Since 2014, I've compiled an annual ranking of science fiction and fantasy magazines, based on prominent awards nominations and "best of" placements over the previous ten years. If you're curious what magazines tend to be viewed by insiders as elite, check the top of the list. If you're curious to discover reputable magazines that aren't as widely known (or aren't as widely known specifically for their science fiction and fantasy), check the bottom of the list.
Method and Caveats:
(1.) Only magazines are included (online or in print), not anthologies, standalones, or series.
(2.) I gave each magazine one point for each story nominated for a Hugo, Nebula, Sturgeon, or World Fantasy Award in the past ten years; one point for each story appearance in any of the Dozois, Horton, Strahan, Clarke, Adams, or Tidhar "best of" anthologies; and half a point for each story appearing in the short story or novelette category of the annual Locus Recommended list.
(2a.) Methodological notes for 2022-2024: There's been some disruption among SF best of anthologies recently, with Horton, Strahan, and Clarke all having delays and/or cessations. (Dozois died a few years ago.) Partly for this reason, and partly to compensate for the "American" focus of the Adams anthology, I've added Tidhar's World SF anthology series, though Tidhar doesn't draw exclusively from the previous year's publications.
(3.) I am not attempting to include the horror / dark fantasy genre, except as it appears incidentally on the list.
(4.) Prose only, not poetry.
(5.) I'm not attempting to correct for frequency of publication or length of table of contents.
(6.) I'm also not correcting for a magazine's only having published during part of the ten-year period. Reputations of defunct magazines slowly fade, and sometimes they are restarted. Reputations of new magazines take time to build.
(7.) I take the list down to 1.5 points.
(8.) I welcome corrections.
(9.) I confess some ambivalence about rankings of this sort. They reinforce the prestige hierarchy, and they compress complex differences into a single scale. However, the prestige of a magazine is a socially real phenomenon worth tracking, especially for the sake of outsiders and newcomers who might not otherwise know what magazines are well regarded by insiders when considering, for example, where to submit.
Results:
1. Tor.com / Reactor (186 points)
2. Clarkesworld (181.5)
3. Uncanny (149)
4. Lightspeed (129)
5. Asimov's (127)
6. Fantasy & Science Fiction (109)
7. Beneath Ceaseless Skies (59.5)
8. Analog (47)
9. Strange Horizons (incl Samovar) (43)
10t. Apex (36.5)
10t. Nightmare (36.5)
12. Slate / Future Tense (22)
13t. FIYAH (19.5) (started 2017)
13. Interzone (19.5)
15. Fireside (18.5) (ceased 2022)
16. Fantasy Magazine (17.5) (off and on during the period, ceased 2023)
17. Subterranean (17) (ceased short fiction 2014)
18. The Dark (15)
19. The New Yorker (9)
20. Sunday Morning Transport (8.5) (started 2022)
21t. Future Science Fiction Digest (7) (started 2018, ceased or sporadic starting 2023)
21t. Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet (7)
23t. Diabolical Plots (6.5)
23t. The Deadlands (6.5) (started 2021)
25t. Conjunctions (6)
25t. McSweeney's (6)
25t. Sirenia Digest (6)
28t. GigaNotoSaurus (5.5)
28t. khōréō (5.5) (started 2021)
28t. Omni (5.5) (classic popular science magazine, relaunched 2017-2020)
28t. Terraform (Vice) (5.5) (ceased 2023)
32. Shimmer (5) (ceased 2018)
33. Tin House (4.5) (ceased short fiction 2019)
34t. Boston Review (4)
34t. Galaxy's Edge (4) (ceased 2023?)
34t. Omenana (4)
34t. Wired (4)
38t. B&N Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog (3.5) (ceased 2019)
38t. Paris Review (3.5)
40t. Anathema (3) (ran 2017-2022)
40t. Black Static (3) (ceased fiction 2023)
40t. Daily Science Fiction (3) (ceased 2023)
40t. Kaleidotrope (3)
40t. Science Fiction World (3)
45t. Beloit Fiction Journal (2.5)
45t. Buzzfeed (2.5)
45t. Matter (2.5)
48t. Augur (2) (started 2018)
*48t. Baffling (2) (started 2020)
48t. Flash Fiction Online (2)
48t. Mothership Zeta (2) (ran 2015-2017)
48t. Podcastle (2)
*48t. Shortwave (2) (started 2022)
*54t. e-flux journal (1.5)
*54t. Escape Pod (1.5)
*54t. Fusion Fragment (1.5) (started 2020)
54t. MIT Technology Review (1.5)
54t. New York Times (1.5)
54t. Reckoning (1.5) (started 2017)
54t. Translunar Travelers Lounge (1.5) (started 2019)
[* indicates new to the list this year]
--------------------------------------------------
Comments:
(1.) Beloit Fiction Journal, Boston Review, Conjunctions, e-flux Journal, Matter, McSweeney's, The New Yorker, Paris Review, Reckoning, and Tin House are literary magazines that occasionally publish science fiction or fantasy. Buzzfeed, Slate and Vice are popular magazines, and MIT Technology Review, Omni, and Wired are popular science magazines, which publish a bit of science fiction on the side. The New York Times is a well-known newspaper that ran a series of "Op-Eds from the Future" from 2019-2020. The remaining magazines focus on the science fiction and fantasy (SF) genre. All publish in English, except Science Fiction World, which is the leading science fiction magazine in China.
(2.) It's also interesting to consider a three-year window. Here are those results, down to six points:
1. Uncanny (55)
2. Clarkesworld (42)
3. Tor / Reactor (31.5)
4t. F&SF (22.5)
4t. Lightspeed (22.5)
6. Apex (16.5)
7. Strange Horizons (15.5)
8. Asimov's (14)
9. Fantasy Magazine (12)
10. Beneath Ceaseless Skies (11)
11. FIYAH (9.5)
12. Nightmare (9)
13. Sunday Morning Transport (8.5)
14t. The Dark (6.5)
14t. The Deadlands (6.5)
(3.) Over the past decade, the classic "big three" print magazines -- Asimov's, F&SF, and Analog -- have slowly been displaced in influence by the leading free online magazines, Tor / Reactor, Clarkesworld, Uncanny, and Lightspeed (all founded 2006-2014). In 2014, Asimov's and F&SF led the rankings by a wide margin (Analog had already slipped a bit, as reflected in its #5 ranking then). This year for the first time, the leading free online magazines are #1-#4, while the former big three sit at #5, #6, and #8. Presumably, a large part of the explanation is that there are more readers of free online fiction than of paid magazines, which is attractive to authors and probably also helps with voter attention for the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy awards.
(4.) Other lists: The SFWA qualifying markets list is a list of "pro" science fiction and fantasy venues based on pay rates and track records of strong circulation. Ralan.com was a regularly updated list of markets that unfortunately ceased in 2023. Submission Grinder is a terrific resource for authors, with detailed information on magazine pay rates, submission windows, and turnaround times.
(5.) My academic philosophy readers might also be interested in the following magazines that specialize specifically in philosophical fiction and/or fiction by academic writers: AcademFic, After Dinner Conversation, and Sci Phi Journal.
3 comments:
Don't read sci-fi anymore. It is not that I don't like it---more a matter of boredom with it. If you know the term * grok*, you might get what I am claiming. Grok came from Rogert Anson Heinlein, via Stranger in a Strange Land. Heinlein's character, Michael Valentine, was human-like, but from somewhere/when else.
As best I understand, Grok is now some AI machinery. So, please forgive me for being unmoved. For me, linking old, fun, sci-fi to modern reality is not fun.
Hi Paul, I used to like science a lot until that part of my brain atrophied from disuse. If you type in Medium Howard Berman The Book of Black Holes Forever, you'd find a very short sci fi story I wrote involving God and Black Holes- if one or two people, besides friends, read it my couple of days writing it would be justified before God and man and whatever other sentient beings are interested
Thanks! The black hole theory/notion/hypothesis has always interested me. Your take sounds refreshing, if only because I could never *mind wrap* the idea of a black hole in the first place, much less the notion of "dark matter".thereafter. So, a new perspective for me. Got it, Howie! So far, anyway.
Post a Comment