I just returned from a delightful long weekend on the Oregon Coast, where I attended a short story workshop with Sheila Williams, the editor at Asimov’s Science Fiction.  As prep for the workshop, I had to read all of the stories that have come out in Asimov’s so far this year.  That’s a LOT of fiction.  If you want a good deal, subscribe to Asimov’s, Analog, and/or Fantasy and Science Fiction.  At any rate, almost all of the short work I’ve read this year has been Asimov’s because of this workshop, and many of my Analogs for 2008 still have pristine covers and unbroken backs.  I do like both magazines, and I hope I get to the Analogs before the year is out.  We’ll see.  If I read all I want, I’d never get to write.

Anyway, first of all I’d like to say this was  good year for Asimov’s.  I think I’d been waiting to see how Sheila would do, and I have to say, she’s done great.  Here are some of the my favorites from this year’s issues (so far),  in no particular order:

From July 2008:

Vinegar Peace, or, The Wrong-Way Used Adult Orphange, by Michael Bishop
Lester Young and the Jupiter’s Moons’ Blues, by Gord Sellar
26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss, by Kij Johnson

February 2008:

The Ray-Gun:  A Love Story, by James Alan Gardner
The Egg Man, by Mary Rosenblum

September 2008

In the Age of the Quiet Sun, by William Barton
Horse Racing, by Mary Rosenblum

March 2008

Following the Pharmers, by Brian Stableford
Master of the Road to Nowhere, by Carol Emshwiller

October/November 2008:

Cat in the Rain, Jack Skillingstead
The Erdmann Nexus, Nancy Kress

June 2008:

Call Back Yesterday, by Nancy Kress

April/May 2008:

In the Room of Lost Souls, Kristine Kathryn Rusch