Rocket Stack Rank

Here are 30 outstanding hard science fiction stories from 2023 that were finalists for major SF/F 🏆awards, included in "year's best" SF/F 📙anthologies, or recommended by prolific 👍reviewers in short fiction (see Q&A). That's 30 out of 250+ best SF/F stories from 2023. A story's score is the sum of the +n points in it's "Recommended By" list (click the Details link to see the awards, year's best, and reviewers and the points).

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Here are 22 outstanding hard science fiction stories from 2022 that were finalists for major SF/F 🏆awards, included in "year's best" SF/F 📙anthologies, or recommended by prolific 👍reviewers in short fiction (see Q&A). That's 22 out of 250+ best SF/F stories from 2022. A story's score is the sum of the +n points in it's "Recommended By" list (click the Details link to see the awards, year's best, and reviewers and the points).

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Here are 21 outstanding hard science fiction stories from 2021 that were finalists for major SF/F 🏆awards, included in "year's best" SF/F 📙anthologies, or recommended by prolific 👍reviewers in short fiction (see Q&A). That's 21 out of 270+ best SF/F stories from 2021. A story's score is the sum of the +n points in it's "Recommended By" list (click the Details link to see the awards, year's best, and reviewers and the points).

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Here are 26 outstanding hard science fiction stories from 2020 that were finalists for major SF/F 🏆awards, included in "year's best" SF/F 📙anthologies, or recommended by prolific 👍reviewers in short fiction (see Q&A). That's 26 out of 240+ best SF/F stories from 2020. A story's score is the sum of the +n points in it's "Recommended By" list (click the Details link to see the awards, year's best, and reviewers and the points).

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Here are 19 outstanding hard science fiction stories from 2019 that were finalists for major SF/F 🏆awards, included in "year's best" SF/F 📙anthologies, or recommended by prolific 👍reviewers in short fiction (see Q&A). That's 19 out of 300+ best SF/F stories from 2019. A story's score is the sum of the +n points in it's "Recommended By" list (click the Details link to see the awards, year's best, and reviewers and the points).

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Here are 27 outstanding hard science fiction stories from 2018 that were finalists for major SF/F 🏆awards, included in "year's best" SF/F 📙anthologies, or recommended by prolific 👍reviewers in short fiction (see Q&A). That's 27 out of 340+ best SF/F stories from 2018. A story's score is the sum of the +n points in it's "Recommended By" list (click the Details link to see the awards, year's best, and reviewers and the points).

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Here are 33 outstanding stories of hard science fiction from 2017 that were either finalists for major SF/F awards 🏆, included in "year's best" SF/F anthologies 📙, or recommended by prolific reviewers 👍 in short fiction (see Q&A). That's 33 out of 95 hard science fiction stories from that year, and out of 279 outstanding SF/F stories from 2017. Each story shows a "Recommended By" list where a score is tallied from the +2, +1 or +0 after each recommendation.

Observations:

• 20 are free online (click to see yellow highlights).
• 7 (over 1/5) are from Analog Science Fiction.
• The most prolific authors in this list are Suzanne Palmer, Alastair Reynolds and Jay Werkheiser with 2 stories each.
• RSR recommended 15 of the stories and only recommended against 3.

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It has been eighteen months since we explored the Health of Hard Science Fiction in 2015 (Short Fiction), so we're overdue to take a look at 2016. This report divides into three sections:

• A selection of 42 of the best hard SF stories of 2016 together with links to the ones that are free online. 
• A list of 21 controversial SF stories of 2016, where RSR disagreed with other reviewers.
• A detailed analysis of hard SF in 2016 with charts and graphs.

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Now that 2015 is almost over as far as the Hugos go, we decided to look over all the stories that we or anyone else recommended and see which qualified as hard SF. In particular, we wanted to investigate the following claims:

1. No one is writing good hard-SF stories anymore.
2. Hard SF has no variety and keeps reusing old ideas.
3. Only men write hard SF.
4. Most hard SF is published in Analog.

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