Locus 2008 Recommended Reading

Locus has come out with their annual recommended reading list. I've posted part of it below with links to any reviews I've written. I've left out the categories that have been outside of my reading this past year.

SF novels

Matter, Iain M. Banks (Orbit UK) *
Flood, Stephen Baxter (Gollancz, Roc '09)
Weaver, Stephen Baxter (Gollancz, Ace)
City at the End of Time, Greg Bear (Gollancz, Del Rey) *
Incandescence, Greg Egan (Gollancz, Night Shade)
January Dancer, Michael Flynn (Tor)
Marsbound, Joe Haldeman (Ace)
Spirit, Gwyneth Jones (Gollancz)
Escapement, Jay Lake (Tor) *
Song of Time, Ian R. MacLeod (PS Publishing)
The Night Sessions, Ken MacLeod (Orbit)
The Quiet War, Paul McAuley (Gollancz)
The Company,K. J. Parker (Orbit) *
House of Suns, Alastair Reynolds (Gollancz, Ace '09)
Pirate Sun, Karl Schroeder (Tor)
Anathem, Neal Stephenson (Atlantic UK, Morrow)
Saturn's Children, Charles Stross (Orbit, Ace) *
Rolling Thunder, John Varley (Ace)
Half a Crown, Jo Walton (Tor)
Implied Spaces, Walter Jon Williams (Night Shade Books) *

Fantasy novels

An Autumn War, Daniel Abraham (Tor)
The Love We Share Without Knowing, Christopher Barzak (Bantam)
The Knights of the Cornerstone, James P. Blaylock (Ace)
The Ghost in Love, Jonathan Carroll (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) *
The Island of Eternal Love, Daina Chaviano (Riverhead)
The Shadow Year, Jeffrey Ford (Morrow)
Shadowbridge/ Lord Tophet, Gregory Frost (Ballantine Del Rey)
The Memoirs of a Master Forger, William Heaney (Gollancz) ; as How to Make Friends with Demons, Graham Joyce (Night Shade Books '09)
Varanger, Cecelia Holland (Tor/Forge)
Lavinia, Ursula K. Le Guin (Harcourt)
The Bell at Sealey Head, Patricia A. McKillip (Ace)
The Hidden World, Paul Park (Tor)
The Engine's Child, Holly Phillips (Ballantine Del Rey)
The Enchantress of Florence, Salman Rushdie (Jonathan Cape)
The Alchemy of Stone, Ekaterina Sedia (Prime Books)
The Dragons of Babel, Michael Swanwick (Tor)
An Evil Guest, Gene Wolfe (Tor)

First novels

The Ninth Circle, Alex Bell (Gollancz)
The Painted Man, Peter V. Brett (HarperVoyager); as The Warded Man (Ballantine Del Rey) *
A Curse as Dark as Gold, Elizabeth C. Bunce (Scholastic)
Graceling, Kristin Cashore (Harcourt)
Alive in Necropolis, Doug Dorst (Riverhead)
Thunderer, Felix Gilman (Bantam Spectra)
Black Ships, Jo Graham (Orbit US)
Pandemonium, Daryl Gregory (Ballantine Del Rey)
The Gone-Away World, Nick Harkaway (William Heinemann, Knopf) *
Last Dragon, J.T. McDermott (Wizards of the Coast/Discoveries) *
Singularity's Ring, Paul Melko (Tor)
The Long Look, Richard Parks (Five Star)
The Red Wolf Conspiracy, Robert V. S. Redick (Gollancz, Del Rey '09)
The Cabinet of Wonders, Marie Rutkoski (Farrar, Straus, Giroux)

Young Adult Books

City of Ashes, Cassandra Clare (Simon & Schuster/McElderry)
The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins (Scholastic Press)
Monster Blood Tattoo, Book Two: Lamplighter, D. M. Cornish (Putnam; Omnibus Books Australia) *
Little Brother, Cory Doctorow (Tor) *
The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins, Bloomsbury)
Eon: Dragoneye Reborn, Alison Goodman (Viking); as The Two Pearls of Wisdom (HarperCollins Australia) *
Tender Morsels, Margo Lanagan (Knopf)
How to Ditch Your Fairy, Justine Larbalestier (Bloomsbury USA)
Ink Exchange, Melissa Marr (HarperTeen)
Chalice, Robin McKinley (Putnam)
The Knife of Never Letting Go, Patrick Ness (Candlewick Press)
The Adoration of Jenna Fox, Mary E. Pearson (Henry Holt)
Nation, Terry Pratchett (Doubleday UK, HarperCollins)
Zoe's Tale, John Scalzi (Tor)
Flora's Dare, Ysabeau S. Wilce (Harcourt)

*Books that are waiting on The Stack

It’s Official – All SFF Awards Are Useless

Ok, the title is a bit dramatic, but all SFF awards should be viewed with heavy skepticism. The Locus Awards were just released – these were the only major SFF award that anyone could vote for – as close to a true popular award as you could get in the SFF world. Well Neil Clark and Niall Harrison have voiced some very justified complaints about rule changes that were made by Locus after the votes were submitted. Apparently, subscribers to Locus are so much more important than the rest of us that their votes get to count twice. Yep, a subscriber’s opinion is worth double that of a non-subscriber.

So, the Locus Awards now join the ranks of the Nebulas and Hugos as awards that have results skewed enough to make them rather meaningless. The Nebulas have become little more than a popularity contest among writers with nominating rules that could confuse rocket scientists (but would probably make sense to the IRS). The Hugos have become a joke with such a small percentage of members of a club with membership fees actually voting that I have no idea who is deciding things. My feeling is that the results are heavily skewed by authors, editors, and over-weight, Baby Boomer trekkies that are most comfortable at home in a basement speaking Klingon.

The World Fantasy Award is at least transparent in that it’s a juried award whose judges are known. Perhaps this leaves the annual poll of the SF Site as one of the best judges of what may actually be award worthy with both an editor poll and reader poll.

Anyway, the bottom line is that I don’t take SFF awards very seriously and I’d recommend that others at least be skeptical.

Caveat Emptor!