I'm still reading through all the short fiction finalists for this year's Hugo Award, so my picks for those awards will have to wait a few days. In the meantime, here are my picks for the two Best Editor categories.
Best Editor, Short Form
Since I mainly write short stories, I'm very familiar with the finalists in the Best Editor, Short Form, category. Every editor here is worthy of winning, and two of them — Ellen Datlow and Sheila Williams — have twice won the award, with Datlow also previously winning the Best Professional Editor award two additional times.
This is a hard choice, not the least since I love Sheila Williams for her continuing work with Asimov's. Neil Clarke has also done amazing things with Clarkesworld while Jonathan Strahan's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year remains essential reading for anyone in our genre. Unfortunately, I haven't yet read Datlow's most recent Best Horror of the Year anthology but I'm sure it continues to meet the incredibly high standard she's always set for her editing.
This year, though, I'm voting for John Joseph Adams for Best Editor, Short Form. Adams has been pushing the bounds of short fiction editing in our genre, both through his anthologies and his online magazines. It is staggering to think about all Adams does to promote short stories these days. Lightspeed Magazine is one of our genres leading SF/F magazines while Nightmare occupies a similar space in the horror and dark fantasy fields. And now Adams is the series editor for Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy, which will instantly become one of the highest profile venues for SF/F short stories in the world.
For all that Adams has done and is doing to raise the profile of short form fiction in our genre, he is my pick for this year's Hugo Award.
Best Editor, Long Form
I will admit up front that my depth of knowledge in this category doesn't equal that of the short form editors, so please take my pick with a grain of genre salt.
In many ways you judge long-form editors by the books their publishing houses release. Tor Books has long been one of the most vital publishers in our genre, and Liz Gorinsky is an essential part of Tor's success. Between editing book length projects and short fiction, it's hard to imagine Tor without Gorinsky.
The same can be said of Lee Harris and Angry Robot. This publisher burst on the scene in recent years with an impressive lineup of books and authors and I'm thrilled to see Harris being honored for this work with his first Hugo nomination.
I'm also happy to see Ginjer Buchanan on the list. Buchanan recently retired after a 30-year career as Editor-in-Chief at Ace and Roc Books and is one of those people who helped shape the direction of our genre. As has Sheila Gilbert, who runs DAW Books alongside Elizabeth R. Wollheim (who won this award two years ago). I'm not as familiar with the final nominee, Baen Books publisher Toni Weisskopf, mainly because most Baen novels don't appeal to me.
I could easily see several of these editors winning, but this year I'm voting Liz Gorinsky for Best Editor, Long Form. Tor had the best year of all the publishers listed here and Gorinsky played a major role in this success.