I promised a summary of Asimov’s for 2008. Here ‘tis. First are my top three choices in each category, with notes, and then honorable mentions and extra commentary on a couple of writers.

Overall, I enjoyed my first full year of Asimov’s quite a bit. The magazine finds a nice halfway point between the “all science, all the time” focus of Analog and the moody, atmospheric, “there might be a speculative premise here somewhere” approach of, say, Strange Horizons. The vast majority of the stories were science fiction of one stripe or another, although at least one short-short was pure fantasy. I failed to finish four stories, mostly for combinations of draggy prose and pretentiousness of various stripes. Also, two of the four were sequels to stories I hadn’t read. There were a number of stories that were several decades out of date stylistically, and a number more that I just couldn’t quite see the use of. Still, I think the overall ratio of excellence to dreck was pretty good relative to other magazines in the field.

Also, I note with interest that of my choices for the fiction categories, five of the nine stories are by female authors. I definitely didn’t choose with this in mind, that’s just how it turned out. According to Rich Horton's year-end summary of the mag, 1/3 of the year’s total stories were by female authors. I draw no conclusions from this; I just find it interesting.

Novella:
1. The Room of Lost Souls - Kristine Kathryn Rusch
2. Truth - Robert Reed
3. The Erdmann Nexus - Nancy Kress

Objectively, I suspect that the smooth, solid political commentary “Truth” is actually better than “The Room of Lost Souls,” but “Souls” has a gosh-wow factor that bumped it up ahead for me, even though I hadn’t (and still haven’t) read the novella to which it’s a sequel, “Diving in the Wreck.” Meanwhile, "The Erdmann Nexus" was, how shall I put this--a page turner?--even though I found the premise to be a bit old-hat.

Novelette
1. Shoggoths in Bloom - Elizabeth Bear
2. Divining Light - Ted Kosmatka
3. Master of the Road to Nowhere - Carol Emshwiller

This was by far the hardest category for me, with the Bear and the Kosmatka duking it out. I’ve already squeed about “Shoggoths in Bloom” quite a bit. And look, now it’s available free online--woohoo! This is far and away my favorite of Bear’s work that I’ve read so far, and I fully expect it to be a Hugo contender (although, I confess, I’m a little surprised it didn’t make the Nebula list).

But “Divining Light” was fabulous, too: fascinating science fiction speculation (now with real science!) presented in some lovely prose, with an ending as thought-provoking as it is ambiguous. (See here for Niall Harrison cat-herding speculation about what happens at the end.) Besides, I feel just mildly proprietary towards Kosmatka, as I was hanging around the Asimov’s message board back a few years ago when he announced his very first Asimov’s sale. :)

I believe “Master of the Road to Nowhere” is the first Emshwiller I’ve read, and it presents a very peculiar alternate social instructure that I found intriguing, especially with my penchant for social situations in isolated circumstances.

Short Story
1. Wilmer or Wesley - Carol Emshwiller
2. Unlikely - Will McIntosh
3. Slug Hell - Steven Utley

“Wilmer or Wesley” is thus the second Emshwiller I’ve read, and truly skin-crawling in its depiction of a man, apparently human, who is treated like an animal for no reason he or the reader can ever discover. Yikes. “Unlikely” is a pleasant romantic romp about data mining, somewhat a lá Connie Willis--lots of fun. And “Slug Hell,” although not overburdened with plot, is a beautifully written piece about scientific dedication in extreme circumstances.

There were actually two other pieces also vying for third place: “Perfect Everything,” also by Utley (with a woman’s analog’s fabulous, devastating deconstruction of a man’s behavior towards the woman herself, whom he claims to love) and “From Babel’s Fall’n Glory We Fled,” by Michael Swanwick (an interesting alien society story layered with some dazzling verbal pyrotechnics).

Poetry
1. Light Across an Impossible Lake - Mark Rich
2. Where the Seelies Shop - Greg Beatty
3. Deaths on Other Planets (free online!) - Joanne Merriam

Although I like poetry, I’m not quite sure I understand the idea of the separate category of genre poetry; and in any case, the vast majority of what I’ve seen, Asimov’s poetry included, doesn’t strike me as being any good (although, granted, my taste in poetry hasn’t been fashionable since the 1940’s). That said, Rich’s “Light Across an Impossible Lake” was fun, if for no other reason than because poetry (and prose) about blatantly impossible things is generally fun. “Where the Seelies Shop” is an amusing bit of turnabout perspective. And I picked “Deaths on Other Planets” for my third choice just because I liked the sudden jarring of perception in the last two lines.

Cover Art
1. March - Tomasz Maronski
2. September - “The Ice War,” by John Picacio
3. August - Bob Eggleton

I had a really, really hard time deciding between those top two choices--each manages to be both speculatively interesting and just plain attractive. I think it was the quiet desolation of the Maronski piece, the hint of past history in that broken road, that finally decided me.

After those two, I had to look around a bit for a third piece that I liked, and eventually settled on the Eggleton, which I recognized from the C.J. Cherryh novel “Hammerfall” a few years ago.

And, the honorable mentions:

• The Whale’s Lover - Deborah Coates (ss) (for really big sea monsters)
• From Babel’s Fall’n Glory We Fled - Michael Swanwick (ss)
• Kallakak’s Cousins - Cat Rambo (ss)
• Slidin’ - Neil Barrett Jr. (ss) (for general wackiness, even though I couldn’t figure out what happened at the end)
• Usurpers - Derek Zumstag (ss) (for sheer storytelling)
• Dhuluma No More - Gord Seller (nvt) (because it was political and I managed to like it anyway)
• In Concert - Melanie Tem and Steve Rasnic Tem (nvt) (for, um, sentimentality very well told? something like that.)
• Perfect Everything - Steven Utley (ss)
• The Beautiful and Damned, by F. Scott Fitzgerald - Tanith Lee (nvt)

Finally, I’d like to highlight two particular authors that I gather are relatively new, and whom I suspect are going to become some of my favorites soon:

Will McIntosh published two stories in Asimov’s last year, “Unlikely” (mentioned above) and “Midnight Blue,” and I just finished reading a third one in this year’s January issue, “Bridesicle.” Although everything I’ve read of his has a speculative premise at its core, his stories concern themselves first and foremost with the characters rather than the thingamajiggies, and his depictions of those characters are always warm and sympathetic. Since warmth and sympathy seem to be sorely lacking in much SF today, I very much look forward to more from McIntosh.

Cat Rambo’s (catrambo) one Asimov’s story this year, “Kallakak’s Cousins,” made it onto my honorable mentions list, and I’ve read a number of other things by her recently in various places, including “I'll Gnaw Your Bones, the Manticore Said” (Clarkesworld) and “The Bumblety's Marble” (Paper Cities, ed. Ekaterina Sedia). Although I didn’t quite fall in love with any of them, I’m pretty sure I’m going to fall in love with something of hers soon, and for much the same reasons that I like McIntosh: interesting characters sympathetically portrayed. In addition, Rambo has a knack for dropping in tantalizing glimpses of exotic speculative locales. I expect to see her combine those strengths of setting sensawunda (which I’m a total sucker for) and characters into some really fun and interesting fiction here in the future.