Book and anthology editor John Joseph Adams launched this annual series in 2015 (for works published in 2014) using the structure and format of the publisher's analogous series of Best American Short Stories and Best American Essays (and another publisher's very long-running series of O. Henry Prize Stories anthologies) -- Adams is the series editor, while each volume is edited by a more prominent name, usually a famous author. In practice this means the Adams reads all the published stories in each year and selects 80, half SF and half fantasy, as recommendations for the book editor; that editor chooses 20 stories, 10 SF and 10 fantasy, for inclusion in the published volume. Each volume lists "other notable" stories at the end, i.e. the other 60 stories identified by Adams but not chosen by the volume's final editor.

Most often chosen authors: Sofia Samatar (4), then Charlie Jane Anders, Dale Bailey, Adam-Troy Castro, Maria Dahvana Headley, A. Merc Rustad, Caroline M. Yoachim, and E. Lily Yu, with 3 each. (updated Dec. 2021)