“Thoughts and Prayers” is about a mother and father who advocate for gun control following their daughter’s murder only to find themselves targeted by internet trolls who harass them with violent deepfakes of their daughter. John Joseph Adams, series editor of
The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, says that “Thoughts and Prayers” is exactly the kind of story he’s always looking to publish.
“Sure, you could label it an ‘issue story’ and complain about it if you’re somebody who complains about those things, but it’s presenting it in such a way that I feel like it negates that argument,” he says. “This is art. This is 100 percent art, because of how deeply it makes you think about what’s happening in the story, and how closely you get into the heads of these characters.”
Locus magazine’s February 2021 issue, the list is a consensus by the
Locus editors, columnists, outside reviewers, and other professionals and critics of genre fiction and non-fiction editor-in-chief Liza Groen Trombi; reviews editor Jonathan Strahan;
Locus reviewers Liz Bourke, Alex Brown, Karen Burnham, Katharine Coldiron, Paul Di Filippo, Amy Goldschlager
, Paula Guran, Rich Horton, Maya James, John Langan, Russell Letson, Adrienne Martini, Ian Mond, Colleen Mondor, Tim Pratt, Elsa Sjunneson, Gary K. Wolfe, and Alvaro Zinos-Amaro; Bob Blough; critics and authors Gwenda Bond, James Bradley, Niall Harrison, Paul Kincaid, Cheryl Morgan, Adam Roberts, and Graham Sleight. Art books were compiled with help from Arnie Fenner, Karen Haber, and senior editor Francesca Myman. Short fiction recommendations had input from editors and reviewers Rachel S. Cordasco, Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, Vanessa Fogg, Maria Haskins, Charles Payseur, Nisi Shawl, TG Shenoy, Sheree Renée Thomas, Sea
Issue #38, January/February 2021
$3.99 digital only, bi-monthly.
Science fiction and fantasy magazine with original and reprint fiction, non-fiction essays, interviews, and poetry. This issue includes fiction by Sam J. Miller, Miyuki Jane Pinckard, Nicole Kornher-Stace, Paul Cornell, Christopher Caldwell, and Marissa Lingen; a reprint from Del Sandeen; essays from John Wiswell, Octavia Cade, Katherine Cross, and Aidan Moher; interviews with Miyuki Jane Pinckard and Paul Cornell; and poetry. Cover art by Nilah Magruder. E-book subscribers receive the complete ebook on the first Tuesday of the month. Online readers will receive the first half of the magazine on the first Tuesday of the month. The second half will be available the first Tuesday of the following month. Also available free on the
It’s always seemed to me that John Joseph Adams’s
Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy series, now in its sixth volume, has served a somewhat different if equally important purpose than the more traditional year’s best volumes which have been a staple of SF publishing for more than 70 years. While those volumes have historically been SF’s way of presenting itself
to itself (always with the hopes of drawing a broader readership among those who simply want to check in on SF from time to time), Adams’s annual volumes are part of the “Best American” series of focused anthologies which began with
Photo credit: Tina Chiou
Charles Yu has been writing award-winning, genre-bending work for nearly twenty years now, including the short story collection
Third Class Superhero and
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, which was the runner-up for 2011’s Campbell Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. His work in television includes being a writer and story editor for the first season of
Westworld, and his latest novel,
Interior Chinatown, recently won the National Book Award in Fiction, a rare moment of joy in 2020.
Just before the new year, Yu and I spoke about the novel, writing techniques, and his new novelette,