Over the weekend Tangent Online released their reading list of what they consider the best science fiction, fantasy and horror stories of 2016. Tangent pulls together recommendations from all of their reviewers (in this case, 19 people) and places all of these stories on their list. Stories are then ranked within the list from zero (lowest) to 3 stars (highest).
I was shocked to land four stories on the list, including three stars for my Beneath Ceaseless Skies novelette "Blood Grains Speak Through Memories." This made my day!
The Tangent Recommended Reading list is proof of how much great short fiction is being published each year. This year there are 379 stories on the list, made up of 296 short stories, 65 novelettes, and 18 novellas.
I did a deep dive into the reading list to see which magazines placed the most stories. Below are my results. Note I didn't include any anthologies in this ranking, only print and online magazines. Also, these are the picks of one group of reviewers. Obviously other year's best lists, like next month's Locus Recommended Reading List, would feature vastly different results.
Here are the magazine rankings based on stories in the Tangent reading list:
- Asimov's Science Fiction: 42 stories
- Beneath Ceaseless Skies, 32 stories
- Analog: 31 stories
- F&SF, 26 stories
- Clarkesworld, 21 stories
- Tor.com, 21 stories
- Galaxy's Edge, 18 stories
- Lightspeed, 16 stories
- Flash Fiction Online, 13 stories
- Apex, 12 stories
- Uncanny, 12 stories
- Strange Horizons, 10 stories
- Nightmare, 9 stories
- Compelling SF, 7 stories
- Weirdbook, 7 stories
- IGMS, 6 stories
- Shimmer, 6 stories
- Diabolical Plots, 5 stories
- Fantastic Stories, 5 stories
- Black Static, 4 stories
- Aurealis, 3 stories
- Interzone, 3 stories
- Sci Phi Journal, 3 stories
- The Revelator, 2 stories
- SQ Mag, 2 stories
- Daily Science Fiction, 1 story
- Mothership Zeta, 1 story