For the second year in a row, I have done a simple analysis of the Goodreads’s Choice Awards for science fiction novels. Members of the Goodreads website vote on the awards. Fifteen books were nominated based on their review ratings on Amazon, and five more were nominated by readers. The concept part of my analysis is an interpretation of the novel’s Goodreads blurb, which led me, correctly or not, to allocate the novel a sub-genre (Note: I have changed some of the sub-genre categories since the initial post).
1. The Martian, Andy Weir (30561 votes)
Concept: An astronaut tries to survive on Mars. Apollo 13 meets Castaway.
Sub-genre: Thriller
Series: No
Debut novel: It appears to be his first novel
Nationality of Author: American.
2. Locked In, John Scalzi (14835)
Concept: A virus sweeps the world, “locking in” one per cent of the population. They are awake and fully aware but unable to respond. Some of them have the ability to enter other people’s minds.
Sub-genre: Thriller
Series: Book one of a series.
Debut novel: No
Nationality of Author: American.
3. Sand, Hugh Howey (14410)
Concept: In the future the world is covered with sand and money can be made by sand diving and bringing relics from the past to the surface.
Sub-genre: Post-apocalyptic/thriller.
Series: The novel is an omnibus of five novellas
Debut novel: No
Nationality of Author: American.
4. The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, Claire North (13421)
Concept: Some people are born, live their lives, die, and then are reborn in the exact same fashion, in the exact same time and place, as their first birth, but with all their memories intact.
Sub-genre: Time-travel
Series: No
Debut novel: No
Nationality of Author: Claire North is a pseudonym for Catherine Webb, who is British.
5. The Long Mars (The Long Earth 3), Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter (9927)
Concept: Earth has been ravaged by disaster, and the survivors flee to other planets. Super intelligent post-humans begin to emerge from their childhood.
Sub-genre: Dystopian/space opera/thriller
Series: Yes
Debut novel: No
Nationality of Authors: Both are British.
6. Annihilation (South Reach 1), Jeff Vandemeer (9050)
Concept: An expedition of four specialist women is sent to explore the abandoned area X. Eleven previous expeditions have failed.
Sub-genre: Mystery/thriller
Series: First in a series
Debut novel: No
Nationality of Author: American.
7. Apolonia, Jamie McGuire (8173)
Concept: Rory witnesses a classmate being abducted by soldiers and finds herself immersed in a world of secrets.
Sub-genre: Romance/thriller
Series: No
Debut novel: No
Nationality of Author: American.
8. Influx, Daniel Suarez (7962)
Concept: A scientist invents a device that reflects gravity but is then captured and locked in a high-tech prison with other inventors.
Sub-genre: Dystopian/thriller
Series: No
Debut novel: No
Nationality of Author: American.
9. California, Edan Lupucki (7218)
Concept: Civilisation has collapsed, and a couple escapes to the wilderness. But then she gets pregnant, and they must venture to the nearest settlement.
Sub-genre: Post-apocalyptic
Series: No
Debut novel: Yes
Nationality of Author: American.
10. Earth Awakens (The First Formic War 3), Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston (6883).
Concept: Set in the future, aliens invade Earth—a prequel series to the events in Ender’s Game.
Sub-genre: Military/alien invasion
Series: Yes
Debut novel: No
Nationality of Author: Both American.
11. The Flight of the Silvers (Silvers 1), Daniel Price (3005)
Concept: The world ends, and some survivors are taken to the future by mysterious strangers.
Sub-genre: Time-travel
Series: First in series
Debut novel: No
Nationality of Author: American.
12. Ancillary Sword (Imperial Radch 2), Anne Leckie (3005)
Concept: A being who used to be one of thousands of AI units in a large spaceship is given her own ship to investigate corruption within the Radch empire.
Sub-genre: Military/space opera
Series: Book two in a series.
Debut novel: No
Nationality of Author: American.
13. Cibola Burn (Expanse 4), James S.A. Corey (Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck) (2738)
Concept: Settlers battle the company on a planet.
Sub-genre: Adventure/thriller
Series: Yes
Debut novel: No
Nationality of Authors: Both American.
14. Heaven’s Queen (Paradox 3), Rachel Bach (2727)
Concept: Devi attempts to save humanity as her government tries to hunt her down.
Sub-genre: Space opera
Series: Yes
Debut novel: No
Nationality of Author: American.
15. A Better World (Brilliance Saga 2), Marcus Sakey (2395)
Concept: Mutants with special powers threaten the world.
Sub-genre: Dystopian/thriller
Series: Yes
Debut novel: No
Nationality of Author: American.
16. World of Trouble (The Last Policeman 3), B.H. Winters (2269)
Concept: A policeman searches for his sister, last seen with armed radicals who had a plan to save the earth from an asteroid due to hit in 14 days.
Sub-genre: Dystopian/thriller
Series: Yes
Debut novel: No
Nationality of Author: American.
17. Out of the Black (Odyssey One 4), Evan C. Currie (1921)
Concept: After an alien attack decimates Earth, other aliens race to intervene and help the survivors.
Sub-genre: Alien invasion.
Series: Yes
Debut novel: No
Nationality of Author: Canadian.
18. To Honor You Call Us (Man of War 1), H. Paul Honsinger (1685)
Concept: In 2315, aliens are attacking Earth, and all that stands between them is a ship with a bad combat record.
Sub-genre: Space opera/alien invasion
Series: First in series.
Debut novel: Yes
Nationality of Author: American.
19. Hollow World, Michael J Sullivan (1234)
Concept: A man time-travels to a future utopia and finds he is the only one capable of investigating a murder.
Sub-genre: Time-travel/thriller
Series: No
Debut novel: No
Nationality of Author: American.
20. Lines of Departure (Frontlines 2), Marko Kloos (1181)
Concept: A ship crewed by malcontents battles aliens.
Sub-genre: Space opera
Series: Yes
Debut novel: No
Nationality of Author: Born in Germany, lives in the US.
Concept.
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August sounds refreshingly interesting: Harry August and some others are born, live their lives, die, and then are reborn in the exact same fashion, in the exact same time and place, as their first birth, but with all their memories intact. Sand also sounds interesting. But a lot of the novel concepts sound very familiar.
Sub-genre.
Some of the novels fit into several sub-genres, like The Long Mars, which appears to be a dystopian-space-opera-thriller. So, if you add up the following stats, they will come to way over 20. The novels appear to fit into the following sub-genres:
Thriller 12
Dystopian 4
Space opera 4
Alien invasion 3
Time-travel 3
Post-apocalyptic 2
Military 2
Mystery 1
Romance 1
Adventure 1
So thrillers are the predominant sub-genre in the Goodreads Choice Awards, with a few dystopian, space opera, post-apocalyptic and time travel novels.
In the 2013 awards I had the following sub-genres:
Dystopian 6
First-contact 5
Military 2
Space opera 2
Thriller 2
Military/first contact 1
Dystopian/military 1
Techno-Thriller 1
There seemed to be a lot more thrillers in 2014, a year when first-contact novels fell out of favour. Dystopian novels had a strong presence in both years.
Series.
Thirteen of the novels were parts of series. Four of those were the first in a series. One (Sand) was an omnibus of five novellas, so only six were standalone novels. This is almost the same as 2013 where 13 novels were also part of a series, five of which were the first book in a series, leaving only seven as standalone novels.
Debut Novel.
As in 2013, there are only three debut novelists, which makes sense considering eight of the novels were sequels.
Nationality of Authors.
A couple of the books had two authors. Overwhelmingly the authors were American. The exceptions were three British and one Canadian. The nationalities of the authors was more widely spread in 2013 with 16 Americans, four British, one Australian, one Barbadian and one Canadian.
Nominated In Both Years.
Twelve authors had novels on both the 2013 and 2014 Goodreads Choice Awards lists. They were Hugh Howey, Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston, John Scalzi, Ben H. Winters, Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, Terry Prachett and Stephen Baxter, Marko Kloos, Marcus Sakey, and Anne Leckie. Seven of the books in the 2014 list were sequels to novels in the 2013 list.
How to Write a Favourite Science Fiction Book.
Ideally you will be an already published American author who writes a dystopian/post apocalyptic-thriller series with aliens and time-travelling spaceships in it.
2 Responses
I've long suspected that American publishers only deal with American authors. It's very tough to crack that market without some proven success.Aside from that, sorry but I dont know any of these novels. Certainly some of their concepts dont sound that interesting. What do you think?It is interesting how certain types of genres fall in and out of favour, which is why right place, right time can have an impact.Very well researched as always Graham, I dont know how you do it.
Anthony, it just took ages to research and write, but still very interesting, to me anyway. I thought some of the concepts very old. In truth I will only consider reading four of the novels listed, the two mentioned in the post that sounded interesting – Sand and The 15 lives of Harry August – and I will probably read Ancillary Sword one day because it is a sequel to a novel I enjoyed last year. And also the winner of the poll, The Martian. Interestingly, I read a few of the reviews of the books while doing the research and some of them were not very flattering. One in particular on the Terry Prachett and Stephen Baxter novel said that finally something happens in the third book of the series. Their novel sounded a bit like Stephen Baxter's Ark, which was the only recent science fiction novel that I have read that I detested.