The BSFA long lists are out again. Some of them are longer than others. As usual, I’ve run them through the Goodreads and LibraryThing catalogues to see which of the longlisted works have scored on the two biggest book reviewing websites.

Not very surprisingly, this doesn’t work for the 23 longlisted works for Best Artwork, nor for the 26 longlisted works for Best Short Non-Fiction, none of which have been logged as separate publications by GR or LT users. For the other categories, the highest and median numbers for each system are as follows:

Category	GR highest	GR median	LT highest	LT median
Best Novel	102,956	398	1,432	35
Best Fiction for Younger Readers	88,111	428.5	878	30
Best Shorter Fiction	5,260	7	186	1
Best Collection	5,253	11	158	4
Best Non-Fiction (Long)	129	2	31	1
Best Short Fiction	164	0	10	0
Best Original Audio Fiction	53	0	3	0

Unlike last year, thee of the eight long-listees for Best Original Audio Fiction do feature on both Goodreads and LibraryThing. All three are Big Finish audios.

Title	Author	GR	LT
Doctor Who: The Quin Dilemma	Chapman, Valentine, Rayner	53	3
Torchwood: The Hollow Choir	Marshall, Devlin	27	2
Torchwood: Bad Connection	Aaron Lamont	23	2

The Best Short Fiction longlist features no less than 80 stories, of which I was able to find three which have been published separately and thus feature in the online catalogues.

Title	Author	GR	LT
Spill	Cory Doctorow	164	10
Evan: A Remainder	Jordan Kurella	78	2
Unquiet on the Eastern Front	Wole Talabi	15	2

Ten of the seventeen long-listed works in the Best Non-Fiction (Long) category are on either Goodreads of LibraryThing or both. Two of the other seven are podcasts, which wouldn’t usually score anyway. The ten which do feature are:

Title	Author	GR	LT
Everything Must Go	Dorian Lynskey	129	31
Speculative Whiteness	Jordan S. Carroll	23	4
Track Changes	Abigail Nussbaum	8	5
Spec Fic for Newbies Volume 2	Angus, Nolan	5	3
The Book Blinders	John Clute	3	3
Afro-Centered Futurisms in Our Speculative Fiction	Eugen Bacon (ed)	2	3
Urban Fantasy	Stefan Ekman	2	1
Utopia on the Tabletop	Jo Lindsay Walton	0	2
The Boom and The Boom	Guanghzhao Lyu	1	0
Three, Two, One, Let’s Jam!	Satoru Stevenson	1	0

I was able to find 48 of the 51 long-listees for Best Collection on one system or the other.

Title	Author	GR	LT
Your Utopia	Bora Chung	3140	158
She’s Always Hungry	Eliza Clarke	5253	62
Mystery Lights	Lena Valencia	532	40
New Adventures in Space Opera	Jonathan Strahan (ed)	196	31
Convergence Problems	Wole Talabi	209	28
The Inhumans and Other Stories	Bodhisattva Chattopadh(ed)	48	22
I Want That Twink Obliterated	Chris McCartney	41	13
North Continent Ribbon	Ursula Whitcher	33	9
A Jura for Julia	Ken Macleod	11	14
Pick Your Potion	Ephiny Gale	50	3
Deep Dream	Indrapramit Das (ed)	14	7
To the Stars and Back	Ian Whates (ed)	14	7
Calvaria Fell	Sparks & Warren	12	7
Limelight and Other Stories	Lyndsey Croal	38	2
Elephants in Bloom	Cecile Cristofari	7	10
Back Through the Flaming Door	Liz Williams	8	8
Discontinue if Death Ensues	Gyzander & Taborska (eds)	17	3
The Butterfly Disjunct	Stewart C. Baker	41	1
Nova Scotia Volume 2	Williamson & Wilson (eds)	6	6
Heartwood	Dan Coxon (ed)	3	11
Laughs in Space	Donna Scott (ed)	7	4
The Utopia of Us	Teika Marja Smits (ed)	5	5
Drive or be Driven	Aliya Whiteley	3	8
The Mad Butterfly’s Ball	Grassman & Kelso (eds)	7	3
Our Savage Heart	Justina Robson	2	10
Bestiary of Blood	Jamal Hodge (ed)	14	1
Different Kinds of Defiance	Renan Bernardo	14	1
Egypt + 100	Ahmed Naji (ed)	14	1
All Tomorrow’s Futures	Benjamin Greenaway (ed)	4	3
Schrodinger’s Wife (And Other Possibilities)	Pippa Goldschmidt	5	2
Little Sisters & Other Stories	Vonda N. McIntyre	3	3
Gallus	Faulds, Milton & Williamson (eds)	4	2
A Stitch Between Worlds	Frazier Armitage	7	1
Cursed Shards	Leanbh Pearson (ed)	3	2
Human Resources	Fiona Moore	1	4
Three Curses & Other Dark Tales	Leanbh Pearson	1	1
The Neurodiverseiverse	Francis & Olmsted (eds)	18	0
A Night so Dark and Full of Stars	Nikky Lee	12	0
Fight Like a Girl 2	Clarke & Hall (eds)	8	0
Offshoots: Humanity Twigged	Juliana Rew	8	0
The Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction (2023)	Ekpeki & Eziaghighala (eds)	7	0
A Place Between Waking and Forgetting	Eugen Bacon	5	0
Extrasensory Overload	Chun Hyon Lee (ed)	3	0
Sunflowers in the Snow	Dawn Bonnano	3	0
Different Times and Other Places	Juliet Mckenna	1	0
Out of the Window Into the Dark	Marian Womack	1	0
Triangulation: Hospitium	Brandon Ketchum (ed)	0	1
Weathering Youth	Dawn Vogel	1	0

In the Best Shorter Fiction category, 23 of the 41 long-listed works feature on LibraryThing and 25 on Goodreads; almost all of the rest are periodical or website publications.

Title	Author	GR	LT
The Butcher of the Forest	Premee Mohammed	5,260	186
It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over	Anne de Marken	4,733	122
The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles	Malka Older	2,090	159
The Practice, The Horizon and the Chain	Sofia Samatar	1,455	102
Lost Ark Dreaming	Suyi Davies Okungbowa	982	58
Saturation Point	Adrian Tchakovksy	1,459	34
Navigational Entanglements	Aliette de Bodard	480	64
Countess	Suzan Palumbo	341	35
Unexploded Remnants	Elaine Gallagher	201	30
The Dragonfly Gambit	A.D. Sui	135	12
A Cursed Hunt	Rebecca Grey	96	4
12 Hours	L. Marie Wood	42	4
Charlie Says	Neil Williamson	28	3
Elephants in Bloom	Cecile Cristofari	7	10
Songs for the Shadows	Cheryl S. Ntumy	13	4
Ghost Apparent	Jelena Dunato	51	1
The Year of Return	Akotowaa Ivana Ofori	41	1
No Sympathy	Eoin Dooley	32	1
The Last to Drown	Lorraine Wilson	29	1
Star Pattern Traveller	Joyce Ch’ng	6	4
Luna	Allen Stroud	10	2
Waypoint Seven	Xan van Rooyen	6	1
The Runemaster’s Daughter	Lawrence Schoen	2	1
Jezero	Allen Stroud	7	0
Chimera	Chinaza Eziaghigala	1	0

All fourteen of the long-listed works in the Best Fiction for Younger Readers category score on both systems.

Title	Author	GR	LT
Somewhere Beyond the Sea	T J Klune	88,811	878
Immortal Dark	Tigest Girma	11,881	462
Snowglobe	Soyoung Park	4,177	163
Blood at the Root	LaDarrion Williams	2,767	112
Songlight	Moira Buffini	1,344	67
Until We Shatter	Kate Dylan	946	85
The Dividing Sky	Jill Tew	491	28
Redsight	Meredith Mooring	366	32
Doctor Who: Caged	Una McCormack	161	13
Benny Ramirez and the Nearly Departed	Jose Pablo Iriarte	113	11
Braided	Leah Cypess	53	4
Wayfinders	Bryan Chick	59	3
Rebel Dawn	Ann Sei Lin	40	2
The Rarkyn’s Fall	Nikky Lee	16	1

And finally, with apologies for the length of this post, all 61 of the works long-listed for Best Novel are on Goodreads and/or LibraryThing. (59 on GR and 60 on LT.) On the version of the long-list I was working from, one novel was actually listed twice, but I’ve only listed it once here (and there’s another which also features in the Best Shorter Fiction list).

Title	Author	GR	LT
The Ministry of Time	Kaliane Bradley	102,956	1,432
Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands	Heather Fawcett	64,569	1,022
A Sorceress Comes To Call	T. Kingfisher	25,913	716
An Education in Malice	S. T. Gibson	16,561	400
The Teller of Small Fortunes	Julie Leong	11,357	521
The Book of Love	Kelly Link	7,027	378
Someone You can Build a Nest In	John Wiswell	8,063	278
Alien Clay	Adrian Tchaikovsky	6,253	218
Absolution	Jeff Vandermeer	4,517	279
Fathomfolk	Eliza Chan	3,341	365
Private Rites	Julia Armfield	5,658	155
Floating Hotel	Grace Curtis	2,790	177
The Mars House	Natasha Pulley	2,666	167
House of Open Wounds	Adrian Tchaikovsky	2,347	163
Machine Vendetta	Alastair Reynolds	2,978	128
Womb City	Tlotlo Tsamaase	2,193	132
The Principle of Moments	Esme Jikiemi-Pearson	1,209	200
The Great When	Alan Moore	1,196	195
The Briar Book of the Dead	A G Slatter	2,163	105
The Bezzle	Cory Doctorow	1,789	125
Rakesfall	Vajra Chandrasekera	622	91
Deep Black	Miles Cameron	1,283	41
Asunder	Kerstin Hall	795	57
The Wings Upon Her Back	Samantha Mills	615	73
Lady Eve’s Last Con	Rebecca Fraimow	594	69
Navigational Entanglements	Aliette de Bodard	480	64
Calypso	Oliver K. Langmead	422	47
The Legacy of Arniston House	T. L. Huchu	526	36
On Vicious Worlds	Bethany Jacobs	588	24
The Last Shield	Cameron Johnstone	398	31
Redsight	Meredith Mooring	366	33
Beyond the Light Horizon	Ken Mcleod	415	27
The Siege of Burning Grass	Premee Mohammed	281	37
Lake of Darkness	Adam Roberts	235	32
The Collapsing Wave	Doug Johnstone	361	17
Three Eight One	Aliya Whiteley	201	30
The Nightward	R. S. A. Garcia	161	36
Archangels of Funk	Andrea Hairston	147	35
Morphotrophic	Greg Egan	203	11
The Book of Gold	Ruth Frances Long	101	21
Archipelago	H. R. Hawkins	201	7
Ninth Life	Stark Holborn	103	11
The Tapestry of Time	Kate Heartfield	106	10
Extremophile	Ian Green	94	11
The Green Man’s War	Juliet Mckenna	108	8
Grim Root	Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam	121	7
Sleeping Worlds Have No Memory	Yaroslav Barsukov	91	8
We Are All Ghosts in the Forest	Lorraine Wilson	92	6
The Heart of Winter	Shona Kinsella	85	6
Conquist	Dirk Strasser	40	5
Inversions	M.V. Melcer	36	3
Vigilance	Allen Stroud	16	6
Dark Shepherd	Fred Gambino	13	6
Rabbit in the Moon	Fiona Moore	5	5
Her Gilded Voice	K.C. Aegis	24	1
Three Men in Orbit	Sandra Bond	4	6
Watermyth	Anita Harris Satkunan	8	2
The Headland	Abi Curtis	10	1
The Factory	Ihor Mysiak	0	4
Dakini Atoll	Nikhil Singh	0	2
That Perfect World	BXMN	1	0

As I said last year, I don’t really know how useful a long-list of 51, 61 or indeed 80 can be. I appreciate that awards can call attention to otherwise overlooked work, but a) I’m not convinced that an award decided by popular vote, as the BSFA and Hugo Awards are, is the best vehicle for doing that and b) this is best done with a short list, not a long list where the most interesting stuff risks getting lost in the crowd.