So if you've checked your messages, you'll probably have noticed that in Book Club terms, the third category which was horror, has now morphed into horror/ slipstream/steampunk/paranormal/supernatural/short stories/ time travel...
Basically anything that doesn't fit the fairly straight up moulds for fantasy or sci-fi. (And ye I can already see that there will be some future confusion but I think the trade off may be worth it. Best thing to do is test it IMO.)
Anyway this is for two reasons;
1) We seem to have a lot of dyed in the wool, die-hard sci-fi fans here, which is great. I count myself amongst you. Next we have a significant number of fantasy fans - once again I am amongst my people. And then after that it all gets kinda fuzzy. We have a few straight horror fans but so far they are far fewer in number compared to the two main fan groups. In short, in order to obey the rules I set, I would not be able to run a third category because I simply don't get enough Horror nominations.
2) the other reason is this: some authors miss out on getting to the polls by one nomination. Just one. In sci-fi category, for example, the competition is ten times as fierce as it is for fantasy (which is pretty fierce itself). This is not really fair as I've noticed a trend with these one-short nominations: they tend to be on the margins of a genre.
Now I can't run a category for every possible sub-genre. I don't have the time and at minimum participants would be reading around 12 books a month. Not practical. So I've effectively shoved horror into an 'and anything else' category. Or rather 'sub-genre category' (as I'll probably call it from now on. This gives books that are nominated as sci-fi or fantasy but really sit along the edges genre wise, a chance. And I'm not left trying to scrape up enough nominations to run a third categoty. (I on't want to downsize - I want to keep the variety.)
This time around I've fudged a bit on what it seemed most like a book would fit into which genre or rather if it had enough nominations, if it could be considered for 'sub-genre'. I think I've been fair but if you find your book in here and wonder why, bear in mind I haven't read it yet and the genre thing is at least partially subjective? Cheers ;)
Next time I won't shift books around. People will have to nominate for the correct category. But just this once and as part of a trial, I thought we'd try my genre placement...
Anyway I hope that's clear. Any questions DM me or fire them below. If you have suggestions ditto - would love to hear them. This is a great group and I'd like to run it as well as possible for you all.
So if you've checked your messages, you'll probably have noticed that in Book Club terms, the third category which was horror, has now morphed into horror/ slipstream/steampunk/paranormal/supernatural/short stories/ time travel...
Basically anything that doesn't fit the fairly straight up moulds for fantasy or sci-fi. (And ye I can already see that there will be some future confusion but I think the trade off may be worth it. Best thing to do is test it IMO.)
Anyway this is for two reasons;
1) We seem to have a lot of dyed in the wool, die-hard sci-fi fans here, which is great. I count myself amongst you. Next we have a significant number of fantasy fans - once again I am amongst my people. And then after that it all gets kinda fuzzy. We have a few straight horror fans but so far they are far fewer in number compared to the two main fan groups. In short, in order to obey the rules I set, I would not be able to run a third category because I simply don't get enough Horror nominations.
2) the other reason is this: some authors miss out on getting to the polls by one nomination. Just one. In sci-fi category, for example, the competition is ten times as fierce as it is for fantasy (which is pretty fierce itself). This is not really fair as I've noticed a trend with these one-short nominations: they tend to be on the margins of a genre.
Now I can't run a category for every possible sub-genre. I don't have the time and at minimum participants would be reading around 12 books a month. Not practical. So I've effectively shoved horror into an 'and anything else' category. Or rather 'sub-genre category' (as I'll probably call it from now on. This gives books that are nominated as sci-fi or fantasy but really sit along the edges genre wise, a chance. And I'm not left trying to scrape up enough nominations to run a third categoty. (I on't want to downsize - I want to keep the variety.)
This time around I've fudged a bit on what it seemed most like a book would fit into which genre or rather if it had enough nominations, if it could be considered for 'sub-genre'. I think I've been fair but if you find your book in here and wonder why, bear in mind I haven't read it yet and the genre thing is at least partially subjective? Cheers ;)
Next time I won't shift books around. People will have to nominate for the correct category. But just this once and as part of a trial, I thought we'd try my genre placement...
Anyway I hope that's clear. Any questions DM me or fire them below. If you have suggestions ditto - would love to hear them. This is a great group and I'd like to run it as well as possible for you all.
Best,
Jules