Our readers have spoken, and the results are in the current issue of Clarkesworld. Yes, I have already mentioned this. Why am I doing a separate post? Well, at this time of year everyone is looking for potential Hugo nominees. (Those of you attending BASFA tonight will be discussing that very topic.) And people always complain that the field is so vast that they don’t know where to start looking. Well, Clarkesworld is a Hugo and World Fantasy nominated magazine publishing some of the finest writers in the field. The stories that come out on top in our Readers Poll are therefore going to be quite special. And they are all free to read online. Here are the top four stories (three of them by women, two by people of color).

• 1st=: “The Radiant Car Thy Sparrows Drew”, Catherynne M. Valente
• 1st=: “From the Lost Diary of TreeFrog7”, Nnedi Okorafor
• 2nd: “Spar”, Kij Johnson
• 3rd: “Placa del Fuego”, Tobias S. Buckell

Go take a look. It’s good stuff.

And let’s not forget the artists, OK? The artist category is one that sees almost no movement from year to year. There are more than half a dozen professional artists out there, people. I am in awe of the magnificent job Neil does in finding fabulous cover art. I’m also delighted with our winner. You may remember me getting rather excited about that cover when #38 first came out. Kazuhiko Nakamura produces some fabulous art. He has several more wonderful images on his web site, Mechanical Mirage. And here’s the original of “Brain Tower” without all of our logos and stuff on it.

I’d love to see him get a few nominations.