Rachel Swirsky's Short Story Nebula Reccommendations, 2009

I recently blitzed through a number of short stories so that I could finalize the short story portion of my Nebula ballot. I wanted to post about the ones I decided to nominate, and also some of the other excellent ones I encountered in my reading. I hope people will check out these stories, possibly for award consideration, but mostly because they’re cool.

I have a post up at Ecstatic Days explaining my methodology for creating a reading list, and a few other points about what went into creating my list of nominees and recommendations.

Here are the nominees and recommendations themselves.

My short story nominations
“Bridesicle” by Will McIntosh, Asimov’s Science Fiction
“Remembrance is Something Like a House” by Will Ludwigsen, Interfictions 2
“The Mermaids Singing Each to Each” by Cat Rambo, Clarkesworld
“The Godfall’s Chemsong” by Jeremiah Tolbert, Interzone
“Non-Zero Probabilities” by N. K. Jemisin, Clarkesworld

Highly Recommended Stories
“Tio Gilberto and the Twenty-Seven Ghosts” by Benjamin Francisco, Realms of Fantasy*
“Nine Sundays in a Row” by Kris Dikeman, Strange Horizons**
“Reading by Numbers” by Aidan Doyle, Fantasy Magazine
“Spar” by Kij Johnson, Clarkesworld
“Marsh Gods” by Ann Leckie, Strange Horizons**
“Superhero Girl” by Jessica Lee, Fantasy Magazine**

Recommended Stories
“Turning the Apples” by Tina Connolly, Strange Horizons
“The Score” by Alaya Dawn Johnson, Interfictions 2
“A Song to Greet the Sun” by Alaya Dawn Johnson, Fantasy Magazine
“Endangered Camp” by Ann Leckie, Clockwork Phoenix 2
“…That Has Such People In It” by Jennifer Pelland, Apex Digest
“Ms. Liberty Gets a Haircut” by Cat Rambo, Strange Horizons
“Water Museum” by Nisi Shawl, Filter House
“The Moon Over Tokyo through Leaves in the Fall” by Jerome Stueart, Fantasy Magazine
“Light on the Water” by Genevieve Valentine, Fantasy Magazine
“Bespoke” by Genevieve Valentine, Strange Horizons
“The Olverung” by Steven Woodworth, Realms of Fantasy**

Tiptree Nominated Stories
I also nominated three of these stories for the Tiptree — “The Mermaids Singing Each to Each” by Cat Rambo (Clarkesworld), “Godfall’s Chemsong” by Jeremiah Tolbert (Interzone), and “A Song to Greet the Sun” by Alaya Dawn Johnson (Fantasy Magazine)

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*This story would have been one of my five nominees except for the conflict of interest created by its appearance on PodCastle during my tenure as editor.
**These stories also appeared in PodCastle during my tenure as editor.

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“The Mathematics of Faith” by Jonathan Wood, Beneath Ceaseless Skies — deleted from a previous version of this list because it is a novelette.