Tangent Online recommended short fiction for 2011

[VideoChrist]

Tangent Online's list is more wide-ranging than the Locust list and has a bit more spice:

http://www.tangentonline.com/news-mainmenu-158/1752-tangent-online-recommended-reading-list-2011

 

[J-Sun]

Do the reviewers have separate territory? Weird that they have 19 reviewers and only five stories get only two reviewers to agree. Also don't know why Joseph Giddings thinks Bear's "Petra" is a 2011 story (1982).

And it's a little too wide-ranging, IMO. A list that long (though shorter than in years past) is kind of like Dozois' honorable mentions at the end of the annuals - nice for the authors mentioned but less helpful to the reader. Plus it's hard to read a list like that. My eyes glaze over. It helps to turn the stylesheet off so fewer lines are broken but information like that should be presented in a table (which I at least find the easiest way to process such things):

Title             Author          Source        Genre  Reviewer
----------------  --------------  ------------  -----  --------
"Julie is Three"  Craig Delancey  [I]Analog[/I], 3/11  SF     BB

All that griping aside , thanks for passing the list on.

Looks like Ken Liu is another one of these shooting stars (looks like he's been at it for a while but only exploded last year). I've come across just one of his stories and have yet to read even that but several people are talking about several of his stories.

Nice to see 2-3 reviewers recognize Analog can have good stuff rather than summarily dismissing it as many critics/reviewers/anthologists seem to do.

Crap. Connie Willis wrote a novella. So the Hugo goes to...

 

[VideoChrist]

Tangent has a lot of different reviewers, so you get a wider variety of opinion.

 

[VideoChrist]

J-Sun sez, "Nice to see 2-3 reviewers [at Tangent Online] recognize Analog can have good stuff rather than summarily dismissing it as many critics/reviewers/anthologists seem to do."

The philosophy at Tangent Online seems to be to have reviewers who "like that sort of thing" review the different magazines. Whereas at Locus you basically have Dozois and Tilton giving their predictable opinions of everything.

 

[VideoChrist]

So, what's your fave short fiction of 2011? C'mon, put down those never-ending bloated fantasy and sci-fi mega-series, read some real stories, and post your opinions.

 

[jojajihisc]

Since you asked and since I actually keep track of what I've read (for now)...

"Her Husbands Hands" - Adam-Troy Castro
"Real Artists" - Ken Liu ("The Paper Menagerie" nearly as good also)
"Ragnarok" - Paul Park
"The Ants of Flanders" - Robert Reed
"The Wish of the Demon Achtromagk" - Eugie Foster

 

[VideoChrist]

I particularly enjoyed "The Ants of Flanders."

 

[Count Zero]

I didn't read much short fiction last year but I particularly liked "Malak" by Peter Watts and "Laika's Ghost" by Karl Schroeder, both in the "Engineering Infinity" anthology.

 

[VideoChrist]

F&SF had a pretty good year, in my opinion. The May/June, July/August, and September/October 2011 issues were a particularly strong run. "Bronsky's Dates with Death" by Peter David is one of the best stories I've read in years.