December started slow and distracted, as I abruptly found myself on a new project at work while simultaneously scrambling to wrap up and hand off the suddenly previous project. This made for a lot of long days and late nights, with little time or brain-space in which to read. Fortunately short fiction can with care be fit in the nooks and crannies of a busy schedule while also allowing enough time to actually, you know, read the works, and not simply scan them so that they ricochet off the contours of my brain and exit through my ears.

All of these stories are from two books – The Long List Anthology, vol. 6, and The Apex Book of World SF, vol. 1.

In total, I read 102 short stories in 2020. Not quite the 500 I originally hoped for. Such was 2020.

Starting in 2021 I will break the long-form prose list into monthly installments and combine it with the short prose list. No need to make my reader(s) wait a full year to see what I read in January.

The List

1. 2020.12.07 – Greenblatt, A.T. – “Give the Family My Love”, The Long List Anthology, vol. 6
2. 2020.12.08 – Chu, John – “Beyond the El”, The Long List Anthology, vol. 6
3. 2020.12.10 – Kowall, Mary Robinette, “Articulated Restraint”, The Long List Anthology, vol. 6
4. 2020.12.10 – Lee, Fonda – “I (28M) created a deepfake girlfriend and now my parents think we’re getting married”, The Long List Anthology, vol. 6
5. 2020.12.10 – Bolander, Brooke – “A Bird, a Song, a Revolution”, The Long List Anthology, vol. 6
6. 2020.12.10 – Osborne, Karen – “The Dead, In Their Uncontrollable Power”, The Long List Anthology, vol. 6
7. 2020.12.11 – Kingfisher, T. – “Fisher-Bird”, The Long List Anthology, vol. 6
8. 2020.12.11 – Wise, A.C. – “How the Trick is Done”, The Long List Anthology, vol. 6
9. 2020.12.12 – Bear, Elizabeth – “Lest We Forget”, The Long List Anthology, vol. 6
10. 2020.12.12 – Miller, Sam J. – “Shucked”, The Long List Anthology, vol. 6
11. 2020.12.15 – Yang, JY Neon – “Circus Girl, the Hunter, and Mirror Boy”, The Long List Anthology, vol. 6
12. 2020.12.15 – Bear, Elizabeth – “Deriving Life”, The Long List Anthology, vol. 6
13. 2020.12.15 – Mondal, Mimi – “His Footsteps, Through Darkness and Light”, The Long List Anthology, vol. 6
14. 2020.12.15 – Mac Griogair, M. Evan – “Seonag and the Seawolves”, The Long List Anthology, vol. 6
15. 2020.12.21 – Palmer, Suzanne – “Dave’s Head”, The Long List Anthology, vol. 6
16. 2020.12.22 – Klages, Ellen – “Nice Things”, The Long List Anthology, vol. 6
17. 2020.12.22 – Anderson, G.V. – “A Strange Uncertain Light”, The Long List Anthology, vol. 6
18. 2020.12.22 – Ogden, Aimee – “Blood, Bone, Seed, Spark”, The Long List Anthology, vol. 6
19. 2020.12.22 – Bear, Elizabeth – “Erase, Erase, Erase”, The Long List Anthology, vol. 6
20. 2020.12.25 – Lee, Yoon Ha – “Glass Cannon”, The Long List Anthology, vol. 6
21. 2020.12.25 – Somtow, S.P. – “The Bird Catcher”, The Apex Book of World SF, vol. 1
22. 2020.12.29 – de Vries, Jetse – “Transcendence Express”, The Apex Book of World SF, vol. 1
23. 2020.12.29 – Hasson, Guy – “The Levantine Experiments”, The Apex Book of World SF, vol. 1
24. 2020.12.29 – Han Song – “The Wheel of Samsara”, The Apex Book of World SF, vol. 1