For the second year in a row, I have done a simpleanalysis of the Goodread’s
Choice Awards for science fiction novels. The awards are voted on by
members of the Goodreads website. Fifteen of the books are nominated based on
their review ratings on Amazon and five more are nominated by readers. The
concept part of my analysis is an interpretation of the Goodreads blurb for the
novel, which then led me, correctly or not, to allocating the novel a
sub-genre (Note: I have changed some of the sub-genre categories since the intial 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 Prachett and Stephen Baxter (9927)
Concept: Earth
has been ravaged by disaster, the survivors flee to other planets, super bright
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 escape to the wilderness, but then she gets pregnant
and they have to 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 one of 1000s 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 own 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 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: An
alien attack decimates Earth, other aliens then race to intervene and help the
survivors of the attack.
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 concepts of the novels sound
very familiar.
Sub-genre.
Some of the novels fit into a number of 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 Apocalyptc 2
Military 2
Mystery 1
Romance 1
Adventure 1
So thrillers are the predominate 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 seem to be a lot more thrillers in 2014, a year
where 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.
0 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.