Quick Thoughts - 2015 Statistics

So 2015 is officially over and done, and, as promised, I have stats for you all. Now, maybe you've noticed that I am rather…a fan of statistics. Well I am. So to have an entire year of data, without holes, is amazing. So amazing. And instead of frontloading this post with analysis of the data, I will start things out by just posting it. So yeah:

2015 Stats
Month	# Stories	# Words	Average Words	<1500	1500-7500	>7500	Shortest	Longest
January	61	306695	5028	5	47	9	911	15805
February	60	221820	3697	13	42	5	349	15347
March	63	242053	3842	13	47	3	213	14004
April	67	280780	4191	14	46	7	237	22548
May	50	222728	4455	5	42	3	510	14373
June	70	276295	3947	16	47	7	142	19323
July	57	271079	4756	6	40	11	638	14800
August	57	221554	3887	8	45	4	97	15034
September	52	228589	4396	6	43	3	543	15000
October	89	356908	4010	23	58	8	349	28027
November	55	238754	4341	7	41	7	205	13714
December	61	251850	4129	10	48	3	250	14475
Total	742	3119105	4223	126	546	70	97	28027

And there you have it. I will start out by saying: wow. Thank you, writers of the world. Thank you for giving me 742 different stories to read this year. That's over three million words of reading. That's…well, that's quite a bit. And by and large I have enjoyed the vast majority of those stories. So yeah, my thanks go out to anyone who writes and anyone who publishes and anyone who inspires great stories. You rock. Keep on keepin' on. 

I want to look a bit at the Total row a bit, aside from the actual totals. The average word count is quite interesting to me, because it does seem to be (in my experiences at least) about the "preferred" length most publications list on their guidelines. So it's not exactly a lie. Of course, some of that might be trended down a little because the stories I look are more likely to be under 1500 words than they are over 7500 words. I've talked about this in the past, but I suspect a lot that has to do with the fact that I do not read many novellas, or publications that put out novellas. Tor is about the only publication that regularly puts out work of that length. If I read F&SF, Asimov's, and Analog I would certainly expect that average word count to creep up a bit. Of course, if I read Daily Science Fiction I expect that average would go down. Those are really the biggest holes in my reading, and they aren't holes I'm likely to close any time soon. With the sheer volume of work I try to review, it's just not really possible to keep up on everything (sorry!). 

But yeah, just to touch on the by the numbers word counts. Of the 742 stories, only 70 qualify for the novelette category for the Hugos. The Hugos? Why yes, I might take this time to suggest maybe possibly thinking about shifting some categories in the Hugos. Just looking at things by the numbers, that's 70 novelettes or novellas that I read and 672 short stories. I actually read more flash fiction (work under 150) than I read novellas and novelettes combined. Especially because it's difficult to compete with longer short stories as a flash piece, flash tend to be excluded from things. Which is a shame, because flash is amazing. It would be nice to see flash maybe get an award category somewhere. But okay, okay, I'll quiet down about that. Obviously there is a great range of story lengths, from 97 words to 28027 words. That's…a bit difference. It's great that there is room for all these different tales. 

So now to the month-to-month breakdowns. October was absolutely crazy. 89 stories, including the longest story of the year, It snagged the most stories, most total words, longest story, most flash fiction stories, and most regular short stories. It was also in the top three for novelette or longer stories and about middle of the road as far as average word count is concerned (probably dropped because of all that flash). Longest average story, longest shortest story, and least number of flash fiction stories came in January, which also had the second most total words of any month. Least total words and shortest story came in August, and least total stories, least flash fictions stories, and tied for least novelettes and higher came in May. There really isn't too much a drastic shift month to month in any category, though obviously there are small things like special issues with lots of flash or lots of novelettes and some months just seem kind of slow. I'm actually surprised I started out as fast as I did, with so much in January, because 2016 seems to be off to a slow start. Still, there's time to turn that around. 

All said, I'm rather pleased with how 2015 went, review-wise. I wrote 313 posts for Quick Sip Reviews, and while I somewhat suspect my stats will decrease some in 2016, I think I'll still do all right. Anyway, there are the stats. Perhaps I will post the master list of stories I've reviewed at some point, complete with typos and copy/pasted word counts (where they weren't available from the publisher). Thanks for reading! 

All the best, 

Charles Payseur

Quick Sips - Uncanny #8 (January Stuff)

Today I'm looking at the latest from Uncanny Magazine, which kicks off it's second full year. It's once more brought a strong mix of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, looking at the things that bring us together, the things that keep us apart. The fiction revels in the strange and magical, the poetry is dark as shadow, and the nonfiction is sporting a pocket protector and a letter jacket. It's a nice mix of elements, nothing really dominating thematically but each piece strong, honed, and giving each space to succeed on their own. So time to get to some reviews!

Art by Priscilla H. Kim

Quick Sips - Lightspeed #68

January is always a month to focus on beginnings and endings, and Lightspeed Magazine is doing just that with four stories that circle around the idea of life and death and life in death and death in life, all messy and all complex and all quite good. The science fiction outweighs the fantasy a bit in word count but I'm not sure about in emotional wallop, as all the stories this month hit hard and take no prisoners. From a story about bodies and oppression and abuse to one about love and death and loss, these tales blend light and darkness liberally and effectively, presenting a fitting opening to the new year. Time to review!

Art by Galen Dara

Quick Sips - Clarkesworld #112

The first Clarkesworld issue of 2016 certainly doesn't pull it's punches. Weighing in at over 40k of original fiction, it's on the heavy side, both length-wise and message-wise. The stories are dense, rather subtle, and not overly cheery. But inside these entirely science fictional stories are examinations of inequality and value. Questions of what makes life worth living, and what humanity requires. Stories of love and challenge and pushing the boundaries of human experience while still grasping at what makes us human. So yeah, let the reviews begin!

Art by Julie Dillon

Quick Sips - Flash Fiction Online January 2016

2016 is officially here, and my first review of an actual issue is, of course, Flash Fiction Online. Why? Well, firstly because the publication is always out on time, the first day of the month, and because it's just the right length for kicking off the new month and the new year. Three flash fiction stories, all razor-sharp and punchy and complex, the issue continues to provide high quality (very) short stories month after month. This issue is all about starting over, which is fitting for the new year. The stories all circle around the idea, either of going back to try life again or else leaving behind an old life to start a new one or else having to keep going after a loss. The stories show how people handle the idea of endings and beginnings, and there's a lot to like in them. So let's start the first reviews of 2016!

Art by Dario Bijelac

THE SIPPY AWARDS - The "I'd Ship That" Sippy for Excellent Relationships in Short SFF

The Sippy Awards are upon us! Know ye excellent short fiction and despair...er, wait, no...rejoice! Yes, that's the ticket. Rejoice, for the hour of the award that no one asked for has come. I mentioned a while ago that I'd be running these, and here is the first. The format will be the same for each award. There will be five total awards, and five stories will be featured, with one "Big Sip" and four regular-sized Sippy Awards. First up is--

The "I'd Ship That" Sippy 

for Excellent Relationships in Short SFF

That's right, it's all about relationships today. I'm a sucker for a good love story, but not all of the stories below are happily-ever-afters. Indeed, a good relationship is one that's messy, that's complex. That's alive. These are stories with relationships at their hearts, and that do a damn fine job of showing people trying to find in each other a great many things: forgiveness, escape, redemption, acceptance. And these are the stories that I picked out as containing my favorite relationships.

Quick Thoughts - A New Year

Okay everyone, 2015 is officially on the books. Done. Welcome, 2016!

I will no-doubt have some stats to post about soon enough for the year, but as I looked back last week, this week I want to look forward. To how I want to tackle the new year. Which, surprise surprise, isn't all that different to how I tackled last year. I started this blog because I wanted a place to give my thoughts on short SFF (fiction, poetry, and nonfiction). That is still the case. I love SFF, and I love the freedom that short SFF affords, the chances that it takes, the voices that it highlights. Now, short SFF is a mercurial thing. Sometimes it seems even the best of stories is swallowed up by the sheer tide of work coming out. But fuck, I think it's a tide worth swimming against. Worth holding up a story, a poem, and saying "This. This is amazing. Read this."

In that vein, tomorrow will mark the start of the First Annual Sippy Awards! Which have been killing me to pick, because I have loved so much put out this year. I already recommend nine stories every month at Nerds of a Feather, so cutting down that list to just twenty-five for the entire year, when sometimes it is agonizing choosing only nine a month, has been an exercise in hard decisions. But what I want to do with what voice I have is to showcase stories I love. And to promote thinking about and discussing short SFF.

So what more can you expect in 2016? Well, in the world of novels I will be participating in the K. Tempest Bradford Reading Challenge, so my Quick Links will likely be filled with those reviews. I will not be extending the challenge to short fiction, because I still want to review every piece of original fiction that I can, and review full issues regardless of ToC. I feel this might be a bit of a dodge, but I do think it's important to keep looking at everything I can, especially because policing who qualifies and who doesn't when it comes to short fiction can be impossible. Not everyone is out or can be out, and I don't want to be that asshole who is going around picking works based on author name alone and how non-white they sound. The truth is that I don't trust myself to be able to do due-diligence when it comes to fact-checking each author I would read, so I'm just leaving short SFF as is for 2016.

I also have a hankering to do something along the lines of interviews with peeps doing short SFF in 2016 (called, of course, Quick Questions), but I have no idea when I might be able to get this going. My plate is...full at the moment, and I need to make sure that I keep up on my commitments elsewhere. Just saying, though, that I would love to sit down and talk to some people about their stories and about short SFF in general. So I hope that maybe I can add that to the lineup. Of course, I will be a little hard-pressed to find time to post all of this. At 313 posts in 2015, I clocked in at exactly averaging six a week. Not exactly a lot of space to add more, but who knows?

I'd also love to get more involved with contributing elsewhere. I was thrilled to participate in K. Tempest Bradford's "Best of..." post and I've been a few other places around the internets, and I just love talking about genre and short SFF and everything. But again, I don't want to overbook myself (well, more than I already do...). So yeah. And if anyone wants to shout-out some ideas or suggestions in the comments, feel free. What would  you like to see in 2016? Anyway, thanks for reading. 2015 is dead. Long live 2016!

All the best,

Charles Payseur