Clarke shortlist, Goodreads/LibraryThing stats

Posted on 9 June 2024 by fromtheheartofeurope

Well, not a single one of my predicted six potential Clarke finalists made it. I did better last year, but I was on the jury. The shortlistees placed 4th, 5th, 9th, 18th, 63rd and 67th of my stats ranking of the submissions list.

	Goodreads		LibraryThing
	raters	rating	owners	rating
Chain-Gang All-Stars, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah	45631	4.14	732	4.09
The Mountain in the Sea, Ray Nayler	19281	3.95	789	3.96
Some Desperate Glory, Emily Tesh	8016	4.06	551	4.05
In Ascension, Martin MacInnes	6436	3.82	271	3.71
The Ten Percent Thief, Lavanya Lakshminarayan	536	3.83	41	3.50
Corey Fah Does Social Mobility, Isabel Waidner	322	3.86	35	4.00

So the last two of these will be the ones that nobody saw coming.

Clarke submissions list, Goodreads / LibraryThing stats

Posted on 27 April 2024 by fromtheheartofeurope

As usual, 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.

	Goodreads		LibraryThing
	raters	rating	owners	rating
In the Lives of Puppets, T.J. Klune	60364	3.94	1061	3.91
A Day of Fallen Night, Samantha Shannon	29369	4.38	1445	4.16
Starter Villain, John Scalzi	38902	4.19	836	4.01
Chain-Gang All-Stars, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah	39639	4.14	667	4.09
The Mountain in the Sea, Ray Nayler	17678	3.95	741	3.96
Shark Heart: A Love Story, Emily Habeck	29771	4.03	322	4.04
Translation State, Ann Leckie	8945	4.12	472	4.17
The Future, Naomi Alderman	11923	3.87	320	3.87
Some Desperate Glory, Emily Tesh	7317	4.06	500	4.05
Land of Milk and Honey, C Pam Zhang	12574	3.56	235	3.33
Fractal Noise, Christopher Paolini	9269	3.45	307	3.54
The Marriage Act, John Marrs	17964	3.83	140	3.50
Biography of X, Catherine Lacey	7687	3.87	286	3.98
Ascension, Nicholas Binge	8573	3.59	251	3.30
The Terraformers, Annalee Newitz	4927	3.39	401	3.43
The Centre, Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi	9293	3.42	160	3.50
Titanium Noir, Nick Harkaway	5608	4.04	237	3.98
In Ascension, Martin MacInnes	5497	3.82	236	3.71
Infinity Gate, M. R. Carey	4477	4.16	272	3.87
Sea Change, Gina Chung	5452	3.59	181	3.54
Quantum Radio, A. G. Riddle	12205	4.13	69	3.66
Flux, Jinwoo Chong	4460	3.40	180	3.24
Arch-Conspirator, Veronica Roth	4804	3.43	167	3.76
Julia, Sandra Newman	3920	3.80	201	3.73
Our Hideous Progeny, C. E. McGill	4494	3.98	165	4.02
The Memory of Animals, Claire Fuller	3293	3.62	143	3.59
The Blighted Stars, Megan E. O’Keefe	2790	4.10	141	4.23
The Phoenix King, Aparna Verma	2933	3.71	111	4.00
Meru, S. B. Divya	1732	3.77	171	3.61
The Strange, Nathan Ballingrud	2172	3.84	127	3.78
Perilous Times, Thomas D. Lee	1684	3.90	161	4.25
Prophet, Helen Macdonald & Sin Blaché	1836	3.70	126	3.43
Bridge, Lauren Beukes	1700	3.69	117	3.81
The Surviving Sky, Kritika H. Rao	1547	3.60	128	3.59
In the Blink of an Eye, Jo Callaghan	4459	4.25	44	4.00
Girlfriend on Mars, Deborah Willis	2169	3.44	87	3.54
These Burning Stars, Bethany Jacobs	1536	4.21	117	3.97
Paradise-1, David Wellington	1985	3.81	89	3.63
The Combat Codes, Alexander Darwin	1971	3.93	81	3.80
The Death I Gave Him, Em X. Liu	1508	3.42	91	4.00
Cahokia Jazz, Francis Spufford	1004	4.08	126	4.20
Zoey is too Drunk for this Dystopia, Jason Pargin	1894	4.31	65	4.30
Androne, Dwain Worrell	1769	3.99	59	2.94
The Space Between Us, Doug Johnstone	2079	3.86	49	3.63
Sons of Darkness, Gourav Mohanty	696	3.85	137	3.00
Pink Slime, Fernanda Trías	2548	3.75	36	3.00
The Lost Cause, Cory Doctorow	910	3.68	92	3.72
Frontier, Grace Curtis	1072	3.65	67	3.94
House of Open Wounds, Adrian Tchaikovsky	991	4.53	71	4.42
Adrift, Lisa Brideau	1372	3.56	43	3.43
The Thick and the Lean, Chana Porter	835	3.66	70	3.63
Red River Seven, A. J. Ryan	1273	3.55	39	3.56
Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon, Wole Talabi	535	3.72	71	3.55
World Running Down, Al Hess	589	3.99	63	3.68
The Blue, Beautiful World, Karen Lord	479	3.05	72	3.38
More Perfect, Temi Oh	545	3.70	61	3.88
The Lost Fleet: Outlands – Implacable, Jack Campbell	1271	4.41	24	4.13
She’s a Killer, Kirsten McDougall	816	3.69	37	3.28
Hopeland, Ian McDonald	377	3.87	80	4.43
Descendant Machine, Gareth L. Powell	712	4.13	33	4.40
The Circumference of the World, Lavie Tidhar	434	3.43	51	3.54
Beyond the Reach of Earth, Ken MacLeod	546	4.03	38	3.78
The Ten Percent Thief, Lavanya Lakshminarayan	499	3.83	35	3.50
Promises Stronger than Darkness, Charlie Jane Anders	322	4.21	50	4.05
My Brother’s Keeper, Tim Powers	340	3.83	42	3.65
A Fire Born of Exile, Aliette de Bodard	210	4.14	47	4.33
Corey Fah Does Social Mobility, Isabel Waidner	293	3.86	28	4.00
Him, Geoff Ryman	220	3.79	35	3.67
Oh God, The Sun Goes, David Connor	392	3.25	19	–
Mothtown, Caroline Hardaker	383	3.36	16	3.63
The Infinite, Ada Hoffmann	253	4.26	23	4.00
Airside, Christopher Priest	174	3.43	31	4.00
Conquest, Nina Allan	189	3.65	28	3.00
The Forcing, Paul E. Hardisty	421	3.94	12	4.00
Bang Bang Bodhisattva, Aubrey Wood	179	3.00	24	3.83
Mindbreaker, Kate Dylan	228	4.19	17	3.50
The Sisterhood, Katherine Bradley	272	3.79	10	–
Thirsty Animals, Rachelle Atalla	383	3.98	7	3.25
Creation Node, Stephen Baxter	167	3.63	16	2.83
Burrowed, Mary Baader Kaley	210	3.87	12	2.83
Bird Life, Anna Smaill	168	3.60	14	3.00
A Second Chance for Yesterday, R. A. Sinn	166	3.57	13	3.25
Beautiful Shining People, Michael Grothaus	248	4.11	7	–
The Dimensions of a Cave, Greg Jackson	94	3.65	17	4.00
Myriad, Joshua David Bellin	140	3.67	10	3.17
The End of Nightwork, Aidan Cottrell-Boyce	130	3.68	9	3.50
One, Eve Smith	283	4.17	4	4.00
Refractions, M. V. Melcer	115	4.12	9	4.33
Lamb, Matt Hill	134	3.67	7	–
Lessons in Birdwatching, Honey Watson	106	3.42	8	3.00
Alien Agendas, Ian Douglas	91	4.18	8	4.00
The Dissent, Leah Vernon	192	3.91	3	–
Jungle House, Julianne Pachico	105	4.04	5	4.00
Red Dust, White Snow, Pan Huiting	116	3.08	3	–
The Other Shore, Hoa Pham	67	3.50	5	–
Suborbital 7, John Shirley	45	3.09	7	–
Secondhand Daylight, Eugen Bacon & Andrew Hook	27	3.33	10	2.50
Trine, Chris Faraday	27	3.81	5	4.50
The Night Field, Donna Glee Williams	25	4.00	5	–
Evergreens, Liam Brown	119	3.82	1	–
The Artifice of Eternity, Aaron H. Arm	38	3.88	3	3.00
Mother Sea, Lorraine Wilson	54	2.98	2	–
The Gauntlet and the Broken Chain, Ian Green	24	4.00	3	3.00
Loophole, Ian Stewart	12	4.17	4	–
Earth Retrograde, R. W. W. Greene	38	4.08	1	–
The 14th Storm, Daniel J Mooney	18	4.17	2	–
The Disinformation War, S. J. Groenewegen	6	4.33	3	–
Silicone God, Victoria Brooks	11	3.55	1	–
The Wrath of the Blob, Dashe Roberts	8	4.50	1	–
Moojag and the Lost Memories, N. E. McMorran	6	4.33	1	–
Birds of Paradise, Rudolf Kremers	5	4.00	1	–
Flight of the Eternal Emperor, James Rogers	4	4.25	1	–
The Ghostwriters, M. J. Maloney	3	3.67	1	–
Renegade, Miles Nelson	2	5.00	1	–
The Last Star, Terry Grimwood	1	5.00	1	–
Ravage: An Astonishment of Fire, MacGillivray	0	–	1	–
Doubleback: The Hunt, G. S. Lester	1	5.00	0	–

So, what might be on the short list? Discounting fantasy, and reducing probability for later volumes of ongoing series (except where the action is not closely tied to previous installments), and also for books that are just too American, I will take a wild guess and predict that A Fire Born of Exile, by Aliette de Bodard; Translation State, by Ann Leckie; Refractions, by M. V. Melcer; Starter Villain, by John Scalzi; The Blighted Stars, by Megan E. O’Keefe and In the Blink of an Eye, by Jo Callaghan, all have good chances. But I have only read one of these myself, and I am probably completely wrong!

Hugo final ballot: Goodreads / LibraryThing statistics

Posted on 29 March 2024 by fromtheheartofeurope

As you may be aware, we launched the Hugo ballot earlier today.

Having had a certain amount of foreknowledge, I crunched the numbers for the Goodreads and LibraryThing raters in several categories last weekend, and came up with the following stats. This is of course no more than a reflection of the tastes of the user base on both systems; it may (or may not) be useful to assess how far each of the finalists has penetrated the market.

Best Novel	Goodreads		LibraryThing
Title	raters	rating	owners	rating
The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi, Shannon Chakraborty	37750	4.3	1077	4.34
Starter Villain, John Scalzi	34356	4.2	772	4.05
Witch King, Martha Wells	14651	3.72	888	3.78
Translation State, Ann Leckie	8360	4.13	444	4.2
Some Desperate Glory, Emily Tesh	6789	4.06	463	4.08
The Saint of Bright Doors, Vajra Chandrasekera	1346	3.72	160	3.48

Unusually, a clear leader on all four metrics.

Best Novella	Goodreads		LibraryThing
Title	raters	rating	owners	rating
Thornhedge, T. Kingfisher	20078	4.05	543	4.14
The Mimicking of Known Successes, Malka Older	4833	3.66	279	3.84
Mammoths at the Gates, Nghi Vo	3704	4.27	148	4.36
Rose/House, Arkady Martine	1548	3.8	97	3.46
(Adventures in Space: New Short stories by Chinese & English Science Fiction Writers)	22	3.41	2	–

The last of these is the anthology in which the missing two finalists were both published, which has not really penetrated the mass market.

Best Graphic Story or Comic	Goodreads		LibraryThing
Title	raters	rating	owners	rating
Saga, Vol. 11	4456	4.26	132	4.02
Bea Wolf	2234	3.46	204	4.15
Shubeik Lubeik / Your Wish Is My Command	2531	4.52	127	4.41
Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons	858	4.5	64	4.35
The Witches of World War II	158	3.09	17	2.64
三体漫画：第一部 / The Three Body Problem, Part One	–	–	–	–

More people nominated The Witches of World War II for the Hugos than own it on LibraryThing. Which possibly indicates the sad decline of LibraryThing.

Best Related Work	Goodreads		LibraryThing
Title	raters	rating	owners	rating
A City on Mars, Kelly and Zach Weinersmith	2070	4.12	211	4.24
The Culture: The Drawings, Iain M. Banks	54	4	47	3.36
A Traveller in Time, Maureen Kincaid Speller	6	4.5	6	–
All These Worlds, Niall Harrison	4	4	5	–
中国科幻口述史, 第二卷, 第三卷 / Chinese Science Fiction: An Oral History, vols 2 and 3 杨枫 / Yang Feng	–	–	–	–
雨果X访谈 (Discover X), 王雅婷 (Tina Wong)	(video interviews)

The last of these is not going to register on any book logging system, and the second last hasn’t made a mark in the West – so far. Having said that, only one of the Western finalists has achieved much market penetration as yet; again, a lot more people nominated both A Traveller in Time and All These Worlds than own either on either book-logging system.

Lodestar Award for Best YA Book	Goodreads		LibraryThing
Title	raters	rating	owners	rating
The Sinister Booksellers of Bath, Garth Nix	4948	4.06	310	3.91
To Shape A Dragon’s Breath, Moniquill Blackgoose	4866	4.19	251	4.15
Unraveller, Frances Hardinge	2167	4.12	157	4.08
Abeni’s Song, by P. Djèlí Clark	380	3.97	50	4.00
Promises Stronger than Darkness, Charlie Jane Anders	313	4.21	49	3.94
Liberty’s Daughter, Naomi Kritzer	198	4.12	41	4.11

Unusual to have two finalists close at the top in terms of both GR raters and LT owners.

As I said, this number-crunching has proved a good guide to the outcome rather less than half the time in the past; so I take it as I find it.

Nebula final ballot: Goodreads / LibraryThing stats

Posted on 23 March 2024 by fromtheheartofeurope

Quick post after running three of the Nebula final ballot categories through Goodreads and Librarything.

Best Novel	Goodreads		LibraryThing
Title	raters	rating	owners	rating
Witch King, Martha Wells	14651	3.72	888	3.78
Translation State, Ann Leckie	8360	4.13	444	4.20
The Terraformers, Annalee Newitz	4664	3.39	389	3.43
The Water Outlaws, S.L. Huang	1827	3.84	198	3.91
The Saint of Bright Doors, Vajra Chandrasekera	1346	3.72	160	3.48
Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon, Wole Talabi	454	3.74	66	3.56

Oddly enough the only one of these that I have read so far is the last, which is also up for the BSFA.

Best Novella	Goodreads		LibraryThing
Title	raters	rating	owners	rating
Thornhedge, T. Kingfisher	20078	4.05	543	4.14
Untethered Sky, Fonda Lee	7310	3.90	242	3.95
The Mimicking of Known Successes, Malka Older	4833	3.66	279	3.84
The Crane Husband, Kelly Barnhill	5792	3.89	223	4.08
Mammoths at the Gates, Nghi Vo	3704	4.27	148	4.36
Linghun, Ai Jiang	1301	4.04	49	4.40

The only one of these I own is the last, which I picked up at the Lovecraft bookshop in Providence.

Andre Norton Nebula Award for Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction	Goodreads		LibraryThing
Title	raters	rating	owners	rating
To Shape a Dragon’s Breath, Moniquill Blackgoose	4866	4.19	251	4.15
Liberty’s Daughter, Naomi Kritzer	198	4.12	41	4.11
The Ghost Job, Greg Van Eekhout	57	3.84	8	4.00
The Inn at the Amethyst Lantern, J. Dianne Dotson	17	4.59	1	–

I’m a bit baffled by this – usually if a book scores low on Librarything users, I begin to suspect that the author may not exist, but in fact I had a very pleasant meal with J. Dianne Dotson in Los Angeles last month, so am well aware that she is perfectly real! Her Goodreads fans are enthusiastic.

BSFA Award short lists – Goodreads / LibraryThing stats

Posted on 2 March 2024 by fromtheheartofeurope

The BSFA Award short lists are out, and so my reading is set for the next month until voting finishes and the results are announced on (I guess) 30 March. Congrats to all who made the cut.

There are (almost) five categories out of ten where it’s possible to report on the presence of the shortlistees on the two main book-logging sites, Goodreads and LibraryThing, so below I am listing the number of people who have rated each book on Goodreads, the number who own each book on LibraryThing, and the average rating on both (as I did with the long lists). There are a few which have not yet been rated by anyone on LibraryThing. Within each category books are listed in descending order of the (geometric) average of raters/owners, and the categories themselves are listed similarly. Very high ratings sometimes reflect only that the book has so far been rated by just one or two enthusiasts!

Best Novel		Goodreads		LibraryThing
Title	Author	raters	rating	owners	rating
Shigidi And The Brass Head Of Obalufon	Wole Talabi	417	3.76	61	3.36
Descendant Machine	Gareth L. Powell	644	4.13	33	4.25
Airside	Christopher Priest	147	3.45	26	4.00
HIM	Geoff Ryman	149	3.83	23	3.67
The Green Man’s Quarry	Juliet McKenna	190	4.51	14	3.25

1635 pages in total

Of the 65 books on the Best Novel long list, these were respectively 40th, 38th, 47th, 51st and 50th in my previous ranking – none of them was in the top half of the table (the top book on my long-list table was not actually sf). This demonstrates only that BSFA second round voters are not very aligned with Goodreads and LibraryThing users.

Best Shorter Fiction		Goodreads		LibraryThing
Title	Author	raters	rating	owners	rating
And Put Away Childish Things	Adrian Tchakovsky	1202	3.82	49	3.90
I am AI	Ai Jiang	184	4.47	4	5.00
The Book of Gaheris	Kari Sperring	10	4.50	15	3.50
Europa	Allen Stroud	47	3.77	3	–
Broken Paradise	Eugen Bacon	5	4.60	3	–

765 pages total

Best Shorter Fiction is the only category which has the same book top out of five on both GR and LT. These were 3rd, 9th, 12th, 14th and 17th out of the 24 long-listees that I was able to rank by GR/LT ownership.

Best Fiction for Younger Readers		Goodreads		LibraryThing
Title	Author	raters	rating	owners	rating
The Library of Broken Worlds	Alaya Dawn Johnson	154	3.19	66	4.13
A Song of Salvation	Alechia Dow	232	3.96	28	3.00
Mindbreaker	Kate Dylan	216	4.20	15	5.00
We Who Are Forged In Fire	Kate Murray	55	4.18	2	–
The Inn at the Amethyst Lantern	J Dianne Dotson	17	4.59	1	–

1786 pages total

The long list here for Best Fiction for Younger Readers was rather short, and these were 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th and 7th out of 8.

Best Collection		Goodreads		LibraryThing
Title	Author/Editor	raters	rating	owners	rating
No One Will Come Back For Us	Premee Mohamed	297	4.06	42	4.08
Best of World SF: Volume 3	Lavie Tidhar	9	4.33	75	3.58
The Best of British Science Fiction 2022	Donna Scott	18	3.94	19	4.25
Strange Attractors	Jaine Fenn	4	4.50	10	3.83
Mothersound: The Sauútiverse Anthology	Wole Talabi	2	5.00	4	–

1922 pages total

These were 4th, 39th, 18th, 25th and 37th of the 51 Best Collection long listees. When I looked at the long lists five weeks ago, Best of World SF: Volume 3 had not yet been rated by anyone on Goodreads and had only nine owners on LibraryThing; it has picked up considerably in the meantime. I was concerned about the rather long tail of the long list, but it doesn’t seem to have transferred to the short list.

Best Non-Fiction (Long)		Goodreads		LibraryThing
Title	Author	raters	rating	owners	rating
Spec Fic for Newbies	Tiffani Angus and Val Nolan	11	4.36	8	5.00
A Traveller in Time: The Critical Practice of Maureen Kincaid Speller	Nina Allan, editor	6	4.50	5	–
All These Worlds	Niall Harrison	4	4.00	5	–
Ex Marginalia: Essays on Writing Speculative Fiction by Persons of Color	Chinelo Onwualu	8	4.13	2	–
The Female Man: Eastercon talk	Farah Mendlesohn	(lecture on YouTube)

1417 pages total

The books here were 6th, 11th, 10th and 14th of the 23 long-listees for Best Non-Fiction (Long) on GR and LT. The same book tops both systems, but one of the nominees is a talk rather than a publication, and the numbers are anyway thin, so the comparison is incomplete.

That’s a total of 7,528 pages; and there are five other categories as well. You have four weeks!

BSFA Long Lists – the Goodreads / LibraryThing stats

Posted on 20 January 2024 by fromtheheartofeurope

The Long Lists for this year’s BSFA Awards are out, and provide much food for thought. We have a whole load of new categories this year, listed in a somewhat eccentric order on the official page (maybe that’s the constitutional order, I don’t know). As ever, I’ve run them through LibraryThing and Goodreads, to see how many people own each book on the former platform and have rated it on the latter; and I rank each section by the geometric average of the two ratings.

One thing I haven’t done this year is to look at the average ratings of each book on each system. This is simply because my time is limited; I’ve looked at around 200 books here, and am satisfied that the raw measure of penetration of the two systems gives a fair idea of how far they have percolated into the community and the wider public.

I didn’t look at Best Artwork, Best Short Fiction or Best Short Non-Fiction for this exercise; I assumed that none of the nominees in those categories would have been separately registered on LT or GR.

In the Best Audiobook category (strictly, Best Original Audio Fiction), there are 11 works on the longlist. Only one of them (The Downloaded, by Robert J. Sawyer) is owned by anyone of LibraryThing, and only two (The Downloaded, again, and The Dex Legacy by Emily Inkpen) have been rated by anyone on Goodreads. This is less than I would have expected; audiobook listeners are as assiduous about logging their consumption as are print or screen readers. I’m also disappointed not to see any of Big Finish’s output here; I can’t believe that I’m the only Big Finish fan who is also a BSFA voter (but I must admit that I myself did not actually get around to nominating).

The Best Fiction for Younger Readers long list has only 8 nominees, which is not very long. This is a bit surprising as that list has been reasonably well populated in the past. The 8 nominees, and the LT / GR rankings, are:

Title	Author	LT	GR
Spellbound	F.T. Lukens	177	5312
The Library of Broken Worlds	Alaya Dawn Johnson	60	134
A Song of Salvation	Alechia Dow	23	216
Mindbreaker	Kate Dylan	12	194
City of Vicious Night	Claire Winn	6	176
We Who Are Forged In Fire	Kate Murray	2	50
The Inn at the Amethyst Lantern	J Dianne Dotson	1	15
Vivi Conway and the Sword of Legend	Lizzie Huxley Jones	0	59

There’s obviously a strong leader here. Also, I am really puzzled as to how the last book on the list has managed to pick up as many as 59 Goodreads ratings, without a single LibraryThing user acquiring it. It also seems to be selling well enough on Amazon. It may be that the author has made a bit of a push on GR, but I’m not sure if it’s such a good platform for YA marketing.

There are 29 long-listees for Best Shorter Fiction (there are 30 works on the official long list itself, but one has been listed twice). Five of them have not been published in standalone format and so the comparison with LT/GR stats isn’t really fair, but I list them below for completeness.

Title	Author	LT	GR
The Scourge Between Stars	Ness Brown	130	2836
Rose/House	Arkady Martine	82	1366
And Put Away Childish Things	Adrian Tchakovsky	44	1068
Emergent Properties	Aimee Ogden	53	527
The Navigating Fox	Christopher Rowe	42	458
Hamlet – Prince of Robots	M. Darusha Wehm	18	144
The Iron Children	Rebecca Fraimow	12	79
Pluralities	Avi Silver	7	83
I am AI	Ai Jiang	3	161
The Midas Rain	Adam Roberts	5	51
A Necessary Chaos	Brent Lambert	6	34
The Book of Gaheris	Kari Sperring	15	10
To The Woman in the Pink Hat	LaToya Jordan	4	27
Europa	Allen Stroud	2	36
Miasma	Jess Hyslop	2	27
Telling the Bees	Emma Leadey	6	6
Broken Paradise	Eugen Bacon	3	5
Hero’s Choice	Merc Fenn Wolfmoor	2	6
Off Time Jive	A.Z. Louise	2	1
The Panharmonion Chronicles	Henry Chebaane	0	26
A Feast for Flies	Leigh Harlen	0	8
The Lies We Tell Ourselves	L K Kitney	0	6
Little Nothing	Dee Holloway	0	5
Where the God-Knives Tread	A.L. Goldfuss	1	0
Axiom of Dreams	Arula Ratnakar
Defective	Peter Watts
Land of The Awaiting Birth	Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki & Joshua Uchenna Omenga.
The Window in the Forest	Seán Padraic Birnie
Undulation	Stephen Embleton

Again some strong leaders, one in particular, but the figures here are probably less meaningful than in the other categories because of the difference in place of publication.

There are 24 long-listees for Best Non-Fiction (Long).

Title	Author	LT	GR
A City on Mars	Kelly and Zach Weinersmith	160	1116
Wish I Was Here	M John Harrison	41	117
I Am the Law	Michael Molcher	12	109
We’re Falling Through Space	J. David Reed	2	83
Realms of Imagination: Essays from the Wide Worlds of Fantasy	Tanya Kirk and Matthew Sangster	13	6
Spec Fic for Newbies: A Beginner’s Guide to Writing Subgenres of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror	Tiffani Angus and Val Nolan	7	11
The Weird Tales Boys	Stephen Jones	8	9
Selected Nonfiction 1962-2007 J.G.. Ballard	Editor Mark Blacklock	8	5
David Whitaker in an Exciting Adventure in Television	Simon Guerrier	4	5
All These Worlds	Niall Harrison	4	4
A Traveller in Time: The Critical Practice of Maureen Kincaid Speller	Nina Allan, editor	2	6
Science Fiction Cinema in the Twenty-First Century: Transnational Futures	Cosmopolitan Concerns	3	3
Writing the Future edited	Dan Coxon and Richard V. Hirst	4	2
Ex Marginalia: Essays on Writing Speculative Fiction by Persons of Color	Chinelo Onwualu	1	7
An Introduction to Fantasy	Matthew Sangster	2	2
Fear of Seeing: A Poetics of Chinese Science Fiction	Mingwei Song	1	1
The Expanse Expanded	Jamie Woodcock	1	1
Ursula K. Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea	Timothy S Miller	1	1
Destination Time Travel	Steve Nallon & Dick Fiddy	0	3
The Historical Dictionary of Fantasy Literature	Allen Stroud	0	1
Follow Me: Religion in Fantasy and Science Fiction	Francesca T Barbini	1	0
Blake’s 7 Production Diary Series A	Jonathan Helm	0	0
Corroding the Now: Poetry + Science\|SF	Francis Gene Rowe, Stephen Mooney, Richard Parker	0	0
The Female Man: Eastercon talk	Farah Mendlesohn

Once again, a very clear leader, but it’s striking how little penetration a lot of these have had. One of them is a lecture, so not surprisingly it has no owners on LT or GR. One has nobody rating it on GR, two have no owners on LT, and two more draw a blank on both. I guess that most SF fans read much more fiction rather than critique; I know I do.

I also think it would be helpful to know to what extent the administration of the awards is kept separate from the BSFA Committee; the Hugos make an explicit statement on this.

I feel the most uncomfortable about the Best Collection category, which is new this year. There are 51 nominees and 14 of them, more than a quarter, have no LibraryThing owners at all; four of those have nobody rating them on Goodreads either.

Title	Author/Editor	LT	GR
Never Whistle at Night	Shane Hawk, Theodore C Van Alst Jr	236	4591
Hit Parade of Tears	Izumi Suzuki	60	888
Ten Planets	Yuri Herrera	46	550
No One Will Come Back For Us	Premee Mohamed	38	255
Drinking From Graveyard Wells	Yvette Ndlovu	20	159
Jewel Box	E. Lily Yu	17	135
New Suns 2	Nisi Shawl	29	72
The Inconsolables	Michael Wehunt	11	139
Multiverses: An Anthology of Alternate Realities	Preston Grassman	16	86
A Taste of Darkness	Various	6	160
Gunflower	Laura Jean McKay	10	75
Jackal, Jackal	Tobi Ogundiran	9	69
You Are My Sunshine	Octavia Cade	11	51
The Dead Man and Other Stories	Gene Wolf	19	27
The Wolfe at the Door	Gene Wolfe	13	34
Worlds Long Lost	Christopher Ruocchio	6	51
Promise	Christi Nogle	7	43
Best of British Science Fiction 2022	Donna Scott	19	15
The Skin Thief	Suzan Palumbo	4	50
The Shadow Galaxy	J Dianne Dotson	3	34
Caged Ocean Dub	Dare Segun Falowo	8	11
Read, Scream, Repeat	Jennifer Killick	1	71
Between Dystopias: The Road to Afropantheology	Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, Joshua Uchenna Omenga	3	23
Like Smoke Like Light	Yukimi Ogawa	4	16
Strange Attractors	Jaine Fenn	10	4
Judge Dredd: The Darkest Judge (graphic novel – collection of linked strips)	Various	1	27
Luminescent Machinations	Rhiannon Rasmussen and dave ring	3	9
Bioluminescent: A Lunarpunk Anthology	Justine Norton-Kerston	2	10
Rosalind’s Siblings: Fiction and Poetry Celebrating Scientists of Marginalized Genders	Bogi Takács	3	6
Embroidered Worlds	Valya Dudycz Lupescu, Olha Brylova, and Iryna Pasko	12	1
Eclectic Dreams: A Milford Anthology	Various	2	5
Infinite Constellations: An Anthology of Identity Culture and Speculative Conjunctions	Khadijah Queen and Kiini Ibura Salaam	2	4
Writing the Future	Dan Coxon and Richard V. Hirst	4	2
Where Rivers Go To Die	Dilman Dila	1	5
Michael Butterworth – Complete Poems 1965-2020	Michael Butterworth	2	2
Rhapsody of the Spheres	Juliana Rew	2	2
Mothersound: The Sauútiverse Anthology	Edited by Wole Talabi	2	1
Have You Seen the Moon Tonight? & Other Rumors	Jonathan Louis Duckworth	0	11
Best of World SF: Volume 3	Lavie Tidhar	0	6
Extracting Humanity	Stephen Oram	0	5
Fighting for the Future: Cyberpunk and Solarpunk Tales	Phoebe Wagner	0	5
Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction 2022	Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, Eugen Bacon, Milton Davis	0	4
Twelve All in Dread: The Twelfth Witch and Other Stories	Juliana Rew	0	4
Wolves and Girls	Maria Haskins	0	4
Languages of Water	Editor, Eugen Bacon	0	3
Indie YA Bites	Various	0	2
Guerrilla Mural of A Siren Song	Ernest Hogan	0	1
Beyond Between	David Viner	0	0
Corroding the Now	Francis Gene-Rowe, Stephen Mooney and Richard Parker	0	0
Dark Stars: Sci-Fi Horror Drabbles	Eric Fomley	0	0
Simultaneous Times Vol.3	Jean-Paul L. Garnier	0	0

I don’t really know how useful a long-list of such length can be, when it includes so many candidates who have little traction. 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!

Also a little surprised to note a couple of crossovers with Best Collection, but maybe the shortlisting process will sort that out.

Finally, Best Novel. This long list is very long, at 65 nominees. Only two have slipped past LibraryThing users, and all of them have been rated by at least a couple of Goodreads users. So it’s relatively robust, though with a couple of crossovers with Best Shorter Fiction which again presumably the shortlisting will sort out. There’s certainly some attractive titles here, and indeed two books that I have actually read, unlike any of the other categories. 65 is shorter than last year’s 68, or the previous year’s 74; it’s still very long though.

Title	Author	LT	GR
Yellowface	R.F. Kuang	1571	306112
Starling House	Alix E Harrow	797	46020
The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi	Shannon Chakraborty	969	32188
Starter Villain	John Scalzi	604	24312
Witch King	Martha Wells	786	12949
Translation State	Ann Leckie	385	7137
The Narrow Road Between Desires	Patrick Rothfuss	254	9817
Some Desperate Glory	Emily Tesh	412	5807
The Sinister Booksellers of Bath	Garth Nix	302	4476
The Future	Naomi Alderman	208	6112
Lords of Uncreation	Adrian Tchaikovsky	154	7437
Mimicking of Known Successes	Malka Older	260	4082
Bridge	Lauren Beukes	86	11231
Titanium Noir	Nick Harkaway	200	4319
Infinity Gate	M.R. Carey	184	3429
In Ascension	Martin MacInnes	155	3022
Dragonfall	L R Lam	183	2314
Sleep No More	Seanan McGuire	122	2525
The First Bright Thing	R. Dawson	151	2031
Malevolent Seven	Sebastien de Castell	102	2855
The Water Outlaws	S.L. Huang	168	1393
Julia	Sandra Newman	122	1717
Perilous Times	Thomas D Lee	142	1438
The Surviving Sky	Kritika H. Rao	111	1266
Season of Skulls	Charles Stross	101	1324
The Archive Undying	Emma Mieko Camden	126	1011
The Saint of Bright Doors	Vajra Chandrasekera	136	931
Rose/House	Arkady Martine	82	1366
Gods of the Wyrdwood	R J Barker	82	1035
The Death I Gave Him	Em X. Liu	68	1142
The Space Between Us	Doug Johnstone	40	1729
These Burning Stars	Bethany Jacobs	75	755
Orbital	Samantha Harvey	61	790
A Market of Dreams and Destiny	Trip Gailey	48	523
The Valkyrie	Kate Heartfield	41	595
Hopeland	Ian McDonald	68	319
More Perfect	Temi Oh	47	383
Descendant Machine	Gareth L. Powell	29	591
The Fractured Dark	Megan E. O’Keefe	26	644
Shigidi And The Brass Head Of Obalufon	Wole Talabi	49	329
The Circumference of the World	Lavie Tidhar	40	284
Frontier	Grace Curtis	13	835
Cahokia Jazz	Frances Spufford	46	226
The Infinite	Ada Hoffmann	20	232
The Master of Samar	Melissa Scott	23	164
Talonsister	Jen Williams	17	202
Airside	Christopher Priest	22	128
Conquest	Nina Allan	24	114
Hel’s Eight	Stark Holborn	17	148
The Green Man’s Quarry	Juliet McKenna	11	157
HIM	Geoff Ryman	18	89
A Woman of the Sword	Anna Smith Spark	14	114
Creation Node	Stephen Baxter	13	119
Warrior of the Wind	Suyi Davies Okungbowa	11	120
A Second Chance For Yesterday	R.A. Sinn	10	113
One	Eve Smith	3	212
Refractions	MV Melcer	7	89
Lamb	Matt Hill	3	73
Mother Sea	Lorraine Wilson	1	46
The Pollutant Speaks	Alex Cochran	3	11
All the Hollow of the Sky	Kit Whitfield	2	15
The Disinformation War	SJ Groenewegen	2	5
Inkbloom	E.D.E. Bell	3	2
Prompt Excursion	Lewis S Kingston	0	11
The Red Hairband	Catherine Greene	0	3

One of the two books I have read from this list is Yellowface by R.F. Kuang, which is way out in front of the field with more Goodreads ratings than the other 64 combined and a smaller but still substantial lead on LibraryThing. I really don’t think that Yellowface is SF; it’s very much rooted in the present day, with no innovations of technology or weird magical stuff (the narrator has a couple of visions of a dead friend, but puts them down to stress). It’s not even about SF; the narrator writes a fantasy novel, but it’s a less important thread of the plot. I think that the BSFA Awards have missed a trick by not nominating Kuang previously; I think that she’s a great writer; and I think that Yellowface is an excellent book. But if it does get shortlisted, I won’t be voting for it, because I think that the BSFA Award for Best Novel should go to a work of SF.

(The other book I’ve read is The Future, by Naomi Alderman, which I also enjoyed.)

Doing all of this has been displacement activity as I eagerly anticipate the release of the nomination stats from last year’s Chengdu Worldcon; however I have to go out shortly for the rest of the evening, so my usual analysis will be tomorrow at the earliest.

The top books of 1923 and 1973, according to LibraryThing and Goodreads

Posted on 6 August 2023 by fromtheheartofeurope

Which of this year’s books will be remembered in 50 or 100 years’ time? I won’t be around to keep count, but it’s a question that we can ask of the books of 50 and 100 years ago. So, I have crunched the numbers for the books of 1923 and 1973, as tracked by ownership on LibraryThing and the number of people who have rated them on Goodreads. Obviously there’s an English-language bias there, but I’m pleasantly surprised that a number of translated novels make both lists.

For 1923, The Prophet by Lebanese-American writer Kahlil Gibran is way out in front. I’ve read it and the next two on the list and will report back on them in the next couple of days. I am familiar at least with most of the others, and have read another four or five, but they all look interesting. There are works of poetry and a play here; neither genre appears on the 1973 list. None of these appears in the Publisher’s Weekly lists of best-selling books in the USA for any year in the 1920s.

Title	Author	GR ratings	LT readers	Genre	Language
The Prophet	Kahlil Gibran	285,637	13,524	poetry / philosophy	English
The Murder on the Links	Agatha Christie	84,057	4,181	fiction (detective)	English
Whose Body?	Dorothy L. Sayers	53,897	4,732	fiction (detective)	English
Emily of New Moon	L.M. Montgomery	48,741	3,888	fiction (children)	English
Zeno’s Conscience / La coscienza di Zeno	Italo Svevo	24,462	3,425	fiction	Italian
The Inimitable Jeeves	P.G. Wodehouse	25,937	3,221	fiction (humour)	English
Bambi	Felix Salten	35,470	2,348	fiction (children)	German
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening	Robert Frost	10,446	2,334	poetry	English
Leave It to Psmith	P.G. Wodehouse	10,835	2,118	fiction (humour)	English
Saint Joan	George Bernard Shaw	8,999	2,208	stage	English
Cane	Jean Toomer	10,201	1,806	fiction (African American)	English
A Lost Lady	Willa Cather	6,622	1,537	fiction	English
The Fatal Eggs / Роковые яйца	Mikhail Bulgakov	10,010	723	fiction (science fiction / satire)	Russian
St Francis of Assisi	G.K. Chesterton	4,284	1,583	biography	English
The Devil in the Flesh / Le Diable au corps	Raymond Radiguet	5,963	1,052	fiction	French
Sonnets to Orpheus / Die Sonette an Orpheus	Rainer Maria Rilke	3,409	1,021	poetry	German
Antic Hay	Aldous Huxley	2,213	1,266	fiction (humour)	English
The Lurking Fear	H.P. Lovecraft	2,201	972	fiction (horror)	English
The Dark Frigate	Charles Boardman Hawes	2,364	702	fiction (children)	English
My Universities / Мои университеты	Maxim Gorky	2,455	298	autobiography	Russian

Listed in order of the product of the GR and LT numbers.

I have read more than half of the 1973 list, and reread the second and third after crunching these numbers (reviews to come). There’s a distinct shift towards more popular literature, with more than a third of the list being fantasy or sf including The Princess Bride, top book by a long way, possibly due to having been later made into a hit fantasy film. Breakfast of Champions and The Hollow Hills both feature in the Publisher’s Weekly list for 1973, and both topped the New York Times Best Sellers list at different points that year.

Title	Author	GR ratings	LT readers	Genre	Language
The Princess Bride	William Goldman	876,632	24,080	fiction (fantasy)	English
Breakfast of Champions	Kurt Vonnegut Jr.	252,249	15,739	fiction (satire, possibly sf/fantasy)	English
A Wind in the Door	Madeleine L’Engle	125,473	12,097	fiction (children, sf)	English
Gravity’s Rainbow	Thomas Pynchon	42,455	10,403	fiction	English
Rendezvous with Rama	Arthur C. Clarke	158,937	9,660	fiction (sf)	English
The Dark Is Rising	Susan Cooper	54,681	8,088	fiction (children, fantasy)	English
Knowing God	J.I. Packer	55,725	8,069	religion	English
Sula	Toni Morrison	88,287	7,260	fiction (African American)	English
Time Enough for Love	Robert A. Heinlein	34,891	5,403	fiction (sf)	English
The Gulag Archipelago / Архипелаг ГУЛАГ	Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn	28,572	4,918	history / reportage	Russian
How to Eat Fried Worms	Thomas Rockwell	47,178	4,516	fiction (children)	English
The Hollow Hills	Mary Stewart	21,829	4,025	fiction (fantasy)	English
Momo	Michael Ende	74,409	3,789	fiction (children, fantasy)	German
Crash	J.G. Ballard	24,530	3,387	fiction	English
Fear of Flying	Erica Jong	21,026	3,364	fiction	English
Rubyfruit Jungle	Rita Mae Brown	40,058	3,111	fiction	English
Summer of My German Soldier	Bette Greene	16,884	2,893	fiction (children)	English
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72	Hunter S. Thompson	22,055	2,858	reportage	English
Child of God	Cormac McCarthy	41,844	2,852	fiction	English
Sybil: The Classic True Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Personalities	Flora Rheta Schreiber	88,919	2,799	psychology	English

Again, listed in order of the product of the GR and LT numbers.

So, a bit of compare and contrast:

70% of the 1923 books are in English, compared to 90% in 1973.
70% of the 1923 books are prose fiction, compared to 80% in 1973.
25% of the 1923 books are for younger readers, compared to 15% in 1973.
10% of the 1923 books are sf / fantasy / horror, compared to 35% in 1973.
At least 15% of the 1923 books are intentionally funny. I think only one of the 1973 books is meant to be humorous. (One could make a case for a few others.)

I might keep up this analysis for the next few years, and see what titles it throws up.

Arthur C. Clarke Submissions list: Goodreads / LibraryThing stats

Posted on 4 June 2023 by fromtheheartofeurope

The Arthur C. Clarke Award submissions list has been published! (Shortlist coming soon.)

Here is my photo of the 98 submitted books, in alphabetical order by title. (One was submitted electronically – see if you can spot the printed out cover.)

I’ve also checked the rankings of each of the submitted books on Goodreads and LibraryThing, noting the number of reported raters and owners respectively, and also the verage ranking on the two systems. As usual, the books are ranked by the geometric average of Goodreads and LibraryThing owners; I have bolded the top 19 in each column (which is almost a quintile, there being 98 books in total).

	Goodreads		LibraryThing
	raters	av rating	owners	av rating
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin	354710	4.25	2082	4.12
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel	157847	4.12	2021	4.07
The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd	51616	3.65	1156	3.53
Upgrade by Blake Crouch	67902	3.82	813	3.74
The Anomaly by Hervé le Tellier	41415	3.83	900	3.73
The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi	34902	4.03	1007	3.95
The Candy House by Jennifer Egan	38202	3.68	846	3.78
How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu	35442	3.86	694	3.84
To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara	32809	3.79	668	3.83
The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia	19317	3.62	508	3.69
Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez	18310	4.39	322	3.80
Fevered Star by Rebecca Roanhorse	11637	4.11	338	4.14
The World We Make by N. K. Jemisin	9509	4.15	412	4.16
Mickey⁷ by Edward Ashton	7575	3.79	213	3.76
Lost In Time by A G Riddle	12502	4.25	127	3.60
Eyes of the Void by Adrian Tchaikovsky	7774	4.22	187	4.06
Life Ceremony by Sayaka Murata	8551	3.78	168	3.85
Children of Memory by Adrian Tchaikovsky	7316	4.11	191	4.12
Eversion by Alastair Reynolds	5061	4.02	225	3.90
Poster Girl by Veronica Roth	6156	3.67	176	3.63
The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal	3565	3.90	287	3.92
Tell Me an Ending by Jo Harkin	4650	3.63	220	3.81
The Violence by Delilah S. Dawson	5983	3.87	163	3.94
Leech by Hiron Ennes	3962	3.64	211	3.53
Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo	3261	3.74	195	3.67
The Women Could Fly by Megan Giddings	3734	3.64	161	3.85
The Leviathan by Rosie Andrews	3611	3.56	155	3.81
Scattered All Over the Earth by Yōko Tawada	2713	3.40	161	3.59
The Furrows by Namwali Serpell	3055	3.27	112	3.08
Oval by Elvia Wilk	1694	3.38	116	2.96
The Red Scholar’s Wake by Aliette de Bodard	1192	3.26	158	4.00
Thrust by Lidia Yuknavitch	1456	3.55	99	3.14
Last Exit by Max Gladstone	1082	3.68	124	3.34
Speaking Bones by Ken Liu	1241	4.59	101	4.56
The Moonday Letters by Emmi Itaranta	1334	3.80	81	3.50
Vagabonds! by Eloghosa Osunde	1415	3.86	76	3.00
Stars and Bones by Gareth L. Powell	1188	3.68	74	3.29
Scary Monsters by Michelle de Kretser	1071	3.34	82	3.33
Until the Last of Me by Sylvain Neuvel	1195	3.83	71	3.63
City of Last Chances by Adrian Tchaikovsky	969	4.07	87	3.95
Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman	1236	3.83	67	3.83
Braking Day by Adam Oyebanji	1103	4.03	71	3.79
Bluebird by Ciel Pierlot	1074	3.91	72	3.57
The Men by Sandra Newman	1202	2.96	58	2.47
The Splendid City by Karen Heuler	468	3.03	132	2.81
Metronome by Tom Watson	1721	3.77	35	3.79
August Kitko and the Mechas from Space by Alex White	742	3.87	76	3.72
The Stars Undying by Emery Robin	605	3.59	87	3.70
The Shadow Glass by Josh Winning	811	4.11	52	3.69
The Immortality Thief by Taran Hunt	808	4.16	49	4.00
Mindwalker by Kate Dylan	812	4.16	42	4.00
The Circus Infinite by Khan Wong	471	3.64	50	3.67
The This by Adam Roberts	339	3.87	61	3.91
Pod by Laline Paull	611	3.65	33	4.10
Neom by Lavie Tidhar	307	3.97	62	4.27
Full Immersion by Gemma Amor	384	3.86	45	3.75
Beyond the Burn Line by Paul McAuley	325	3.60	51	3.69
The Thousand Earths by Stephen Baxter	497	3.93	33	3.00
*A Shtload of Crazy Powers** by Jackson Ford	582	4.25	23	4.10
36 Streets by T.R. Napper	478	4.00	25	3.75
The Chosen Twelve by James Breakwell	431	3.64	27	4.13
Azura Ghost by Essa Hansen	314	4.17	33	3.07
Momenticon by Andrew Caldecott	287	3.78	29	3.50
The Last Storm by Tim Lebbon	308	3.68	26	4.00
Stringers by Chris Panatier	317	3.77	25	3.50
A Fractured Infinity by Nathan Tavares	198	3.57	29	3.00
The Flight of the Aphrodite by S J Morden	275	3.85	20	3.83
Mercury Rising by R.W.W. Greene	221	3.77	24	3.75
Expect Me Tomorrow by Christopher Priest	119	3.61	36	4.17
Deep Dive by Ron Walters	238	3.77	18	4.13
Glitterati by Oliver K. Langmead	183	3.72	21	3.92
Off-Target by Eve Smith	403	4.08	8	–
Lambda by David Musgrave	159	3.27	20	2.67
Wormhole by Eric Brown and Keith Brooke	167	3.8	17	3.92
Plutoshine by Lucy Kissick	145	4.06	18	3.38
Equinox by David Towsey	263	3.45	9	–
Where it Rains in Color by Denise Crittendon	99	3.80	23	2.50
HellSans by Ever Dundas	161	3.67	14	3.00
Love And Other Human Errors by Bethany Clift	398	4.38	5	5.00
Ion Curtain by Anya Ow	86	3.49	12	4.00
The Key to Fury by Kristin Cast	83	3.78	11	–
The Fish by Joanne Stubbs	78	3.69	6	3.50
Appliance by J.O. Morgan	63	3.56	7	–
Ricky’s Hand by David Quantick	90	3.73	4	–
The Ends by James Smythe	44	4.14	7	4.33
The Quickening by Talulah Riley	134	2.92	2	–
The Coral Bones by E.J. Swift	19	4.53	8	–
Outcast by Louise Carey	44	4.05	3	–
New Brighton by Helen Trevorrow	43	3.84	2	–
The Mars Migration by Wayne M. Bailey	17	4.71	2	5.00
Hangdog Souls by Marc Joan	12	4.58	2	4.00
The Transfer Problem by Adam Saint	17	3.94	1	–
The Visitors by Owen W Knight	9	4.33	1	–
Titan Blue by M.B. Fox	4	4.75	1	–
Harpan’s Worlds: Worlds Apart by Terry Jackman	1	3.00	1	–
Stray Pilot by Douglas Thompson	0	–	2	–
Prophets of the Red Night by Sophie McKeand	0	–	1	–
The Hunt – For Allies by David Adams	0	–	1	–

I crunched these numbers a couple of weeks ago, and they won’t have changed much in the meantime. I make it 48 by writers who are not men, and 23 by writers who are not white. But my statistics are not authoritative.

This is in no way a guide to the shortlist or the winner, but it does show the extent to which the novels submitted have permeated popular consciousness, at least in the universe of Goodreads and LibraryThing users.

Nebula finalists – Goodreads/LibraryThing stats

Posted on 10 March 2023 by fromtheheartofeurope

How the Nebula finalists have hit the markets. As usual, ranked by the geometric average of the number of Goodreads users who have ranked the book and the number of LibraryThing owners who have logged it; highest numbers in each column are in bold.

Best Novel:

	Goodreads		LibraryThing
	raters	av rating	owners	av rating
Babel, by R.F. Kuang	69,448	4.31	1,728	4.22	£8.49 from Amazon
Legends & Lattes, by Travis Baldree	57,023	4.33	1,011	4.29	£12.99 from Amazon
Nettle and Bone, by T. Kingfisher	27,033	4.22	738	4.29	£7.49 from Amazon
Nona the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir	20,765	4.39	594	4.22	£18.30 from Amazon
Spear, by Nicola Griffith	3637	4.13	261	4.03	£13.35 from Amazon
The Mountain in the Sea, by Ray Nayler	3161	4.09	222	4.07	£14.99 from Amazon

Best Novella (NB that one of these has not been published as a standalone):

	Goodreads		LibraryThing
	raters	av rating	owners	av rating
A Prayer for the Crown-Shy, by Becky Chambers	23,561	4.46	618	4.34	£12.85 from Amazon
Even Though I Knew the End, by C.L. Polk	4246	3.97	147	4.24	£14.53 from Amazon
High Times in the Low Parliament, by Kelly Robson	737	3.28	73	3.64	£9.99 from Amazon
I Never Liked You Anyway, by Jordan Kurella	15	3.87	5	–	£11.30 from Amazon
“Bishop’s Opening”, by R.S.A. Garcia

Andre Norton Nebula Award for Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction:

	Goodreads		LibraryThing
	raters	av rating	owners	av rating
The Many Half-Lived Lives of Sam Sylvester, Maya MacGregor	698	4.20	35	4.25	£13.99 from Amazon
The Scratch Daughters, by H.A. Clarke	307	4.53	28	4.75	£16.80 from Amazon
Every Bird a Prince, Jenn Reese	134	4.07	15	4.10	£10.36 from Amazon
The Mirrorwood, by Deva Fagan	192	4.14	10	–	£12.54 from Amazon
Ruby Finley vs. the Interstellar Invasion, K. Tempest Bradford	70	4.16	12	–	£11.94 from Amazon

BSFA long-lists: Goodreads and LibraryThing stats

Posted on 15 January 2023 by fromtheheartofeurope

I’m glad to see the BSFA long-lists are out, always a fun start to one’s reading year (except that at present I am overwhelmed by Clarke submissions).

But these long-lists are long. 18 for Best Book for Younger Readers; 32 for Best Non-Fiction; 36 for Best Artwork; 68 for Best Novel (down from 74 last year); and a stonking 77 for Best Short Fiction. I have to wonder how useful any long-lists as long as this can really be. I also wonder to what extent such an open nominations process can be exploited for marketing purposes. There is still some desirable kudos to being a BSFA long-listed author, even if the barrier to achieving that status is rather low.

As I have done before, I’ve looked at the Goodreads and LibraryThing statistics for the two most relevant categories, Best Book for Younger Readers and Best Novel, ranked by the geometrical average of the number of Goodreads users who have rated each book, and the number of LibraryThing users who have recorded owning it.

For Best Book for Younger Readers, I have bolded the top five in each column. The only book to get all four numbers in bold is All That’s Left in the World, by Erik J. Brown.

	Goodreads		LibraryThing
	raters	av rating	owners	av rating
Only A Monster, by Vanessa Len	15707	3.91	443	3.67
Her Majesty’s Royal Coven, by Juno Dawson	7948	3.89	377	3.78
Violet Made of Thorns, by Gina Chen	9189	3.65	304	4
All That’s Left in the World, by Erik J. Brown	11720	4.3	187	4.12
This Vicious Grace, by Emily Thiede	6483	4.1	225	4.11
Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor, by Xiran Jay Zhao	2324	4.19	89	4.22
The Kindred, by Alechia Dow	1206	3.68	63	4.17
Beasts of Ruin, by Ayana Gray	859	4.2	59	4
Unraveller, by Frances Hardinge	564	4.22	47	4.2
Illuminations, by T Kingfisher	721	4.19	29	4.06
Mindwalker, by Kate Dylan	584	4.23	34	4
Survive the Dome, by Kosoko Jackson	616	3.62	30	4
Osmo Unknown and the Eightpenny Woods, by Catherynne M. Valente	233	4.36	33	4.5
Secret of the Stormforest, by L.D. Lapinski	278	4.36	9	–
The Comet, by Joe Todd-Stanton	163	4.48	11	4
Loki: A Bad God’s Guide to Taking The Blame, by Louie Stowell	89	4.36	6	4
Born Andromeda, by K.M. Watts	25	3.68	5	3
The Fox’s Tower, by Sam Thompson	0	–	0	–

And here’s the Best Novel long-list, with the top quintile in each column in bold. Again only one book manages this in all four columns: Babel, by R. F. Kuang.

	Goodreads		LibraryThing
	raters	av rating	owners	av rating
Sea of Tranquility, by Emily St. John Mandel	112106	4.15	1573	4.07
Babel, by R. F. Kuang	45330	4.36	1310	4.24
The Cartographers, by Peng Shepherd	42599	3.67	938	3.52
Daughter of the Moon Goddess, by Sue Lynn Tan	37840	4.18	861	3.95
Upgrade, by Blake Crouch	52560	3.84	580	3.78
To Paradise, by Hanya Yanagihara	27583	3.79	536	3.86
Nettle & Bone, by T Kingfisher	21893	4.24	604	4.29
How High We Go in the Dark, by Sequoia Nagamatsu	24853	3.89	525	3.83
What Moves the Dead, by T. Kingfisher	20260	3.98	441	4.07
Lapvona, by Otessa Moshfegh	22200	3.59	325	3.36
The Book Eaters, by Sunyi Dean	14568	3.72	466	3.98
Amongst Our Weapons, by Ben Aaronovitch	10384	4.35	394	3.99
Sundial, by Catriona Ward	9641	3.81	241	3.86
Spear, by Nicola Griffith	3196	4.14	246	4.02
Eyes of the Void, by Adrian Tchaikovsky	5887	4.22	131	4.02
Stone Blind, by Natalie Haynes	4024	4.03	173	3.82
The Grief of Stones, by Katherine Addison	3207	4.33	212	4.16
Eversion, by Alistair Reynolds	3565	4.04	168	3.96
Ocean’s Echo, by Everina Maxwell	2735	4.23	142	3.91
Our Lady of Mysterious Ailments, by Tendai Huchu	2115	3.97	159	4.06
Leech, by Hiron Ennes	2254	3.7	124	3.57
Goliath, by Tochi Onyebuchi	1094	3.31	150	3.57
Time Shelter, by Georgi Gospodinov	2712	4.08	56	3.64
Light Years From Home, by Mike Chenn	1797	3.57	66	4.1
A Half-Built Garden, by Ruthanna Emrys	841	3.71	120	3.4
The Spear Cuts Through Water, by Simon Jimenez	1000	4.27	96	4.21
Children of Memory, by Adrian Tchaikovsky	1617	4.16	57	4.58
The Moonday Letters, by Emma Itaranta	1162	3.82	69	3.63
The Path of Thorns, by Angela Slatter	1162	4.09	58	4.06
Stars and Bones, by Gareth Powell	974	3.7	59	3.29
The Men, by Sandra Newman	974	3	49	2.54
Under Fortunate Stars, by Ren Hutchings	843	4.01	55	4.05
Braking Day, by Adam Oyebanji	854	4.02	52	3.84
Venomous Lumpsucker, by Ned Beauman	810	3.88	50	3.88
The Red Scholar’s Wake, by Aliette de Bodard	465	3.65	60	4.18
Unraveller, by Frances Hardinge	564	4.22	47	4.2
The Circus Infinite, by Khan Wong	393	3.62	45	3.5
City of Last Chances, by Adrian Tchaikovsky	332	4.04	41	4.25
The Immortality Thief, by Taran Hunt	372	4.23	34	4
The This, by Adam Roberts	257	3.92	45	3.9
Echoes of Eternity, by Aaron Dembski-Bowden	605	4.53	15	5
Mischief Acts, by Zoe Gilbert	240	3.98	32	3.75
Picard: Second Self, by Una McCormack	239	4.26	17	5
Beyond the Burn Line, by Paul McAuley	145	3.66	28	3.5
Flight of the Aphrodite, by Simon Morden	198	3.99	16	3.83
Glitterati, by Oliver K. Langmead	144	3.73	19	3.92
Plutoshine, by Lucy Kissick	112	4.1	16	3.5
Expect Me Tomorrow, by Christopher Priest	74	3.65	23	4
A Fractured Infinity, by Nathan Tavares	74	3.76	15	3.5
Cold Water, by Dave Hutchinson	65	4.37	17	4.75
The Green Man’s Gift, by Juliet E. Mckenna	135	4.45	6	4
HellSans, by Ever Dundas	89	3.84	8	3
Mage of Fools, by Eugen Bacon	32	4.03	22	3.22
Embertide, by Liz Williams	48	4.46	9	4.25
Jackdaw, by Tade Thompson	47	4.11	5	–
In the Heart of Hidden Things, by Kit Whitfield	43	4.21	4	–
The Way the Light Bends, by Lorraine Wilson	27	4.41	4	4
Resilient, by Allen Stroud	23	4.17	4	–
Night Ivy, by E. D. E. Bell	17	4.29	3	–
Celestial, by M. D. Lachlan	21	3.19	2	–
The Coral Bones, by EJ Swift	9	4.78	4	–
On the Brink, by R. B. Kelly	4	4.75	5	–
Ocean of Stars, by John Dodd	12	3.92	1	–
Empathy, by Hoa Pham	1	4	1	–
It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way, by Alistair Mackay	67	4.64	0	–
From Death to Dawn, by Chele Cook	13	4.54	0	–
Cast Long Shadows, by Cat Hellisen	16	3.88	0	–
Harpan’s Worlds, by Terry Jackman	1	3	0	–

It is interesting to note that some of these books have had more nominators for the BSFA awards than they have registered owners on Goodreads or LibraryThing. Not pointing any fingers, but I think there may be a couple of cases of friends and family helping out here.

Nebula ballot, Goodreads / LibraryThing stats

Posted on 10 March 2022 by fromtheheartofeurope

The Nebula Awards final ballot is out, so here are the ratings of the nominated books on Goodreads and LibraryThing. The top number in each column is in bold.

Best Novel

	Goodreads		LibraryThing
	reviewers	av rating	owners	av rating
A Desolation Called Peace, Arkady Martine	12821	4.38	489	4.18
A Master of Djinn, P. Djèlí Clark	8999	4.15	447	3.96
The Unbroken, C.L. Clark	4033	3.88	208	3.64
Machinehood, S.B. Divya	1447	3.69	111	3.83
Plague Birds, Jason Sanford	80	3.8	14	4.38

One of these is not like the others.

Best Novella

	Goodreads		LibraryThing
	reviewers	av rating	owners	av rating
A Psalm for the Wild-Built, Becky Chambers	20347	4.29	540	4.25
Fireheart Tiger, Aliette de Bodard	3135	3.51	178	3.84
Flowers for the Sea, Zin E. Rocklyn	704	3.57	47	3.79
Sun-Daughters, Sea-Daughters, Aimee Ogden	391	3.47	34	3.85
And What Can We Offer You Tonight, Premee Mohamed	124	3.93	14	4.17
The Necessity of Stars, E. Catherine Tobler	79	3.91	12	3.83
“The Giants of the Violet Sea”, Eugenia Triantafyllou	–	–	–	–

The last of these was not published as a standalone and so is not comparable. (Martha Wells declined nomination for Fugitive Telemetry.)

Andre Norton Award for Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction

	Goodreads		LibraryThing
	reviewers	av rating	owners	av rating
Iron Widow, Xiran Jay Zhao	23891	4.26	413	4.23
Redemptor, Jordan Ifueko	4982	4.32	116	3.95
Victories Greater Than Death, Charlie Jane Anders	1921	3.55	201	3.63
Root Magic, Eden Royce	1671	4.24	76	4.38
A Snake Falls to Earth, Darcie Little Badger	1214	4.14	86	3.42
Thornwood, Leah Cypess	210	3.82	21	2.5

Again, a bit of variation here.

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