Poll

I'm going to devote a few seconds and talk-up one of my pet criteria for answering the poll: award winners.
Ilium is the 2004 Hugo Award winner.
Accelerando is the 2005 Hugo Award winner.
Ammonite won the Tiptree and Lambda back around 1994. It's going to start to be hard to find 25 year-old novels.
Underground Railroad won the 2017 Goodreads SF award (I think).

Is there something wrong, that we aren't reading the arguably "best F & SF around? Who's with me, to get these bumped up in the polls?

Because a lot of awards are meaningless and don't actually mean quality?

We actually have read some award nominees this year. We only read 12 of each genre per year so there's no way we can read everything out there.

I voted for Underground Airlines, I'll join your battle, Mike. You have my mouse click!

I bet some folks are reading, or have read, award winners anyway... and see group reads as a source of *additional* good books.

(I have that strategy in the group Children's Books.)

I place zero value on the Goodreads Choice Awards but Underground Airlines was on the 2016 Locus Reading List, which i do pay attention to. A lot of our midyear random polls were drawn from that list, as well as some from the major awards.

I'm with you Mike! I voted for Ilium! I thought The Ghost Brigades was an excellent book; but I'm Scalzi'd out for the near future.

I did not enjoy Ghost Brigade as much as Old Man's War
I really liked The Stars are Legion.
I have Underground Airlines in my wishlist but it is not available in Kindle for me buy.
I have a copy of Accelerando somewhere but the book looks too heavy for a December read.
Eh, not sure. For now I voted for Hurley.

Changed to Illium. Looks like UA is a nonstarter, and while Ilium probably isn't either, it had more of a shot and looks super interesting. I bought UA, so that one's just a matter of time.

Allison wrote: "Changed to Illium. Looks like UA is a nonstarter, and while Ilium probably isn't either, it had more of a shot and looks super interesting. I bought UA, so that one's just a matter of time."

Are you not interested in Stars Are Legion?

I loved , but even more I think it's a good book and an important one to talk about. It doesn't look good for it now, I'm hoping it's because the wrong cover was chosen.

I haven't gotten around to Old Man's War yet, so book #2 in that series isn't for me.

Sarah Anne wrote: "Allison wrote: "Changed to Illium. Looks like UA is a nonstarter, and while Ilium probably isn't either, it had more of a shot and looks super interesting. I bought UA, so that one's just a matter ..."

Eehhh? Maybe. It doesn't call to me. In fact...

The Ghost Brigades was a good book but I just put The Stars Are Legion on my Kindle so....

Cheryl wrote: "I bet some folks are reading, or have read, award winners anyway... and see group reads as a source of *additional* good books.

(I have that strategy in the group Children's Books.)"

This was my first guess, once I settled down… :-)

Changed my vote: still angling for an award-winner, but one that has a better chance!

Neither of the books ahead on either poll are available in my library system. If it stays like this I will hope for a big Amazon book sale.

I don't follow blindly the Goodreads Choice Awards. I mean Harry Potter and the Cursed child...

I picked first The Stars are legion but after having checked the ratings on the first page, I switched to The Ghost Brigades because I may drop The Stars are legion and because I want more to try another of her books, The Mirror Empire.