Once again I'm running the statistical ruler over the finalists for the Hugos – this year, more than ever. This has not often been a useful guide to which books will win; however I think it does show the extent to which they ave penetrated popular consciousness, at least to within an order of magnitude.
In each case, the books are ranked by the geometrical average of their number of owners on both Goodreads and LibraryThing. To start off with, the 2019 finalists for Best Novel:
| Goodreads | LibraryThing | |||
| owners | av rating | owners | av rating | |
| Spinning Silver, by Naomi Novik | 120,184 | 4.29 | 851 | 4.27 |
| Record of a Spaceborn Few, by Becky Chambers | 30,574 | 4.17 | 398 | 4.19 |
| The Calculating Stars, by Mary Robinette Kowal | 29,732 | 4.2 | 357 | 4.07 |
| Trail of Lightning, by Rebecca Roanhorse | 28,312 | 4.09 | 351 | 4.14 |
| Space Opera, by Catherynne M. Valente | 26,590 | 3.55 | 314 | 3.86 |
| Revenant Gun, by Yoon Ha Lee | 7,470 | 4.21 | 156 | 4.11 |
All six finalists for 2019 Best Novella were published as stand-alone volumes, so we can do the same for them:
| Goodreads | LibraryThing | |||
| owners | av rating | owners | av rating | |
| Beneath the Sugar Sky, by Seanan McGuire | 36,746 | 4.03 | 392 | 4.02 |
| Artificial Condition, by Martha Wells | 30,346 | 4.29 | 408 | 4.22 |
| Binti: The Night Masquerade, by Nnedi Okorafor | 22,262 | 4.12 | 346 | 3.99 |
| The Tea Master and the Detective, by Aliette de Bodard | 8,575 | 3.96 | 171 | 3.8 |
| The Black God's Drums, by P. Djèlí Clark | 6,799 | 4.11 | 119 | 4.22 |
| Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach, by Kelly Robson | 4,458 | 3.7 | 114 | 3.73 |
The finalists for Best Related Work include an online archive project and a series of Youtube videos, so I can't make a comparison there. That brings us to 2019 Best Graphic Story:
| Goodreads | LibraryThing | |||
| owners | av rating | owners | av rating | |
| Saga, Volume 9 | 20,309 | 4.56 | 252 | 4.35 |
| Paper Girls, Volume 4 | 13,199 | 4.18 | 161 | 4.02 |
| Monstress, Volume 3: Haven | 9,680 | 4.27 | 180 | 4.13 |
| On a Sunbeam | 10,682 | 4.21 | 129 | 4.05 |
| Abbott | 1,346 | 4.03 | 38 | 3.68 |
| Black Panther: Long Live the King | 1,203 | 3.39 | 22 | 3 |
A special 2019 Hugo category, Best Art Book, has the largest variation in orders of magnitude:
| Goodreads | LibraryThing | |||
| owners | av rating | owners | av rating | |
| The Books of Earthsea: the Complete Illustrated Edition | 1,800 | 4.66 | 181 | 4.83 |
| Dungeons and Dragons Art and Arcana: A Visual History | 2,345 | 4.59 | 95 | 4.75 |
| Tolkien: Maker of Middle Earth | 705 | 4.79 | 102 | 5 |
| Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse – The Art of the Movie | 221 | 4.65 | 5 | – |
| Spectrum 25: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art | 32 | 4.5 | 19 | – |
| Daydreamer's Journey: The Art of Julie Dillon | 7 | 5 | 3 | 4 |
The Lodestar Award for Best YA Book will be awarded under that name for the first time this year:
| Goodreads | LibraryThing | |||
| owners | av rating | owners | av rating | |
| Children of Blood and Bone, by Tomi Adeyemi | 277,438 | 4.21 | 1,386 | 4.03 |
| The Cruel Prince, by Holly Black | 235,387 | 4.18 | 890 | 4.16 |
| Dread Nation, by Justina Ireland | 51,372 | 4.16 | 522 | 4.23 |
| The Belles, by Dhonielle Clayton | 56,265 | 3.87 | 396 | 3.75 |
| Tess of the Road, by Rachel Hartman | 30,104 | 3.94 | 278 | 4.07 |
| The Invasion, by Peadar Ó Guilín | 4,534 | 3.85 | 38 | 3.25 |
And finally, the 1944 finalists for Best Novel:
| Goodreads | LibraryThing | |||
| owners | av rating | owners | av rating | |
| Perelandra, by C.S. Lewis | 58,413 | 3.98 | 6,561 | 3.84 |
| The Glass Bead Game, by Herman Hesse | 70,512 | 4.11 | 5,394 | 4.14 |
| Conjure Wife, by Fritz Leiber, Jr. | 4,607 | 3.85 | 476 | 3.76 |
| Gather, Darkness!, by Fritz Leiber | 2,097 | 3.62 | 622 | 3.53 |
| The Weapon Makers, by A.E.van Vogt | 2,214 | 3.84 | 480 | 3.5 |
| Earth’s Last Citadel, by C.L. Moore and Henry Kuttner | 398 | 3.18 | 150 | 3.17 |
I immediately thought of “How Green Was my Valley”. I’m really surprised it’s not 1 or 2.