The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2021 Edition
(Prime Books, August 22, 2022). Cover by Tithi Luadthong.

Earlier this year Rich Horton shared an update at Strange at Ecbatan on the long-awaited 2021 volume of his long-running The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy series:

My best of the year anthology for 2021 has been much delayed, for reasons mostly linked to the pandemic, including difficulty getting a slot at printers. (And other issues!) But at last I have a TOC nearly ready. We’re holding open one slot for one more potential story… hoping to hear from the author soon. But I figured it was time to post the list. It’s been fun going through these stories again, and realizing how good they are, and how worthy of whatever exposure they can get.

The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2021 Edition has now arrived from Prime Books, and it is a delight to see it at last. After a dozen years in print, the series has switched to digital only, at least for now. This volume collects 34 stories from 2020, and includes tales from Sofia Samatar, Annalee Newitz, Sarah Langan, Yoon Ha Lee, John Kessel, Naomi Kritzer, Ken Liu, Alec Nevala-Lee, Sarah Pinsker, Benjamin Rosenbaum, Michael Swanwick, Tade Thompson, Ian Tregillis, Jessica P. Wick, and many others. It does not include the mystery story Rich mentions above, so I guess they never secured the elusive rights for that last one!

Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

Nadia Afifi, “The Bahrain Underground Bazaar” (F&SF, 11-12/20)
Rebecca Campbell, “An Important Failure” (Clarkesworld, 8/20)
Leah Cypess, “Stepsister” (F&SF, 5-6/20)
Andy Dudak, “Songs of Activation” (Clarkesworld, 12/20)
Bishop Garrison, “Silver Door Diner” (FIYAH, Autumn/20)
A. T. Greenblatt, “Burn or the Episodic Life of Sam Wells as a Super” (Uncanny, 5-6/20)
Amanda Hollander, “A Feast of Butterflies” (F&SF, 3-3/20)
T. L. Huchu, “Egoli, (Africanfuturism)
John Kessel, “Spirit Level” (F&SF, 7-8/20)
Naomi Kritzer, “Little Free Library” (Tor.com, 4/8/20)
Sarah Langan, “You Have the Prettiest Mask” (Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, 8/20)
P. H. Lee, “The Garden Where No One Ever Goes” (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, 12/3/20)
Yoon Ha Lee, “Beyond the Dragon’s Gate” (Tor.com, 5/20/20)
Marissa Lingen, “The Past, Like a River in Flood” (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, 8/27/20)
Ken Liu, “50 Things Every AI Working With Humans Should Know” (Uncanny, 11-12/20)
Rati Mehrotra, “Magnificent Maurice or the Flowers of Immortality” (Lightspeed, 11/20)
Annalee Newitz, “The Monogamy Hormone” (Entanglements)
Alec Nevala-Lee, “Retention” (Analog, 7-8/20)
Sarah Pinsker, “Two Truths and a Lie” (Tor.com, 6-17/20)
Vina Jie-Min Prasad, “A Guide for Working Breeds” (Made to Order)
Mercurio D. Rivera, “Beyond the Tattered Veil of Stars” (Asimov’s Science Fiction, 7-8/20)
Benjamin Rosenbaum, “Bereft, I Come to a Nameless World” (Asimov’s Science Fiction, 3-4/20)
Sofia Samatar, “The Moon Fairy” (Conjunctions #74)
Ken Schneyer, “Laws of Impermanence” (Uncanny, 9-10/20)
Alexandra Seidel, “Lovers on a Bridge” (Past Tense)
Michael Swanwick, “The Dragon Slayer” (The Book of Dragons)
Tade Thompson, “Thirty-Three” (Avatars, Inc.)
Ian Tregillis, “When God Sits in Your Lap” (Asimov’s Science Fiction, 9-10/20)
Eugenia Triantafyllou, “Those We Serve” (Interzone, 5-6/20)
Tlotlo Tsamaase,”Behind Our Irises” (Africanfuturism)
James Van Pelt, “Minerva Girls” (Analog, 9-10/20)
Aliya Whiteley, “Fog and Pearls at the King’s Cross Junction” (London Centric)
Jessica P. Wick, “An Unkindness” (The Sinister Quartet)
John Wiswell, “Open House on Haunted Hill” (Diabolical Plots, 6/20)

The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2021 Edition was published by Prime Books on August 22, 2022. It is unpaginated, and priced at $9.99 in digital formats. The cover art is by Tithi Luadthong.

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