The Mammoth Book of Best New Science Fiction: 23rd Annual Collection Read Free

12,045, and newsstand sales dropping from 3,670 to 3,446; sell-through rose from 36 to 37 per cent. Gordon Van Gelder is in his thirteenth year as editor, and ninth year as owner and publisher.
    Asimov’s Science Fiction was almost the reverse of F&SF , publishing a lot of good SF, but not as much good fantasy. Good stories by Mary Rosenblum, Damien Broderick, Robert Reed, Nancy Kress, Tom Purdom, James Patrick Kelly, Ian Creasey, and others appeared in Asimov’s in 2009. Asimov’s Science Fiction registered only a 2.4 percent loss in overall circulation, from 17,102 to 16,696, not bad when compared to past losses, which rose as high as 23 percent in 2005. Subscriptions dropped almost unnoticeably from 13,842 to 13,731, although news-stand sales dropped a bit more substantially, from 3,260 to 2,965; sell-through stayed steady at 31 per cent. Although no hard figures are as yet available, the rumor is that overall circulation actually increased this year when you factor in the addition of ‘about three thousand’ in digital subscriptions sold through the Kindle, Fictionwise, and other providers. Sheila Williams completed her fifth year as Asimov’s editor.
    Analog Science Fiction and Fact had an above-average year, publishing good work by James Van Pelt, Steven Gould, Harry Turtledove, Don D’Ammassa, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Michael F. Flynn, and others. Analog Science Fiction and Fact registered only a 2.2 per cent loss in overall circulation, from 25,999 to 25,418, with subscriptions dropping from 21,880 to 21,636, and news-stand sales dropping from 4,119 to 3,782; sell-through remained steady at 34 per cent. Stanley Schmidt has been editor there since 1978.
    Interzone also had an above-average year, publishing strong work by Dominic Green, Bruce Sterling, Sarah L. Edwards, Jason Sanford, and others. By the definition of Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA), Interzone doesn’t really qualify as a “professional magazine” because of its low rates and circulation, but as it’s thoroughly professional in the caliber of writers that it attracts and in the quality of the fiction it produces, just about everybody considers it to be a professional magazine anyway. Circulation there seems to have held steady, in the three thousand copy range. The ever-shifting editorial staff included in 2009 publisher Andy Cox, assisted by Andy Hedgecock, Jetse de Vries, and David Mathew. TTA Press, Interzone’s publisher, also publishes straight horror or dark suspense magazine Black Static.
    The British magazine Postscripts , another professional-level publication in spite of low circulation figures, reinvented itself as an anthology this year, so we’ll cover it there, below. (I’ll list the subscription information up here, though, for lack of anywhere else to put it, and, because, unlike most other anthology series, you can subscribe to Postscripts.)
    Publisher Sovereign Media announced that they were pulling the plug on Realms of Fantasy early in 2009, and what was ostensibly the magazine’s last issue appeared in April. That looked like the end of the line for Realms of Fantasy , but then the magazine was bought by Warren Lapine of Tir Na Nog Press, who started it up again. Three issues of the resurrected magazine appeared throughout the rest of the year, for an overall total of five. Shawna McCarthy, who has been the editor since the founding of the magazine in 1994, was retained as editor, and the resurrected version of the magazine looks and reads much like the old version, and features the same sort of fiction. Realms of Fantasy published good work this year by Ian Creasey, Jay Lake, Richard Parks, Cat Rambo, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and others.
    Weird Tales had a rocky year due to the reorganizaton of publisher Wildside Press in response to the recession, and only managed two 2009 issues; nevertheless, there’s an energy and drive here that hints to me that this intelligently edited horror/fantasy magazine will