The Locus Magazine Recommended Reading list is published annually in their February issue and represents a consensus view by Locus editors and reviewers.

The following 2008 novelettes and short stories were selected from the pages of semiprozines:

Novelettes

• “The Tale of Junko and Sayuri” by Peter Beagle (Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show, 7/08)
• “The Golden Octopus” by Beth Bernobich (Postscripts, Summer ’08)
• “From the Clay of His Heart” by John Brown (Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show, 4/08)
• “Crystal Nights” by Greg Egan (Interzone, 4/08)
• “The Magician’s House” by Meghan McCarron (Strange Horizons, 7/08)

Short Stories

• “Offworld Friends Are Best” by Neal Blaikie (Greatest Uncommon Denominator, Spring ’08)
• “The Man Who Built Heaven” by Keith Brooke (Postscripts, Summer ’08)
• “The Sky that Wraps the World Round, Past the Blue into the Black” by Jay Lake (Clarkesworld Magazine, 3/08)
• “The Thought War” by Paul McAuley (Postscripts, Summer ’08)
• “[a ghost samba]” by Ian McDonald (Postscripts, Summer ’08)
• “The Small Door” by Holly Phillips (Fantasy Magazine, 5/08)
• “His Master’s Voice” by Hannu Rajaniemi (Interzone, 10/08)
• “Snatch Me Another” by Mercurio D. Rivera (Abyss & Apex, 1Q/08)
• “Talk is Cheap” by Geoff Ryman (Interzone, 6/08)
• “Marrying the Sun” by Rachel Swirsky (Fantasy Magazine, 6/08)
• “A Buyer’s Guide to Maps of Antarctica” by Catherynne M. Valente (Clarkesworld Magazine, 5/08)