INTERACTION

Can't see an obvious thread for this, so I'm starting one - mods, feel free to move to the right place if I've messed up...

Out of 32 stories, my preliminary runthrough threw up 19 that I liked enough to vote for, but I'm going to try to whittle it down to ten, so here goes:

Into The Depths of Illuminated Seas, by Jason Sanford
Human Error, by Jay Lake
Chimbwi, by Jim Hawkins
Flying In The Face Of God, by Nina Allan
Plague Birds, by Jason Sanford,
Mannikin by Paul Evanby
Orchestral Manoevures In The Dark Matter, by Jim Hawkins
Love & War, by Tim Lees
The Shipmaker, by Aliette de Bodard
Peacemaker, Peacemaker, Little Bo Peep, by Jason Sanford

so I make Jason Sanford the "winner", but an honourable mention to Jim Hawkins, 100% of whose stories made the cut for me.

One thing I think is worthy of comment is that I always think of IZ as a "British" SF magazine, but by my (fast and loose) count in the last year only 10 of 32 stories, and 7 of 23 authors were of British origin - under a third on both counts. Unsure what to make of this - I'd certainly rather read a good story from anywhere than a mediocre one by a Brit, but what does it mean for my perception of IZ as "British"? Answers on a postcard....

_________________
Dan

www.bugpowderdust.co.uk

Thanks for your votes maggielovesshopey (??)...

I'll add them to the pile.

_________________
_____________________________
http://www.mmcgrath.co.uk

My vote goes like this.

I can't point only one story as the best, so these are my choices.
Millisent Ka and Plague Birds by Jason Sanford,
Hibakusha Tyler Keevil
Aquestria Stephen Gaskell,
In the Harsh Glow and Dance of the Kawkawroons by Mercurio Rivera,
Flying in the Face of God Nina Allan,
The Untied States of America by Mario Milosevic,
The Shipmaker by de Bodard


Three of the best were Plague Birds, Untied States and Flying in the Face of God.

All in all the complete year has been somewhat weaker than the last two (but then again 2010. had been one of the worst years in SF in the last decade). Only Asimov's had somewhat better quality of published stories than in 2009.
Interzone's stories had overall good quality with none of the stories I'd mark as non satisfactory or bad.

Zdeslav Benzon
Split, Croatia

My favorites so far are:

In the Harsh Glow and Dance of the Kawkawroons by Mercurio Rivera,

The Shipmaker by de Bodard

Love & War, by Tim Lees

Aquestria by Stephen Gaskell

Alternate Girl's Expatriate Life by Rochita Loenen-Ruiz

Flying in the Face of God by Nina Allan,

Chimbwi, by Jim Hawkins

The Insurance Agent by Lavie Tidhar

The Untied States of America by Mario Milosevic

Orchestral Manoevures In The Dark Matter, by Jim Hawkins

Some really good stuff this year.

Rafala

Here's my top 5.

The History of Poly-V by John Ingold
Dance of the Kawkawroons by Mercurio D Rivera
Flying in the Face of God by Nina Allan
Into the Depths of Illuminated Seas by Jason Sanford
Over Water by John Ingold

These were the stories that came to mind unprompted (although I did have to glance back to check the spelling of Kawkawroons). They're quite different stories and I suppose they each left a different sort of impression for different sorts of reasons, but they all left an impression.

Interzone has continued to look gorgeous this year, thanks in no small part to Warwick Fraser-Coombe. I've also really enjoyed Ben Baldwin's art inside the magazine.

_________________
http://www.davidmcgroarty.net

My votes for the stories are (in alphabetical order by author):

"Flying in the Face of God" by Nina Allen (issue 227)
"The Shipmaker" by Aliette de Bodard (issue 231)
"The Shoe factory" by Matthew Cook (issue 231)
"Orchestral Manoevures In The Dark Matter" by Jim Hawkins (issue 229)
"A Passion for Art" by David D. Levine (issue 228)
"Dance of the Kawkawroons" by Mercurio D. Rivera (issue 227)
"Alternate Girl's Expatriate Life" by Rochita Loenen-Ruiz (issue 229)
"Again and Again and Again" by Rachel Swirsky (issue 226)
"The Insurance Agent" by Lavie Tidhar (issue 230)

My votes for best art are:

All 6 covers by Warwick Fraser-Coombe (and their combined illustration)
Illustration for "Peacemaker, Peacemaker, Little Po Beep" by Warwick Fraser-Coombe (issue 231)
Illustration for "Plague Birds" by Darren Winter (issue 228)
Illustration for "The Shipmaker" by Richard Wagner (issue 231)

I have no negative votes for either stories or art. Overall, Interzone had another great year.

Having managed to sit down at the computer with a list of stories in hand, so I know what I'm doing (sort of), my favourite IZ stories for 2010 were:

The Shipmaker by Aliette de Bodard
Into The Depths of Illuminated Seas by Jason Sanford
Plague Birds by Jason Sanford

For artwork, I loved the concept of the 6-issue picture and would like to register a vote for it. In terms of internal artwork, I think 2010 was a great year but my votes match with Jason Sanford's:



I'm going to go do some work now before I start sounding like Jason's fangirl or summat.

_________________
Jo Thomas
http://www.journeymouse.net/

Start?

Having missed ten months of the year, I suspect my list would be skewed slightly. But I'm no research expert, so I can't be sure.

_________________
The Galactic Series - short fiction space opera blog.
(Twitter)
Latest: "Hotel" (Digital Artifacts, pt. 4)

My favorites this year:

"Flying the Face of God" by Nina Allan
"The Shipmaker" by Aliette de Bodard
"Memoria" by Jason Sanford
"Hibakusha" by Tyler Keevil
"Again and Again and Again" by Rachel Swirsky

Artwork: Jim Burns for "In the Harsh Glow of its Incandescent Beauty"

An impressive year, IZ!

--Mercurio Rivera

Please continue to cast your votes here, but if anyone prefers to use the more private website form, it's now finally live...

http://ttapress.com/1034/vote-now-for-y ... -2010/0/4/

Thanks for that.. I'll have to try harder on volume this year!

_________________
Jim

I could go for a much longer list, and probably should, but I'm going to limit myself to a top five. My personal favourites from Interzone 2010 are:

"Flying in the Face of God" by Nina Allan
"The Shipmaker" by Aliette de Bodard
"Into the Depths of Illuminated Seas" by Jason Sanford
"Candy Moments" by Antony Mann
"Hibakusha" by Tyler Keevil

For best art I'll say:

Robert Dunn for "Flying in the Face of God"
Dave Senecal for "Alternate Girl's Expatriot Life"
Ben Baldwin for "Into the Depths of Illuminated Seas"
Richard Wagner for "Love and War"
Richard Wagner for "The Shipmaker"

The stories:
"Into the Depths of Illuminated Seas" by Jason Sanford
"Human Error" by Jay Lake
"The History of Poly-V" by Jon Ingold
"Plague Birds" by Jason Sanford
"Over Water" by Jon Ingold

The art:
Ben Baldwin (Into the Depths of Illuminated Seas)
Robert Dunn (Flying in the Face of God)
Ben Baldwin (The Upstairs Window)
Ben Baldwin (The Shoe Factory)
Richard Wagner (Over Water)

I also liked Warwick Fraser-Coombe's combined picture which worked really well as individual covers, though on balance my personal preference would be to have more than one cover artist per year; I do enjoy seeing what different artists bring to the covers of Interzone.

Overall, I thought it was a really strong year for Interzone; though I only listed my top five, most of the stories hit the spot.

NB: On preview, it looks like I've missed the cut-off date. Oh well, working a month without a day off will do that.

Sometimes it does feel more American than anything else but it does seem to publish more European authors than the American mags. As you say, though, quality of the story should be a primary determinate as to whether a story is published over the nationality of the author. IZ's non-fiction sections are decidely different in their outlook from their American colleagues so if there is something that defines its Britishness, or otherwise, I would have to say that it depends on the editorial and reviews content rather than the stories.

I gave a rating to all the stories but as this would make an almost unuably long list, I'm just going to post those that made a 7/10 or better:

Mannikin -- Paul Evanby
Memoria -- Jason Sanford
Into the Depths of Illuminated Seas -- Jason Sanford
United States of America -- Mario Milosevic
Plague Birds -- Jason Sanford

It looks as if Mr Sanford is fairly well represented here...

_________________
-
John Fairhurst

http://www.johnsbooks.co.uk