How was work selected for the anthology?

To determine whose work would be included in the anthology, we assembled a panel of readers who judged submissions in as anonymous a way as we could manage. Since R-SPEC is a small group and several of us had submitted stories for consideration, some members of the reader-panel were also prospective contributors -- that was one of the main reasons behind the anonymous review process, so we also devised some other procedures to curb in-group favoritism and correct for cases where readers would have their own stories under consideration.

Our readers rated each story on a "yes"/"maybe"/"no" basis, and then ranked them in order from most to least favored. They then huddled with the the editor, Janice Carello, and winnowed the field down to eighteen stories.