I have not tracked systematically how good a guide this is to the likely winner of the awards, but it's a useful yardstick for how far finalists have managed to penetrate the general market. In each table I have ranked the books by geometric average of their number of owners on Goodreads and LibraryThing, and bolded the highest average ranking in each category.
Best Novel
|
Goodreads |
LibraryThing |
|
owners |
av rating |
owners |
av rating |
| The Ten Thousand Doors of January, by Alix E. Harrow |
139037 |
4.11 |
647 |
4.14 |
| Gideon the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir |
73792 |
4.25 |
546 |
4.19 |
| Middlegame, by Seanan McGuire |
70258 |
4.08 |
328 |
4.18 |
| A Memory Called Empire, by Arkady Martine |
43577 |
4.18 |
437 |
4.14 |
| The City in the Middle of the Night, by Charlie Jane Anders |
38557 |
3.58 |
404 |
3.76 |
| The Light Brigade, by Kameron Hurley |
16359 |
3.99 |
196 |
3.8 |
Seanan McGuire scoring notably better on Goodreads than LibraryThing.
Gideon the Ninth getting the best average rating on both.
Best Novella
|
Goodreads |
LibraryThing |
|
owners |
av rating |
owners |
av rating |
| "Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom", by Ted Chiang (Exhalation) |
93782 |
4.3 |
656 |
4.19 |
| This Is How You Lose The Time War, by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone |
87078 |
4.01 |
534 |
3.82 |
| In an Absent Dream, by Seanan McGuire |
32887 |
4.2 |
331 |
4.26 |
| The Deep, by Rivers Solomon |
46868 |
3.77 |
214 |
3.86 |
| To Be Taught, If Fortunate, by Becky Chambers |
30503 |
4.23 |
285 |
4.14 |
| The Haunting of Tram Car 015, by P. Djèlí Clark |
7639 |
4.08 |
164 |
4.14 |
For Ted Chiang's story, I am giving the numbers of
Exhalation, the collection it was published in.
This Is How You Lose The Time War has more Goodreads owners than all but one of the Best Novel finalists, and more LibraryThing owners than all but two of them.
Best Related Work
|
Goodreads |
LibraryThing |
|
owners |
av rating |
owners |
av rating |
| The Lady from the Black Lagoon, by Mallory O'Meara |
18450 |
4.05 |
171 |
3.92 |
| Becoming Superman, by J. Michael Straczynski |
4842 |
4.65 |
84 |
4.58 |
| The Pleasant Profession of Robert A Heinlein, by Farah Mendlesohn |
165 |
4.02 |
34 |
4.2 |
| Joanna Russ, by Gwyneth Jones |
75 |
4.2 |
11 |
3.83 |
| Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin, by Arwen Curry |
|
|
|
|
| John W. Campbell Award Acceptance Speech, by Jeannette Ng |
|
|
|
|
One of these is a documentary film and another was a speech, so no numbers can be given. The ratings for
Becoming Superman are very high indeed.
Best Graphic Story or Comic
|
Goodreads |
LibraryThing |
|
owners |
av rating |
owners |
av rating |
| Mooncakes, by Wendy Xu & Suzanne Walker |
29842 |
3.9 |
108 |
3.56 |
| Monstress, Vol. 4: The Chosen, by Marjorie Liu (writer), Sana Takeda (artist) |
8218 |
4.24 |
136 |
4.13 |
| Paper Girls, Vol 6, by Brian Vaughan (writer), Cliff Chiang & Matt Wilson (artists) |
7513 |
4.19 |
93 |
4.03 |
| Die, Vol. 1: Fantasy Heartbreaker, by Kieron Gillen (writer), Stephanie Hans (artist) |
5223 |
4.1 |
89 |
3.98 |
| The Wicked + The Divine, Vol. 9: Okay, by Kieron Gillen (writer), Jamie McKelvie, & Matt Wilson (artists) |
4524 |
4.26 |
69 |
4.18 |
| LaGuardia, by Nnedi Okorafor (writer), Tana Ford (artist) , James Devlin (colours) |
1526 |
4.08 |
38 |
3.88 |
Mooncakes has clearly tickled the Goodreads community much more than the LibraryThing community; and yet also has the lowest average ranking on both systems. The final installment of
The Wicked + The Divine has the highest rating on both.
Lodestar
|
Goodreads |
LibraryThing |
|
owners |
av rating |
owners |
av rating |
| The Wicked King, by Holly Black |
211351 |
4.44 |
663 |
4.34 |
| Dragon Pearl, by Yoon Ha Lee |
25020 |
3.82 |
271 |
3.79 |
| Deeplight, by Frances Hardinge |
9436 |
4.24 |
52 |
4.13 |
| Minor Mage, by T. Kingfisher |
5489 |
4.18 |
61 |
4.02 |
| Catfishing on CatNet, by Naomi Kritzer |
2220 |
4.13 |
83 |
4.63 |
| Riverland, by Fran Wilde |
1324 |
4.03 |
33 |
4.13 |
Massive lead for
The Wicked King on all metrics. One other indicator though is the ratio of the more fannish LibraryThing readers to the more general Goodreads users, where Naomi Kritzer is well in front.
Retro Best Novel
|
Goodreads |
LibraryThing |
|
owners |
av rating |
owners |
av rating |
| Sirius: A Fantasy of Love and Discord, by Olaf Stapledon |
3096 |
3.9 |
419 |
3.91 |
| The Golden Fleece, by Robert Graves |
2185 |
4.04 |
510 |
3.74 |
| The Wind on the Moon, by Eric Linklater |
2255 |
3.95 |
301 |
3.8 |
| Land of Terror, by Edgar Rice Burroughs |
1178 |
3.72 |
295 |
3.47 |
| The Winged Man, by A. E. Van Vogt and E. Mayne Hull |
256 |
3.44 |
187 |
2.87 |
| Shadow Over Mars/The Nemesis from Terra, by Leigh Brackett |
150 |
3.28 |
75 |
3.45 |
Sirius has the most GR readers and the highest ranking from LT users;
The Golden Fleece has the most LT readers and the highest ranking from GR users. For Leigh Brackett I amalgamted the GR readings for both titles of the book, which is catalogued separately there - it still has the lowest GR rating of any book here. (And The Winged Man has the lowest LT ranking.)
Strange times, and not quite four months to go.
