Series editor John Joseph Adams and guest editor Carmen Maria Machado have released their selections for the Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2019.

From the large number of stories that series editor John Joseph Adams screened for this year’s collection, he picked the 80 best pieces to submit to editor Carmen Maria Machado for a blind reading, so that the prestige of the venues or bylines were not a factor. (The ones Adams designated as notable are shown in a table at the link). Machado then selected 20 for publication (ten science fiction, ten fantasy, highlighted in green on the table.)

The book will be published on October 1, with a cover by Galen Dara.

Here is the Table of Contents with the 20 stories they thought the best.

2019 Table of Contents

FANTASY

• Variations on a Theme from Turandot by Ada Hoffmann
  from Strange Horizons
• What Gentle Women Dare by Kelly Robson
  from Uncanny Magazine
• The Storyteller’s Replacement by N.K. Jemisin
  from How Long ’til Black Future Month?
• Dead Air by Nino Cipri
  from Nightmare Magazine
• Pitcher Plant by Adam-Troy Castro
  from Nightmare Magazine
• Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Memphis Minnie Sing the Stumps Down Good by LaShawn M. Wanak
  from FIYAH
• Godmeat by Martin Cahill
  from Lightspeed Magazine
• The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington by P. Djèlí Clark
  from Fireside Magazine
• Six Hangings in the Land of Unkillable Women by Theodore McCombs
  from Nightmare Magazine
• Dead Lovers on Each Blade, Hung by Usman Malik
  from Nightmare Magazine

SCIENCE FICTION

• The Kite Maker by Brenda Peynado
  from Tor.com
• What Everyone Knows by Seanan McGuire
  from Kaiju Rising II
• Poor Unfortunate Fools by Silvia Park
  from The Margins (Transpacific Literary Project)
• Hard Mary by Sofia Samatar
  from Lightspeed Magazine
• On the Day You Spend Forever with Your Dog by Adam Shannon
  from Apex Magazine
• Nine Last Days on Planet Earth by Daryl Gregory
  from Tor.com
• STET by Sarah Gailey
  from Fireside Magazine
• When Robot and Crow Saved East St. Louis by Annalee Newitz
  from Future Tense Fiction
• Skinned by Lesley Nneka Arimah
  from McSweeney’s
• Through the Flash by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenhyah
  from Friday Black

[Thanks to Eric Wong for the story.]