Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels discussion

A new feature has been added to this group, whenever you go to group's bookshelf, there you can find various themes that can be used to browse all the Hugo and Nebula titles by sub-genre, publication decade, etc. I did the major part of the sorting on an android, so I might've missed something or misclicked a year or god knows what.

It is a work in progress and member involvement is appreciated, if you see a book on a shelf it does not belong, do not hesitate to post a comment here, just name the title and what shelf it has to be added to or removed from. Just a side note regarding few shelves: alternative history and historical were bunched up together, '30s were merged with the '40s, some books have multiple tags so they appear in more than two lists.

We will be using these shelves as themes for our upcoming nominations, along with polls where you can vote for a subgenre you would like us to read in future.

If you come up with an interesting shelf, feel free to comment and we will try implementing it into the database if it is possible.

The shelves we already have:

0-hugo-nebula-nominees (88)
0-hugo-nebula-winners (17)
0-hugo-nominees (277)
0-hugo-winners (56)
0-nebula-nominees (262)
0-nebula-winners (40)

1-1930-40s (29)
1-1950s (21)
1-1960s (57)
1-1970s (76)
1-1980s (75)
1-1990s (57)
1-2000s (71)
1-2010s (62)


10-september-birthday (42)

2-fantasy (92)
2-female-authors (117)
2-long-series (37)
2-miniseries (114)
2-retro-hugos (38)
2-sci-fi (113)

3-adapted-to-screen (12)
3-alien-invasion (16)
3-alternate-history-sf-f (40)
3-apocalyptic (33)
3-artificial-intelligence (29)
3-cyberpunk (22)
3-dystopia (29)
3-eco-fiction (17)
3-hard-sf (43)
3-horror (9)
3-humorous-light-sf-f (17)
3-psychic-ability (14)
3-space-opera (44)
3-steampunk (18)
3-time-travel (23)
3-young-adult (23)

4-dark-fantasy (13)
4-fairytale-fantasy (4)
4-high-fantasy (6)
4-magical-realism (8)
4-urban-fantasy (6)

5-extremely-short-reads (18)
5-short-reads (96)
5-very-short-reads (40)

6-extremely-long-reads (8)
6-long-reads (22)
6-very-long-reads (12)

9-new-release (9)

*Updated*

We've got a new shelf for Mistresses of Sci-Fi, kudos to Bryan for getting that done.

Also I am half way through sorting out series, should be done tomorrow.

*Updated*

Both 'miniseries' and 'long series' shelves are now ready, there is one thing that deserves clarification however. Books tagged as miniseries (up to 4 books total) have retained their other sub-genre tags, since even if they get nominated we can just read them across a period of one or two months. Long series (5 books+) however are on a shelf of their own, so we will be tackling them in a separate manner, we'll just have to see how to approach each and every one of them.

how do I get to the bookshelves again?

Whenever you are anywhere on one of the Group's pages, scroll to the top and look to the right side. There will be the group's name and logo and underneath it you will find Home, Events, Polls, Bookshelves, etc.

Oh and totally unrelated but if you scroll all the way down on group's homepage, there will be the current running poll.

thx

*Updated*

Added all of the Retro Hugos to a separate shelf, not a particularly large shelf but some nice titles on it.

*Updated*

Moved Darkover novels to miniseries shelf, since the reading order's been resolved.

*Updated*

Removed 1st volumes of series from the long series shelf, I believe everyone can decide whether to pursue reading the rest of the series after going through the first award winning volume.

Each of these books has been assigned to a bookshelf with according tags.

I agree that series can be removed if it is the 1st book that's nominated. Thanks!

Great job, thanks! I'll browse them through to check whether something is missing.

If you want an extra shelf we can assign a theme to, let me know and I will set one up. Also there are bound to be many errors, if you see a book out of place in its category, give me a shout.

*Updated*

Removed Skylark from any series, seems like everyone is saying that treating it as standalone is the way to go, certainly not worth going through the trouble of reading extra 3 volumes to get to it.

*Updated*

Added a bookshelf named "Related Works" in order to keep track of books dealing with background reading, required to get the right contextual information on both universe and characters featuring in the award-winning books on our list.

*Updated*

A bookshelf called "New Release" is up now, it contains books that were released in the last year and will be updated with each yearly award nomination round. None of the books tagged with "new release" shares any other bookshelf tag.

*Updated*

The bookshelf "long series" contains mostly series with book series of considerable girth (upward of 2,000 pages). So far the rest of the series can be found on the "miniseries" shelf but, as we give it a couple of test drives and see what works and what doesn't, I might break that one shelf up into smaller ones in order to for all of us to have easier time nominating books.

The longest series we have up to date is more than 11k pages and the shortest is somewhat around 400 pages. No matter what they say, size matters!

*Updated*-ish..

Started making one more bookshelf named Short-reads, it contains novels that are less than 300 pages. Gonna take me some time to finish though.

Thanks so much for doing all this work

*Updated*

Shelf named Short Reads is ready for use, the books found on that shelf have less than 300 pages. There are many books that are even shorter, I am now considering making a shelf with all the books less than 200 pages because there seem to be loads of those as well.

A quick explanation on bookshelf "related works" is due I suppose. There's plenty of material that haven't won any awards but is featured in our "series" reads, once we finish reading (and only then) one of these I will add them to "related reads" bookshelf, for posterity.

*Updated*

Added 2 more shelves, "Very Short Reads" with books of roughly 200 pages or less and "Extremely Short Reads" with those novels that are less than 150 pages.

*Updated*

Added "Long Reads", "Very Long Reads" and "Extremely Long Reads" as new bookshelves.

Funny fact: The longest single volume we have is 1,139 pages long.

Neal Stephenson?

Allan wrote: "Neal Stephenson?"

Precisely!

I believe that out of 11-13 "extremely long books" on the list at least five are his, at 800+ pages.

thanks Art

Thanks to Allan's research it has been brought to my attention that there are a few entries missing from our Group's bookshelf, I take full and complete responsibility of blaming everything on Oleksandr.

Thank you for reading this message.

P.s I've double checked Hugos dating from '30s up to '70s, including all Retros. Will peck at it little at a time.

Allan, since you have already a system in place, maybe you could come up with a bunch of interesting shelves for us to use in our nominations. One thing you and also Bryan's spreadsheet have brought to my attention was the large number of overlapping books between the two awards.

Not sure what other interesting categories there might be, but everyone should feel free to throw suggestions into the mix.

Certainly the double winners and the double nominees would be potential shelves. I actually created an 18-month Roll-Your-Own Challenge in WWE for the 24 double winners, to push myself to read them all by the end of 2019.

There are also nominees that garner multiple nominations for other awards. That might be a possibility. Another idea would be to create shelves based on the genre categories from WWE. Each book is assigned three sub-genre tags. For example, The Windup Girl is tagged as Dystopia, Near-Future, Apocalyptic/Post-Apocalyptic. Not sure where they come from, but we could decide if they were appropriate or worthy of a sub-genre shelf. I'd be glad to compile those, though it might take me a couple weeks.

We already have subgenres on our bookshelves, those are the ones we use when putting forward themed nominations.
Check out this link and see what we have so far: https://www.goodreads.com/group/books...

Each month we select a shelf to nominate books from, keeping it fresh.

Sorry, I didn't look at those before I spoke, but the double winners/nominees might make good shelves, and maybe something that includes other awards.

I just pulled this from Bryan's spreadsheet
There's not too many.

Somebody check me

H/N 1966 Herbert, Frank Dune
H/N 1970 Le Guin, Ursula K. The Left Hand of Darkness
H/N 1971 Niven, Larry Ringworld
H/N 1973 Asimov, Isaac The Gods Themselves
H/N 1974 Clarke, Arthur C. Rendezvous with Rama
H/N 1975 Le Guin, Ursula K. The Dispossessed
H/N 1976 Haldeman, Joe The Forever War
H/N 1978 Pohl, Frederik Gateway
H/N 1979 McIntyre, Vonda N. Dreamsnake
H/N 1980 Clarke, Arthur C. The Fountains of Paradise
H/N 1984 Brin, David Startide Rising
H/N 1985 Gibson, William Neuromancer
H/N 1986 Card, Orson Scott Ender's Game
H/N 1987 Card, Orson Scott Speaker for the Dead
H/N 1993 Willis, Connie Doomsday Book
H/N 1998 Haldeman, Joe Forever Peace
H/N 2002/2003 Gaiman, Neil American Gods
H/N 2004/2005 Bujold, Lois McMaster Paladin of Souls
H/N 2008 Chabon, Michael The Yiddish Policemen's Union
H/N 2010 Bacigalupi, Paolo The Windup Girl
H/N 2011 Willis, Connie Blackout/All Clear
H/N 2012 Walton, Jo Among Others
H/N 2014 Leckie, Ann Ancillary Justice

Kateblue wrote: "I just pulled this from Bryan's spreadsheet
There's not too many. "

Are these just the winners?

yes, did you want double nominees as well? I can do that in about 3 minutes . . . but you said "won both the awards" so I did this . . .

sorry about the spacing. here's the double nominees, but it doesn't paste right because of missing columns where they won nothing . . . I can make it line up better if I futz with it. Do you want me to?

noms wins year author title
H/N H/N1966 Herbert, Frank Dune
H/N N 1967 Delany, Samuel R Babel-17
H/N N 1967 Keyes, Daniel Flowers for Algernon
H/N H 1967 Heinlein, Robert A. The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
H/N 1968 Anthony, Piers Chthon
H/N H 1968 Zelazny, Roger Lord of Light
H/N N 1968 Delany, Samuel R. The Einstein Intersection
H/N 1968 Silverberg, Robert Thorns
H/N 1969 Lafferty, R. A. Past Master
H/N N 1969 Panshin, Alexei Rite of Passage
H/N H 1969 Brunner, John Stand on Zanzibar
H/N 1970 Spinrad, Norman Bug Jack Barron
H/N 1970 Vonnegut, Kurt Slaughterhouse-Five
H/N H/N 1970 Le Guin, Ursula K. The Left Hand of Darkness
H/N 1970 Silverberg, Robert Up the Line
H/N H/N 1971 Niven, Larry Ringworld
H/N 1971 Tucker, Wilson The Year of the Quiet Sun
H/N 1971 Silverberg, Robert Tower of Glass
H/N N 1972 Silverberg, Robert A Time of Changes
H/N 1972 Le Guin, Ursula K. The Lathe of Heaven
H/N 1973 Silverberg, Robert Dying Inside
H/N 1973 Silverberg, Robert The Book of Skulls
H/N H/N 1973 Asimov, Isaac The Gods Themselves
H/N 1973 Gerrold, David When HARLIE Was One
H/N H/N 1974 Clarke, Arthur C. Rendezvous with Rama
H/N 1974 Gerrold, David The Man Who Folded Himself
H/N 1974 Anderson, Poul The People of the Wind
H/N 1974 Heinlein, Robert A. Time Enough for Love
H/N 1975 Dick, Philip K. Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
H/N H/N 1975 Le Guin, Ursula K. The Dispossessed
H/N 1976 Zelazny, Roger Doorways in the Sand
H/N 1976 Niven, Larry Inferno
H/N 1976 Bester, Alfred The Computer Connection (also known as The Indian Giver)
H/N H/N 1976 Haldeman, Joe The Forever War
H/N 1976 Silverberg, Robert The Stochastic Man
H/N N 1977 Pohl, Frederik Man Plus
H/N 1977 Silverberg, Robert Shadrach in the Furnace
H/N H 1977 Wilhelm, Kate Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang
H/N H/N 1978 Pohl, Frederik Gateway
H/N 1979 Reamy, Tom Blind Voices
H/N H/N 1979 McIntyre, Vonda N. Dreamsnake
H/N 1979 Cherryh, C. J. The Faded Sun: Kesrith
H/N 1980 Pohl, Frederik Jem
H/N 1980 Disch, Thomas On Wings of Song
H/N H/N 1980 Clarke, Arthur C. The Fountains of Paradise
H/N 1980 Varley, John Titan
H/N 1981 Pohl, Frederik Beyond the Blue Event Horizon
H/N 1981 Tevis, Walter Mockingbird
H/N 1981 Stallman, Robert The Orphan
H/N H 1981 Vinge, Joan D. The Snow Queen
H/N 1982 Crowley, John Little, Big
H/N N 1982 Wolfe, Gene The Claw of the Conciliator
H/N 1982 May, Julian The Many-Colored Land
H/N H 1983 Asimov, Isaac Foundation's Edge
H/N 1983 Heinlein, Robert A. Friday
H/N 1983 Wolfe, Gene The Sword of the Lictor
H/N H/N 1984 Brin, David Startide Rising
H/N 1984 MacAvoy, R. A. Tea with the Black Dragon
H/N 1985 Heinlein, Robert A. Job: A Comedy of Justice
H/N H/N 1985 Gibson, William Neuromancer
H/N 1985 Niven, Larry The Integral Trees
H/N 1986 Bear, Greg Blood Music
H/N H/N 1986 Card, Orson Scott Ender's Game
H/N 1986 Brin, David The Postman
H/N 1987 Gibson, William Count Zero
H/N H/N 1987 Card, Orson Scott Speaker for the Dead
H/N 1988 Bear, Greg The Forge of God
H/N H 1988 Brin, David The Uplift War
H/N 1988 Effinger, George Alec When Gravity Fails
H/N N 1989 Bujold, Lois McMaster Falling Free
H/N 1989 Gibson, William Mona Lisa Overdrive
H/N 1989 Card, Orson Scott Red Prophet
H/N 1990 Card, Orson Scott Prentice Alvin
H/N 1990 Anderson, Poul The Boat of a Million Years
H/N 1991 Simmons, Dan The Fall of Hyperion
H/N H 1992 Bujold, Lois McMaster Barrayar
H/N 1992 Bull, Emma Bone Dance
H/N N 1992 Swanwick, Michael Stations of the Tide
H/N 1993 McHugh, Maureen F. China Mountain Zhang
H/N H/N 1993 Willis, Connie Doomsday Book
H/N 1994 Kress, Nancy Beggars in Spain
H/N H 1994 Robinson, Kim Stanley Green Mars
H/N N 1994 Robinson, Kim Stanley Red Mars
H/N N 1995 Bear, Greg Moving Mars
H/N 1995 Morrow, James K. Towing Jehovah
H/N N 1996 Sawyer, Robert J. The Terminal Experiment (a/k/a Hobson's Choice)
H/N 1997 Sawyer, Robert J. Starplex
H/N 1998 Williams, Walter Jon City on Fire
H/N H/N 1998 Haldeman, Joe Forever Peace
H/N H 1999 Willis, Connie To Say Nothing of the Dog
H/N H 2000 Vinge, Vernor A Deepness in the Sky
H/N 2001 Martin, George R. R. A Storm of Swords
H/N N 2001 Bear, Greg Darwin's Radio
H/N 2001 Hopkinson, Nalo Midnight Robber
H/N 2002 Willis, Connie Passage
H/N 2002 Miéville, China Perdido Street Station
H/N H/N 2002/2003 Gaiman, Neil American Gods
H/N 2003 Swanwick, Michael Bones of the Earth
H/N H/N 2004/2005 Bujold, Lois McMaster Paladin of Souls
H/N H 2005 Clarke, Susanna Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
H/N 2008 McDonald, Ian Brasyl
H/N H/N 2008 Chabon, Michael The Yiddish Policemen's Union
H/N 2009 Doctorow, Cory Little Brother
H/N 2010 Priest, Cherie Boneshaker
H/N H 2010 Miéville, China The City & the City
H/N H/N 2010 Bacigalupi, Paolo The Windup Girl
H/N H/N 2011 Willis, Connie Blackout/All Clear
H/N 2011 Jemisin, N. K. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
H/N H/N 2012 Walton, Jo Among Others
H/N 2012 Miéville, China Embassytown
H/N N 2013 Robinson, Kim Stanley '2312
H/N 2013 Ahmed, Saladin Throne of the Crescent Moon
H/N H/N 2014 Leckie, Ann Ancillary Justice
H/N N 2015 Leckie, Ann Ancillary Mercy
H/N 2015 Leckie, Ann Ancillary Sword
H/N 2015 Addison, Katherine The Goblin Emperor
H/N H 2015 Liu, Cixin & Liu, Ken The Three-Body Problem
H/N H 2016 Jemisin, N. K. The Fifth Season
H/N N 2016 Novik, Naomi Uprooted
H/N N 2017 Anders, Charlie Jane All the Birds in the Sky
H/N 2017 Lee, Yoon Ha Ninefox Gambit
H/N H 2017 Jemisin, N. K. The Obelisk Gate
H/N 2018 Lafferty, Mur Six Wakes
H/N 2018 Jemisin, N. K. The Stone Sky

Kate, I don't say it often enough. You're a star!

I will try and fix a couple of shelves using these two lists you've provided.

I could go back in the spreadsheet and put a placekeeper for the non winners if that would help your import.

Hey, it's just a spreadsheet (Bryan's) and I am like Bryan, we've both worked with spreadsheets a lot, apparently. Thanks, though, it's nice to be appreciated . . .

I use this spreadsheet most every day, so I hope I didn't mess Bryan's original work up. I don't think I have, but that was why I said that you might want to get someone to check me.

Good Work, Kate! I am a little late to respond, but you are no doubt my superior in Spreadsheet-mancy!

I work with spreadsheets for a living, so I appreciate the magic! I verified both lists. The only difference I have is that I included Flowers for Algernon as a double winner, even though its Hugo was for the short story version (its Nebula was for the novel). I read it long ago, when I was a teenager, when it was still on a stone tablet.

Flowers for Algernon is SUCH a great one. I didn't realize that the novel wasn't a Hugo winner.

Kateblue wrote: "Flowers for Algernon is SUCH a great one. I didn't realize that the novel wasn't a Hugo winner."

I believe the reason for it not getting a Hugo is because it already won one when it was in its novella (or a short story) version when they voted on it. Then a few years later it got turned into a book.

Dune almost lost its chance to get a Hugo as well, because of it get getting one for "Dune World", a serialised novel that got re-formated into the book we all know now.

I was wondering about that other Dune when I saw it on the list.

While re-checking our 90's shelf found a missing book. Distraction by Bruce Sterling, a dystopia/cyberpunk (I know Bryan and Oleksandr will be thrilled).

Doing Hugos first, Nebulas then and after that I will try adding all the double winners.

*Updated*

Finished checking all the Hugo entries, everything should be in working order. Feel free to browse by year, every title is in its right place.

*Updated*

Both Hugos and Nebulas are double-checked and assigned to bookshelves corresponding to the year they received the award.

Thanks for all the hard work!

*Updated*

A new shelf can be accessed now via group's "bookshelf" tab. This shelf contains titles that won both Hugo and Nebula awards with a total of 23 novels, three out of which we've already read.

Due credit goes to Allan and Kate, thanks.

Thank you but I didn't do all the work!

I was browsing the WWE lists today, and I noticed that the Campbell Award list (the 3rd of the major sci-fi awards) is quite different from the Hugo & Nebula lists, which are more similar. If I recall correctly, the Hugos are voted by fans, Nebulas by writers, Campbells by a small writer panel. I wonder why the big difference in the nominations? Maybe how books are submitted for consideration? There are a lot more books there I've never heard of.

Allan wrote: "I was browsing the WWE lists today, and I noticed that the Campbell Award list (the 3rd of the major sci-fi awards) is quite different from the Hugo & Nebula lists, which are more similar."

Firstly the nominee lists are longer, so it ought to have other books. At the same time, I've checked last 3 years (were I remember H&N nominees) and yes, there are quite a few other books. I've read several and they were ok, not great but nevertheless quite interesting

Site, please? Thx! I mean, is there a campbell awards page?

There is a Campbell award that is given with the Hugos. It is for best first novel, if I recollect properly. Is that what this is?