SFF Hot from Printers: New Releases discussion

Please suggest your SF & F nominations for January.
Rules:
1. preferably a novel (or novella)
2. published in 2019
3. preferably with a chance to be nominated (this usually means an established writer with at least several review and hundreds of ratings per book).

I nominate Famous Men Who Never Lived by K Chess - 789 ratings · 152 reviews

The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz - 1056 ratings - 293 reviews

As I've often mentioned, I love Greg Egan, so I'll nominate Perihelion Summer. It's probably not going to end up in the shortlist, though: 499 ratings, 79 reviews.

Antti wrote: "As I've often mentioned, I love Greg Egan, so I'll nominate Perihelion Summer. It's probably not going to end up in the shortlist, though: 499 ratings, 79 reviews."

Egan made it to nominees a few times I guess, and his hard SF is so hard that he definitely belongs

I want to nominate Velocity Weapon by Megan E. O’Keefe, but I note it is not on the Goodreads list

So how about A Memory Called Empire (Teixcalaan, #1)
by Arkady Martine, which is #1 on the Goodreads list and also on sale for $2.99.

Let me say, though, you guys, 1 book a month is NOT gonna cut it. We nominate for Hugos in March. We should be reading a book a week if we want any sort of ability to vote wisely.

I guess you can stick with Velocity Weapon, it seems eligible, no problem. Gr list is fan-made, it can miss books.

As to "1 book a month is NOT gonna cut it" I plan to set up a poll tomorrow and I think we can do the following: The 1st place goes as "book of the month" after which if enough people agree we go #2 about 10th of the month, 3rd about 15th and so on. I doubt over 4 novels per month are possible for 90% of the group (and here I mean limits in reading time, not price of purchase, or waiting for library loan)

Perfect plan to get in more books before the deadline! But I think A Memory Called Empire should definitely be read because it is so popular, and you know the popular ones win the Hugos.

(edit) I now see in another thread that you weren't impressed, so I get it. I can read it on my own

I've also read 'A Memory Called Empire' and same as Oleksandr was quite underwhelmed by it.

OK, I am glad to know that A Memory Called Empire is underwhelming, but the problem is, I bought it. LONG line at my library for it.

Kateblue, a lot of people liked it - so there's a good chance you may as well.

Note, here's a probable novella nominee, but not as good as her other stuff BUT it's $8.99!!! So wait for a sale. We can read it later

This business of charging $9 and $10 bucks for a novella is SUCH a rip-off, but here it is anyway, just for reference. I have not completed it, but she is so hot right now, I bet it it nominated.

To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers
https://smile.amazon.com/Be-Taught-If...

Kateblue wrote: "This business of charging $9 and $10 bucks for a novella is SUCH a rip-off, but here it is anyway, just for reference. I have not completed it, but she is so hot right now, I bet it it nominated. ..."


Indeed! That's why some novellas stay unread by me, even if they sound interesting. Or I see if I can get them on audible, there I can give it back.
The only author where I actually spend that much money on a novella is Adrian Tchaikovsky.

In Canada the novellas have all become at least $18-20. It's definitely outrageous.

So I definitely don't think we're going to be able to read ALL the winners. I won't be able to read more than one novel a month for this group -- maybe more if we're covering short fiction. But for me the idea of this group is to get only a bit of a head start on books we expect to be nominees so I don't have to read everything crammed into 2-3 months when we get the Hugo voter packet in May.

As such, I hope our voting in polls for monthly reads is based not just on what we WANT to read, but on what we expect will be nominated with or without us. But whatever happens, happens.

I set up the poll. I added both books suggested by Kate

Where’s the poll

Atl wrote: "Where’s the poll"

The poll is over, it is here https://www.goodreads.com/poll/list/1...