I read a ton of fiction this year, including classic stories and stories I'd missed from a few years ago. But I tried to focus my reading on works which appeared in 2016. While it's impossible to read everything our genre published, I sought out as much as I could.
Below are my recommendations for the year's best science fiction and fantasy novels, novellas, novelettes, and short stories. This list will form the basis of my nominations for the Nebula, Hugo and World Fantasy Awards.
I'm still reading young adult novels for the SFWA Norton Award, so I left those off my list.
2016 Recommended Novels
- All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders (Tor)
- Arabella of Mars by David Levine (Tor)
- Breath of Earth by Beth Cato (Harper Voyager)
- City of Blades by Robert Jackson Bennett (Broadway Books)
- I Am Providence by Nick Mamatas (Night Shade Books)
- Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones (William Morrow)
- Stay Crazy by Erica Satifka (Apex Publications)
- The Devourers by Indra Das (Del Rey)
- The Fireman by Joe Hill (William Morrow)
- The Obelisk Gate by N. K. Jemisin (Orbit)
- The Race by Nina Allan (Titan Books)
- The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday)
- The Wall of Storms by Ken Liu (Simon & Schuster)
- The Winged Histories by Sofia Samatar (Small Beer Press)
2016 Recommended Novellas
- A Fair War by Taiyo Fujii (Saiensu Fikushon 2016, Haikasoru)
- A Taste of Honey by Kai Ashante Wilson (Tor)
- Forest of Memory by Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor)
- The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle (Tor)
- The Coward's Option by Adam-Troy Castro (Analog)
- The Kraken Sea by E. Catherine Tobler (Apex Publications)
- The Liar by John P. Murphy (F&SF)
- Under the Stone by Karoline Georges (Anvil Press)
- What We Hold Onto by Jay O'Connell (Asimov's Science Fiction)
2016 Recommended Novelettes
- Empty Planets by Rahul Kanakia (Interzone)
- Fifty Shades of Grays by Steven Barnes (Lightspeed)
- Flight from the Ages by Derek Künsken (Asimov's Science Fiction)
- I Married a Monster from Outer Space by Dale Bailey (Asimov's Science Fiction)
- Motherboard (A Tale from Somewhere) by Jeffrey Thomas (Interzone)
- Project Empathy by Dominica Phetteplace (Asimov's Science Fiction)
- Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea by Sarah Pinsker (Lightspeed)
- The Book of How to Live by Rose Lemberg (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
- The Jewel and Her Lapidary by Fran Wilde (Tor.com)
- The Orangery by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
- The Shores of Being by Dave Creek (Analog)
- The Stone War by Ted Kosmatka (F&SF)
- The White Piano by David Gerrold (F&SF)
- They Have All One Breath by Karl Bunker (Asimov's Science Fiction)
- We Will Wake among the Gods, among the Stars by Caroline Yoachim & Tina Connolly (Analog)
- You'll Surely Drown Here If You Stay by Alyssa Wong (Uncanny Magazine)
2016 Recommended Short Stories
- A Fist of Permutations in Lightning and Wildflowers by Alyssa Wong (Tor.com)
- A Non-Hero's Guide to the Road of Monsters by A.T. Greenblatt (Mothership Zeta)
- A Touch of Scarlet by David Steffen (Intergalatic Medicine Show)
- A Very Lonely Revolution by Simon Avery (Black Static)
- An Advanced Readers' Picture Book of Comparative Cognition by Ken Liu (Saga Press)
- Between Dragons and Their Wrath by An Owomoyela Rachel Swirsky (Clarkesworld)
- Dare by Harmony Neal (Black Static)
- Laws of Night and Silk by Seth Dickinson (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
- Lazarus and the Amazing Kid Phoenix by Jennifer Giesbrecht (Apex Magazine)
- Life in Stone, Glass, and Plastic by José Pablo Iriarte (Strange Horizons)
- Lullaby for a Lost World by Aliette de Bodard (Tor.com)
- Michael Doesn’t Hate His Mother by Marie Vibbert (Lightspeed)
- My Grandmother's Bones by S.L. Huang (Daily Science Fiction)
- Natural Skin by Alyssa Wong (Lightspeed)
- No Matter Which Way We Turned by Brian Evenson (People Holding ...)
- Rock, Paper, Incisors by David Cleden (Interzone)
- Rooms Formed of Neurons and Sex by Ferrett Steinmetz (Uncanny Magazine)
- Seasons of Glass and Iron by Amal El-Mohtar (The Starlit Wood)
- Sic Semper, Sic Semper, Sic Semper by Douglas F. Warrick (Tor.com)
- Sweet Marrow by Vajra Chandrasekera (Strange Horizons)
- The Red Thread by Sofia Samatar (Lightspeed)
- The Right Sort of Monsters by Kelly Sandoval (Strange Horizons)
- The Secret Mirror of Moriyama House by Yukimi Ogawa (F&SF)
- The Silver Strands of Alpha Crucis-d by N. J. Schrock (F&SF)
- The Super Ultra Duchess of Fedora Forest by Charlie Jane Anders (The Starlit Wood)
- The Sweetest Skill by Tony Pi (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
- The True and Otherworldly Origins of the Name ‘Calamity Jane’ by Jordan Kurella (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
- The Unmistakable Smell of Wood Violets by Angélica Gorodischer (translated by Marian Womack) (The Big Book of Science Fiction)
- Things With Beards by Sam J. Miller (Clarkesworld)
- Three Points Masculine by An Owomoyela (Lightspeed Magazine)
- Two Small Birds by Han Song (translated by John Chu) (The Big Book of Science Fiction)
- Unreeled by Mercurio D. Rivera (Asimov's Science Fiction)
- Welcome to the Medical Clinic at the Interplanetary Relay Station | Hours Since the Last Patient Death: 0 by Caroline M. Yoachim (Lightspeed)
- White Dust by Nathan Hillstrom (Asimov's Science Fiction)