Issue 197 – February 2023

Editorial

Editor's Desk: 2022 Readers' Poll Finalists

In late January, we held the first phase of our annual Clarkesworld Magazine Readers’ Poll for best short story, novelette/novella, and cover art. This is the first year that we have separated short stories from novelettes and novellas. It’s more in line with industry awards and there are differences between the categories. Since we only publish a few novellas each year—and they are all below twenty-two thousand words—it made more sense to group them with the novelettes.

Nominations were collected by following the model we’ve used in recent years: a forty-eight hour poll announced on a random day of the month. The narrow window has proven an effective tool in our efforts to minimize the effects of ballot-stuffing and campaigning. Someone always tries, but such instances were down by about half despite a ten percent increase in participation over 2021.

As the voting progressed, several stories and covers traded places at the top of the ballot for each category. This continued down to the final hours and at the buzzer, we were once again left with several ties. As per tradition, ties in the top five progress to the final round. Each category had a small cluster of ties just one vote shy of making the final ballot. We’ve added honorable mentions to this year’s results to recognize the quality of their work as well.

Without further ado, here are this year’s finalists presented in alphabetical order:

Finalists: Best Short Story

Runners Up: Short Story

Finalists: Best Novelette/Novella

Runners Up: Novelette/Novella

Finalists: Best Cover Art

Art Block
“Art Block” by Daniel Conway

Shrine of Nameless Stars
“Shrine of Nameless Stars” by Daniel Ignacio

Canvas of Life - Violet
“Canvas of Life - Violet” by Raja Nandepu

Canvas of Life - Yellow
“Canvas of Life - Yellow” by Raja Nandepu

Ashes
“Ashes” by Yuumei

Runners Up: Cover Art

Return to Heaven 7
“Return to Heaven 7” by Zezhou Chen

Rebirth
“Rebirth” by Luca Monteleone

Congratulations to all our finalists!

Now it’s up to you to pick the winner in each category. Go to:

www.surveymonkey.com/r/clarkesworld2022poll

And rank the stories by your order of preference. Voting will close on February 15th at 8PM EST and the winners will be announced in our March issue.

Thank you and happy voting!

Author profile

Neil Clarke is the editor of Clarkesworld Magazine, Forever Magazine, and several anthologies, including the Best Science Fiction of the Year series. He is a ten-time finalist and current winner of the Hugo Award for Best Editor (Short Form), has won the Chesley Award for Best Art Director three times, and received the Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award from SFWA in 2019. His latest anthology, New Voices in Chinese Science Fiction (co-edited with Xia Jia and Regina Kanyu Wang), is now available from Clarkesworld Books. He currently lives in NJ with his wife and two sons.

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