Well, it’s been a brutal evening. We’ve always known that any old crap can get nominated for the Hugos – see my reviews of nominated works over the years – but it does hurt a bit to have that driven home quite so directly.
Anyway, the Best Novel list does offer some glimmers of hope. The nominated works, and their popularity on Goodreads and LibraryThing, are as follows:
Goodreads | LibraryThing | |||
owners | av rating | owners | av rating | |
Skin Game, by Jim Butcher | 28,691 | 4.56 | 725 | 4.34 |
Ancillary Sword, by Ann Leckie | 5,516 | 4.09 | 373 | 4.14 |
The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison | 3,608 | 4.10 | 300 | 4.30 |
Lines of Departure, by Marko Kloos | 3,524 | 4.07 | 65 | 4.12 |
The Dark Between The Stars, by Kevin J. Anderson | 328 | 3.84 | 37 | 3.44 |
A pretty clear ranking order then.
This may be a year when I don’t get around to reading all the nominations, for the first time since 2000.
An interesting list, and I’ve spotted a few titles I haven’t read. I’m a bit bemused by a few ommissions, though – no Arthur C. Clarke? Iain M Banks and John Wyndham would be on my must read list too. Ah well, different strokes.