Elinor Arnason - The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirtieth Annual Collection

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The editor would like to thank the following people for their help and support: Susan Casper, Jonathan Strahan, Sean Wallace, Gordon Van Gelder, Andy Cox, John Joseph Adams, Ellen Datlow, Sheila Williams, Trevor Quachri, Peter Crowther, Chris Lotts, William Shaffer, Ian Whates, Paula Guran, Tony Daniel, Liza Trombi, Robert Wexler, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Tom Bouman, Amanda Brown, Sara Sheiner, Liz Sims, Jolie Hale, Peter Colebor, David Hutchinson, Steven H. Silver, Russell B. Farr, Brian White, Eric Reynolds, Ivor W. Hartman, Correio do Fantastico, Edwina Harvey, Roger Gray, Erin Underwood, Gabrielle Harbowy, Torie Atkinson, George Mann, Jennifer Brehl, Peter Tennant, Susan Marie Groppi, Karen Meisner, Wendy S. Delmater, Jed Hartman, Rich Horton, Mark R. Kelly, Tehani Wessely, Michael Smith, Tod McCoy, Brian White, Andrew Wilson, Robert T. Wexler, Jenny Blackford, Elizabeth Bear, Aliette de Bodard, Sarah Monette, Jay Lake, Eleanor Arnason, Indrapramit Das, Hannu Rajaniemi, Lavie Tidhar, Paul McAuley, Adam Roberts, Megan Lindholm, Richard A. Lovett, William Gleason, Michael Flynn, Michael Bishop, Andy Duncan, Daniel Abraham, Ty Franck, Robert Charles Wilson, Robert Reed, Brit Mandelo, Sean McMullen, Christopher Barzak, Linda Nagata, Pat Cadigan, David Moles, Vandana Singh, Carrie Vaughn, Alastair Reynolds, Ken Liu, Stephen Popkes, James Patrick Kelly, Linn Prentis, Liz Gorinsky, Mike Resnick, Molly Gloss, Tom Purdom, Walter Jon Williams, Nancy Kress, Damien Broderick, Jeff VanderMeer, Kathleen Ann Goonan, Tobias Buckell, Bruce Sterling, Lawrence M. Schoen, David Hartwell, Kelly Link, Gavin Grant, John Klima, John ONeill, Charles Tan, Rodger Turner, Tyree Campbell, Stuart Mayne, John Kenny, Edmund Schubert, Tehani Croft, Karl Johanson, Ian Randall Strock, Nick Wood, Sally Wiener Grota, Sally Beasley, Tony Lee, Joe Vas, John Pickrell, Ian Redman, Anne Zanoni, Kaolin Fire, Ralph Benko, Paul Graham Raven, Nick Wood, Mike Allen, Jason Sizemore, Karl Johanson, Sue Miller, David Lee Summers, Christopher M. Cevasco, Tyree Campbell, Andrew Hook, Vaughne Lee Hansen, Mark Watson, Nadea Mina, Sarah Lumnah, and special thanks to my own editor, Marc Resnick.

Thanks are also due to the late, lamented Charles N. Brown, and to all his staff, whose magazine Locus [Locus Publications, P.O. Box 13305, Oakland, CA 94661, $60 in the U.S. for a one-year subscription (twelve issues) via second class; credit card orders (510) 339 9198] was used as an invaluable reference source throughout the Summation; Locus Online (www.locusmag.com), edited by Mark R. Kelly, has also become a key reference source.

Well, the physical print book didnt die in 2012, although some commentators have been predicting that it would be totally extinct by 2015. Nor have e-books proved to be a transitory fad, as the more wishful thinking of the print purists once asserted that they would turn out to be.

Instead, something interesting seems to be happening. More people are reading than ever before, and it may be that rather than driving print books into extinction, the two forms are complementing each other in a synergistic way, one helping to boost the other. It may be that the more you read, in either print or electronic form, the more you want to read.

The average American adult read seventeen books in 2012, the highest figure since Gallup began tracking the figure in 1990.

A Pew Research Center survey said the percentage of adults who have read an e-book rose over the past year, from 16 percent to 23 percent. But 89 percent of regular book readers said that they had also read at least one printed book during the preceding twelve months.

Although comprehensive overall figures for 2012 wont be available for some time yet as I type these words, according to Stephen Marche, writing in Esquire, revenue for adult hardcover books is up 8.3 percent in the January-June 2012 period from the same period in 2011, from 2.038 billion dollars to 2.207 billion. Paperback sales were up 5.2 percent (other figures suggest that this growth was mostly in trade paperbacks, while mass-market paperbacks declined, suggesting that a significant proportion of those who used to buy mass-market paperbacks are now buying e-books instead; see the novel section below for further breakdowns), while book sales for young adults and children grew by 12 percent.

According to Nicholas Carr, writing in The Wall Street Journal, Hardcover books are displaying surprising resiliency. The growth in e-book sales is slowing markedly. And purchases of e-readers are actually shrinking, as consumers opt instead for multipurpose tablets. It may be that e-books, rather than replacing printed books, will ultimately serve a role more like audio booksa complement to traditional reading, not a substitute. The Association of American Publishers reported that the annual growth rate for e-book sales fell during 2012, to 34 percent, still impressive, but a decline from the triple-digit growth rates of the preceding four years. Sales of dedicated e-readers were down by 36 percent in 2012, while sales of tablet computers such as the iPad and the Kindle Fire exploded.

Not that e-books are going to go away, either. A survey by childrens publisher Scholastic Inc. indicated that 46 percent of responding kids aged nine to seventeen had read an e-book, and that around half of those who have not yet read an e-book say that they want to do so, going on to state that the rise of iPads and other tablets has helped to vastly expand the availability of picture books and other childrens books in electronic format. But 80 percent of those kids who read an e-book in 2012 also read a print book.

My guess is that in the future, rather than one mode driving the other out of existence, most readers will buy books both in electronic and print forms, choosing one format or the other depending on the circumstances, convenience, their needs of the moment, even their whim. There are strong indications that in some cases people will buy both e-book and print versions of the same book. It may be true that a rising tide floats all boats.

The biggest story in the publishing world in 2012 was probably the merger of publishing giants Random House and Penguin to form Penguin Random House (and prompting wiseasses everywhere to say it should have been called Random Penguin instead). The merger still needs government approval to go through, but if it does, the so-called Big Six publishing houses will be reduced at a stroke to the Big Five. Since there were rumors at the end of 2012 that HarperCollins parent company, News Corp, is interested in acquiring Simon & Schusters book business, that number may be reduced even further in the near future. All this merging has, of course, prompted the usual fears that formerly independent and competing imprints will be consolidated, spelling the loss of editorial jobs and perhaps a reduction in the number of overall titles released. Elsewhere: Angry Robot launched a YA imprint, Strange Chemistry, and will launch a crime-fiction imprint, Exhibit A, later this year. PS Publishing is launching a mass-market paperback imprint, Drugstore Indian. Penguin/Berkley/NAL added a graphic novel imprint, Inklit. Orbit will launch a new commercial fiction imprint, Redhook. Random House announced four new digital imprints: Alibi, to publish mysteries/thrillers/suspense; Hydra, to publish SF/fantasy; Loveswept, to publish romance; and Flirt, to publish New Adult fiction targeting women in their twenties and thirties. HarperCollins announced a new digital YA imprint, HarperTeen Impulse. Pearson, the parent company of Penguin, acquired self-publishing company Author Solutions, Inc. Barnes & Noble has put its Sterling Publishing arm up for sale. Amazon made a deal to acquire over four hundred titles from Marshall Cavendish Childrens Books. Betsy Mitchell has been hired by e-book publisher Open Road Media as a strategic advisor for their SF and fantasy titles. Patrick Nolan became editor in chief and associate publisher of Penguin Books. Madeline McIntosh became Chief Operating Officer for Random House. Devi Pillai was promoted to executive editor at Orbit, and Susa Barnes to associate editor. Therese Goulding was hired as managing editor for Ann and Jeff VanderMeers Cheeky Frawg Books imprint. Editor David Pomerico left Del Rey to become an editor at Amazon.coms SF imprint, 47North. Steven H. Silver resigned as editor and publisher of ISFiC Press.