The Arthur C. Clarke Award submissions list is out! So, as usual, I am looking at the total number of users who have rated the book on Goodreads, the total number who say that they own it on LibraryThing, and the average ratings on both systems. The top quintile in each column is in bold. Again, this is of course no more than a reflection of the tastes of the user base on both systems, and certainly not a good guide to the Clarke judges’ tastes; it may (or may not) be useful to assess how far each of the books has penetrated the market.
NB these numbers were hand-crunched, without the use of AI.
| Goodreads | LibraryThing | ||||
| raters | rating | owners | rating | ||
| The Ministry of Time | Kaliane Bradley | 135,137 | 3.59 | 1,918 | 3.72 |
| The Life Impossible | Matt Haig | 98,845 | 3.49 | 940 | 3.54 |
| The Husbands | Holly Gramazio | 103,690 | 3.52 | 803 | 3.76 |
| Real Americans | Rachel Khong | 71,350 | 3.97 | 600 | 3.78 |
| Annie Bot | Sierra Greer | 51,572 | 3.83 | 533 | 3.72 |
| Creation Lake | Rachel Kushner | 23,933 | 3.4 | 730 | 3.54 |
| The Mercy of Gods | James S.A. Corey | 26,475 | 4.18 | 570 | 3.98 |
| The Last Murder at the End of the World | Stuart Turton | 14,857 | 3.67 | 806 | 3.77 |
| The Other Valley | Scott Alexander Howard | 17,250 | 3.88 | 355 | 3.8 |
| The Family Experiment | John Marrs | 38,783 | 4.06 | 131 | 3.58 |
| Heavenly Tyrant | Xiran Jay Zhao | 8,574 | 3.88 | 462 | 4.05 |
| The Book of Elsewhere | Reeves and Miéville | 6,733 | 3.33 | 565 | 3.3 |
| Service Model | Adrian Tchaikovsky | 11,197 | 4.04 | 338 | 3.87 |
| The Book of Love | Kelly Link | 8,252 | 3.48 | 449 | 3.73 |
| You Dreamed of Empires | Álvaro Enrigue | 9,863 | 3.78 | 354 | 3.8 |
| Alien Clay | Adrian Tchaikovsky | 9,483 | 4.03 | 312 | 3.89 |
| Absolution | Jeff VanderMeer | 6,779 | 3.63 | 402 | 3.75 |
| The Cautious Traveller’s Guide to the Wastelands | Sarah Brooks | 6,913 | 3.63 | 334 | 3.68 |
| Hum | Helen Phillips | 8,236 | 3.51 | 262 | 3.49 |
| The Stardust Grail | Yume Kitasei | 6,084 | 3.68 | 292 | 3.86 |
| Private Rites | Julia Armfield | 8,378 | 3.68 | 208 | 3.79 |
| I’m Starting to Worry About this Black Box of Doom | Jason Pargin | 9,003 | 3.99 | 191 | 4.23 |
| A Letter to the Luminous Deep | Sylvie Cathrall | 4,925 | 3.67 | 270 | 3.74 |
| Polostan | Neal Stephenson | 4,242 | 3.88 | 299 | 3.58 |
| It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over | Anne de Marcken | 7,115 | 3.71 | 159 | 3.6 |
| William | Mason Coile | 9,159 | 3.54 | 118 | 3.5 |
| The Mars House | Natasha Pulley | 3,215 | 4.01 | 193 | 4.14 |
| Gliff | Ali Smith | 3,764 | 3.98 | 157 | 3.81 |
| Machine Vendetta | Alastair Reynolds | 3,283 | 4.31 | 143 | 3.97 |
| The Great When | Alan Moore | 1,736 | 3.63 | 234 | 3.71 |
| Juice | Tim Winton | 4,303 | 3.99 | 92 | 4.13 |
| Echo of Worlds | M.R. Carey | 3,273 | 4.32 | 91 | 4.31 |
| The Principle of Moments | Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson | 1,286 | 3.62 | 223 | 3.94 |
| Hammajang Luck | Makana Yamamoto | 1,872 | 3.61 | 147 | 3.13 |
| Crypt of the Moon Spider | Nathan Ballingrud | 2,511 | 3.94 | 100 | 3.96 |
| Mal Goes to War | Edward Ashton | 2,315 | 4 | 106 | 3.64 |
| Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind | Molly McGhee | 2,433 | 3.47 | 97 | 3.73 |
| A Better World | Sarah Langan | 2,562 | 3.61 | 83 | 3.82 |
| Toward Eternity | Anton Hur | 1,666 | 3.82 | 102 | 3.43 |
| The Last Gifts of the Universe | Riley August | 2,073 | 3.81 | 70 | 3.54 |
| Apostles of Mercy | Linday Ellis | 1,865 | 4.15 | 77 | 3.68 |
| The Mark | Fríða Ísberg | 3,059 | 3.66 | 44 | 3.15 |
| Hagstone | Sinéad Gleeson | 2,401 | 3.55 | 53 | 3.58 |
| The Bound Worlds | Megan E. O’Keefe | 1,712 | 4.15 | 67 | 3.71 |
| Gogmagog | Jeff Noon & Steve Beard | 850 | 3.64 | 91 | 3.55 |
| Deep Black | Miles Cameron | 1,529 | 4.31 | 44 | 4 |
| In Universes | Emet North | 940 | 3.83 | 64 | 3.63 |
| Lady Eve’s Last Con | Rebecca Fraimow | 744 | 3.87 | 77 | 3.82 |
| Jumpnauts | Hao Jingfang | 753 | 3.29 | 56 | 2.82 |
| Revenant-X | David Wellington | 882 | 4.06 | 38 | 3.29 |
| Hey, Zoey | Sarah Crossan | 1,249 | 3.29 | 26 | 2.7 |
| On Vicious Worlds | Bethany Jacobs | 909 | 4.34 | 33 | 4.14 |
| Calypso | Oliver K. Langmead | 526 | 3.64 | 56 | 3.56 |
| High Vaultage | Jen & Chris Sugden | 555 | 4.16 | 53 | 4.4 |
| The Doomed Earth: In Our Stars | Jack Campbell | 553 | 3.8 | 48 | 3.57 |
| World Walkers | Neal Asher | 595 | 4.13 | 34 | 4.25 |
| The Siege of Burning Grass | Premee Mohamed | 364 | 3.81 | 51 | 3.77 |
| Beyond the Light Horizon | Ken MacLeod | 475 | 4 | 37 | 4 |
| Key Lime Sky | Al Hess | 445 | 3.74 | 38 | 3.07 |
| Thirteen Ways to Kill Lulabelle Rock | Maud Woolf | 637 | 3.69 | 26 | 3.75 |
| Lake of Darkness | Adam Roberts | 351 | 3.69 | 42 | 3.65 |
| Past Crimes | Jason Pinter | 641 | 3.61 | 19 | 3.93 |
| Out of the Drowning Deep | A.C. Wise | 295 | 3.71 | 39 | 3.95 |
| Three Eight One | Aliya Whiteley | 258 | 3.33 | 39 | 3.33 |
| Interstellar MegaChef | Lavanya Lakshminarayan | 401 | 3.57 | 21 | 3.33 |
| The Collapsing Wave | Doug Johnstone | 430 | 4.23 | 18 | 3.58 |
| Briefly Very Beautiful | Roz Dineen | 315 | 3.81 | 24 | 4.17 |
| The Glass Woman | Alice McIlroy | 494 | 3.38 | 15 | – |
| Welcome to Forever | Nathan Tavares | 270 | 3.74 | 27 | 4.5 |
| Blacklight Born | Alexander Darwin | 503 | 3.92 | 13 | 3.67 |
| Tomorrow’s Children | Daniel Polansky | 339 | 3.63 | 19 | 3.63 |
| Ghost of the Neon God | T.R. Napper | 263 | 4.02 | 18 | 4.25 |
| This Is How You Remember It | Catherine Prasifka | 903 | 4.04 | 5 | – |
| The Knife and the Serpent | Tim Pratt | 148 | 3.75 | 27 | 3.3 |
| The Escher Man | T.R. Napper | 214 | 3.99 | 15 | 4 |
| Darkome | Hannu Rajaniemi | 198 | 3.69 | 14 | 3.5 |
| The Unrelenting Earth | Kritika H. Rao | 197 | 3.62 | 14 | – |
| The Watermark | Sam Mills | 141 | 3.51 | 18 | 4 |
| Extremophile | Ian Green | 133 | 3.9 | 15 | – |
| Bonding | Mariel Franklin | 214 | 3.23 | 9 | 3.5 |
| Fortress Sol | Stephen Baxter | 191 | 3.35 | 10 | 3.5 |
| Any Human Power | Manda Scott | 174 | 3.89 | 10 | – |
| Ninth Life | Stark Holborn | 126 | 4.44 | 13 | 4.33 |
| Toxxic | Jane Hennigan | 239 | 4.07 | 5 | – |
| Fight Me | Austin Grossman | 114 | 3.75 | 9 | 3.25 |
| Spiral | Cameron Ward | 170 | 4.09 | 6 | 2 |
| We Are All Ghosts in the Forest | Lorraine Wilson | 121 | 3.83 | 8 | 3.75 |
| Ardent Violet and the Infinite Eye | Alex White | 102 | 4.32 | 8 | 5 |
| The Wilding | Ian McDonald | 40 | 3.72 | 18 | 4.33 |
| The Seventh Spell | Davis Bunn | 62 | 3.31 | 6 | 4.5 |
| Jubilee | Stephen K. Stanford | 49 | 3.76 | 6 | – |
| The Book Lovers | Steve Aylett | 20 | 3.8 | 10 | 2.74 |
| The Dream Traveller: Dark Rising | John Nassari | 49 | 4.45 | 3 | – |
| The Edge of Solitude | Katie Hale | 73 | 3.7 | 2 | – |
| The Final Orchard | CJ Rivera | 119 | 4.01 | 1 | – |
| Vigilance | Allen Stroud | 19 | 4.05 | 3 | – |
| No/Mad/Land | Francesco Verso | 10 | 3.9 | 4 | – |
| The Consciousness Company | M.N. Rosen | 33 | 4.36 | 1 | 2 |
| Her Gilded Voice | K.C. Aegis | 24 | 4.33 | 1 | 5 |
| Heat: “Beyond Mindslip” | Tony Harmsworth | 10 | 4.3 | 2 | – |
| Idolatry | Aditya Sudarshan | 18 | 3.5 | 1 | – |
| Dark Shepherd | Fred Gambino | 3 | 3.67 | 5 | – |
| The Headland | Abi Curtis | 13 | 4 | 1 | – |
| Indigo Starling | Dundas Glass | 6 | 4.83 | 2 | – |
| Lacuna | Erin Hosfield | 12 | 4.92 | 1 | – |
| The Past Master | Patience Agbabi | 9 | 4.22 | 1 | – |
| Birdwatching at the End of the World | G.W. Dexter | 2 | 4 | 4 | – |
| A Truth Beyond Full | Rosie Oliver | 2 | 5 | 1 | – |
| The Cosmic Caretaker | Ange Anderson | 1 | 5 | 1 | – |
| Worlds Aligned : Worlds Apart 2 | Terry Jackman | 1 | 5 | 1 | – |
| Dakini Atoll | Nikhil Singh | 1 | 4 | 1 | – |
| New Adventures of a Chinese Time Machine | Ian Watson | 0 | – | 3 | – |
Well, there’s a rather clear leader there… On the other hand, I’m astonished to see a book by Ian Watson, who is hardly an obscure writer, which has no owners on Goodreads at all.