singaporean writer working against the world-machine. Her short fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld, Fireside Fiction, and Uncanny Magazine. You can find links to her work at vinaprasad.com.
A SERIES OF STEAKS
Vina Jie-Min Prasad
All known forgeries are tales of failure. The people who get into the newsfeeds for their brilliant attempts to cheat the system with their fraudulent Renaissance masterpieces or their stacks of fake checks, well, they might be successful artists, but they certainly haven’t been successful at forgery.
The best forgeries are the ones that disappear from notice—a second-rate still-life moldering away in gallery storage, a battered old 50-yuan note at the bottom of a cashier drawer—or even a printed strip of Matsusaka beef, sliding between someone’s parted lips.
Forging beef is similar to printmaking—every step of the process has to be done with the final print in mind. A red that’s too dark looks putrid, a white that’s too pure looks artificial. All beef is supposed to come from a cow, so stipple the red with dots, flecks, lines of white to fake variance in muscle fiber regions. Cows are similar, but cows aren’t uniform—use fractals to randomize marbling after defining the basic look. Cut the sheets of beef manually to get an authentic ragged edge, don’t get lazy and depend on the bioprinter for that.
Days of research and calibration and cursing the printer will all vanish into someone’s gullet in seconds, if the job’s done right.
Helena Li Yuanhui of Splendid Beef Enterprises is an expert in doing the job right.
The trick is not to get too ambitious. Most forgers are caught out by the smallest errors—a tiny amount of period-inaccurate pigment, a crack in the oil paint that looks too artificial, or a misplaced watermark on a passport. Printing something large increases the chances of a fatal misstep. Stick with small-scale jobs, stick with a small group of regular clients, and in time, Splendid Beef Enterprises will turn enough of a profit for Helena to get a real name change, leave Nanjing, and forget this whole sorry venture ever happened.
As Helena’s loading the beef into refrigerated boxes for drone delivery, a notification pops up on her iKontakt frames. Helena sighs, turns the volume on her earpiece down, and takes the call.
“Hi, Mr. Chan, could you switch to a secure line? You just need to tap the button with a lock icon, it’s very easy.”
“Nonsense!” Mr. Chan booms. “If the government were going to catch us they’d have done so by now! Anyway, I just called
