Jonathan Strahan's first solo best-of-year anthologies were volumes of novellas, or short novels, compiled for the US Science Fiction Book Club beginning in 2004. That first book coincided with Strahan's becoming co-editor with Karen Haber of the science fiction and fantasy volumes for ibooks -- though the titling policy was different, with books containing stories from 2003 bearing 2003 titles for ibooks and a 2004 title for the SFBC. Following ibooks' demise, Strahan published volumes for 2005 with Locus Press under his name only.

The Best Short Novels series lastest only four volumes. The last in 2007 coincided with the first of Strahan's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year anthologies (avoiding the dating issue, called "Volume One") in trade paperback for Night Shade Books. These were hefty trade paperbacks, not quite as big as Dozois' and differing by explicitly including both science fiction and fantasy. Strahan's early introductions reflected on the history year's best anthologies in SF to describe the inspirations for his own books. Later introductions status the state of the SF/fantasy field (more concisely than Dozois), noting recommended books and stories that were unable to be included. The series moved to Solaris, where Strahan had been publishing original anthologies since 2011, with Volume Eight in 2014.