It kinda bums me out that Best Ofs tend to me...the best of things published within a rather narrow band of the field that we'll all just pretend is comprehensive? I don't mean to cast aspersions on writers appearing in Best Ofs (it's great! get paid! pretty books!). but...

I do notice that the selections have a tendency to come from the same fairly limited number of publications, few of which have...robust open submissions? so it can feel a bit gatekeeping and self-reinforcing of this vision of what is best and what is "essential" reading

I quick crunched the numbers on 4 Best Ofs from this year. 110 total selections. Fully half of those from just 7 publications. And sure, those 7 publications could have had great years. But...still.

Having explicitly seen the argument from *certain review sites* that this means it's only worth reading from those publications that continually get such nods, my own enthusiasm tends to take a hit seeing that kind of thinking backed up by the numbers.

I know when I try to wrangle recommendation lists, I am trying to be mindful that it's easy to fall into tunnels within the genre and miss a lot. Do a lot of my faves come from certain publications? yes, sure! Would I put a The Best Of on any of those lists? ...no...

I'd want to be incredibly careful with that kind of language, bc it implies a level of comprehensiveness that might not be backed up.

is there too much short SFF to read in a year? Yes, absolutely. no one person can possibly get to it all. should the effort still be made to maybe reach outside the relatively narrow "regulars" and see what's out there if you're going to call something a Best Of? ...probably...

anyway, this is not to say the works that appear in best ofs aren't amazing! They by and large are! And they no doubt take an incredible amount of work which I appreciate the heck out of!

but, you know. power. responsibility. yo. anyway, that's my little gripe, closely related to "BUT WHAT ABOUT ALL THE STORIES I LOVED?!?!" weh!