I haven't read any of the nominees for Best Novel in this year's BSFA wards, and will start scrambling to make up that deficiency (especially if I can do so before the Hugo nomination deadline at end of March). But I thought I would check up the vital statistics of the contenders on various websites:
| LibraryThing | Goodreads | Amazon.co.uk (hard copy) | Amazon.co.uk (Kindle) | |
| Embassytown by China Mieville | 732 owners | 2,237 ratings | Sales rank 1,810 | Sales rank 4,089 |
| Islanders by Christopher Priest | 25 owners | 32 ratings | Sales rank 38,592 | Sales rank 13,721 |
| By Light Alone by Adam Roberts | 25 owners | 25 ratings | Sales rank 14,014 | Sales rank 30,423 |
| Osama by Lavie Tidhar | 14 owners | 6 ratings | Sales rank 454,785 | Sales rank 77,426 |
| Cyber Circus by Kim Lakin-Smith | 6 owners | 5 ratings | Sales rank 1,882,739 | Sales rank 10,556 |
There are some interesting features there (Cyber Circus clearly doing far better on Kindle sales than otherwise) but it's pretty clear who must be considered the favourite this year. Now I just need to decide if I think that is justified….