The BSFA Long List is out. Here are the 56 (!) Best Novel nominees, ranked by the product of their number of owners on Goodreads and LibraryThing.
| Goodreads | LibraryThing | ||||
| reviewers | av rating | owners | av rating | ||
| Piranesi by Susanna Clarke | 27,961 | 4.34 | 1,033 | 4.26 | |
| The City We Became by N. K. Jemisin | 24,512 | 4.01 | 990 | 4.08 | |
| Network Effect by Martha Wells | 22,649 | 4.43 | 729 | 4.42 | |
| The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones | 15,259 | 3.8 | 486 | 4.06 | |
| Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir | 13,520 | 4.3 | 465 | 4.21 | |
| To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini | 10,990 | 3.9 | 411 | 4.26 | |
| Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell | 9,187 | 4.04 | 464 | 4.08 | |
| The Empire of Gold by S.A. Chakraborty | 13,803 | 4.53 | 279 | 4.32 | |
| The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow | 9,894 | 4.15 | 374 | 4.16 | |
| Axiom’s End by Lindsay Ellis | 9,418 | 3.89 | 271 | 3.6 | |
| Little Eyes by Samanta Schweblin | 7,136 | 3.65 | 189 | 3.56 | |
| The New Wilderness by Diane Cook | 5,260 | 3.8 | 171 | 3.81 | |
| Burn by Patrick Ness | 4,401 | 3.82 | 196 | 3.98 | |
| The Book of Koli by M.R. Carey | 3,744 | 4.11 | 207 | 4.03 | |
| Earthlings by Sayaka Murata | 4,323 | 3.62 | 166 | 3.63 | |
| The Silence by Don DeLillo | 3,824 | 2.8 | 184 | 2.86 | |
| The Relentless Moon by Mary Robinette Kowal | 3,075 | 4.45 | 187 | 4.49 | |
| The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez | 2,626 | 4.11 | 172 | 3.94 | |
| The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson | 1,725 | 4.02 | 211 | 4.02 | |
| Afterland by Lauren Beukes | 2,208 | 3.31 | 142 | 3.47 | |
| The God Game by Danny Tobey | 2,758 | 3.74 | 113 | 3.68 | |
| Picard: The Last Best Hope by Una McCormack | 2,236 | 4.07 | 93 | 3.93 | |
| Saints of Salvation by Peter F Hamilton | 2,509 | 4.46 | 63 | 4.32 | |
| The Last Human by Zack Jordan | 1,473 | 3.71 | 99 | 3.54 | |
| The Doors of Eden by Adrian Tchaikovsky | 1,581 | 3.92 | 82 | 4.39 | |
| Unconquerable Sun by Kate Elliott | 932 | 4.03 | 116 | 4.08 | |
| 88 Names by Matt Ruff | 1,046 | 3.44 | 66 | 3.21 | |
| Attack Surface by Cory Doctorow | 736 | 4.11 | 73 | 4.13 | |
| Vagabonds by Hao Jingfang | 574 | 3.43 | 83 | 3.5 | |
| Light of Impossible Stars by Gareth L. Powell | 847 | 3.95 | 56 | 3.65 | |
| Beneath The Rising by Premee Mohamed | 437 | 3.68 | 60 | 3.67 | |
| The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again by M. John Harrison | 308 | 3.75 | 57 | 3.56 | |
| Mordew by Alex Pheby | 220 | 3.92 | 54 | 3.4 | |
| Master of Poisons by Andrea Hairston | 183 | 3.75 | 58 | 3.5 | |
| Bridge 108 by Anne Charnock | 274 | 3.58 | 27 | 3.44 | |
| Nophek Gloss by Essa Hansen | 245 | 3.85 | 29 | 3.17 | |
| War of the Maps by Paul McAuley | 194 | 3.8 | 35 | 3.5 | |
| Space Station Down by Ben Bova & Doug Beason | 270 | 3.39 | 18 | 3.33 | |
| Ghost Species by James Bradley | 330 | 3.84 | 11 | 3.75 | |
| Comet Weather by Liz Williams | 81 | 4.46 | 38 | 4.25 | |
| Noumenon Ultra by Marina J. Lostetter | 164 | 3.94 | 11 | – | |
| Chosen Spirits by Samit Basu | 143 | 3.73 | 5 | 4.25 | |
| Saving Lucia by Anna Vaught | 87 | 4.01 | 8 | – | |
| Liquid Crystal Nightingale by Eeleen Lee | 39 | 3.56 | 17 | 4.25 | |
| The Breach by M.T. Hill | 86 | 3.52 | 7 | 3.25 | |
| People of the Canyons by Kathleen O’Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear | 71 | 4.13 | 8 | – | |
| The Evidence by Christopher Priest | 49 | 3.37 | 11 | 5 | |
| Threading the Labyrinth by Tiffani Angus | 47 | 4.04 | 10 | 5 | |
| Fearless by Allen Stroud | 51 | 4.04 | 7 | 4.25 | |
| Dark Angels Rising by Ian Whates | 35 | 3.86 | 9 | 4.33 | |
| King of the Rising by Kacen Callender | 75 | 3.59 | 3 | – | |
| Greensmith by Aliya Whiteley | 23 | 4.13 | 6 | 3.5 | |
| Analogue/Virtual by Lavanya Lakshminarayan | 13 | 4.31 | 7 | – | |
| Water Must Fall by Nick Wood | 8 | 4.25 | 8 | 1.75 | |
| Ivory’s Story by Eugen Bacon | 7 | 4.29 | 6 | 4.67 | |
| Club Ded by Nikhil Singh | 3 | 4.67 | 2 | – | |
This is of limited predictive value, but does give a sense of how far these books have penetrated the wider market.
Three books are in the upper quartile of all four metrics – Piranesi, Network Effect and The Empire of Gold. Striking how poorly The Silence seems to have landed with readers.
Last year's winner was 5th out of 46 in the equivalent table, which is rather better than 16th out of 45 on the corresponding ranking of the 2018 long list; 27th out of 48 in 2017, and 26th out of 34 in 2016, So this table is of limited predictive value.
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