Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels discussion

A thread for setting down goals for 2025. As discussed in the 2024 thread, there are no rules - goals can be as general or as specific as you want them to be. Mine are below:

Total page count/Total books
35,000 pages seems to be about right for me. A modest increase over 2024 would be nice; hitting 40,000 would be a real stretch. That equates to around 110 books, including novellas.

Monthly group books
1) Keep up with the group, reading any monthly books that are new to me. Perhaps a few re-reads.
2) Try to complete the 4 monthly books I haven't read (Up the Walls of the World, A Midsummer Tempest, Too Like the Lightning, Anathem).
3) Read Evolution & New Releases as I can or want to.

Series
1 - Finish The Urth of the New Sun to complete The Book of the New Sun (in progress)
2 - Finish Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to complete the Harry Potter series.
3 - Participate in the Group series read.
4 - Potential series reads: Asimov's Empire series; The Books of Blood by Clive Barker; Dorsai by Gordon Dickson; Crown of Stars by Kate Elliott, random others.

Short Fiction Challenge
Participate in the group challenge to read the Hugo & Nebula winning short stories from 1939-1970. (more to come on this Challenge)

Miscellaneous
1 - Reach 70% of the H/N list - need to read about 38 H/N books.
2 - Read the 6 H/N winners I haven't read yet.
3 - Read 12 biography, non-fiction or history books.
4 - Clear at least 40 physical books from my shelves, net of buys.
5 - Worlds Without End challenges as specified on that site.

Didn't we do this in another thread?

My goals are to keep up in this group and the Hot off the Presses group to the extent that I am interested in the books. I will also read many books with the McHalo group, I'm sure

Then I will also do 150 books for the Goodreads challenge, which will include these monthly books plus whatever else I read. And then I will participate in the McHalo's TBR challenge to read 100 of my TBRs, which includes any book you have as of 12/31/2024 or have listed on any kind of a list, like our list of Hugo and Nebula winners. I also specifically include Locus and World Fantasy Award nominees and Goodreads choice ditto.

I'm not sure I need reading goals. What I need is to keep track of books I have been interested in or even started and then abandoned because books in my GR groups took precedence. For example, I'm really glad that a group I'm in read The Book of Doors because I had previously started it and then quit because of group priorities. I think I maybe need to lower the precedence of our groups' chosen books and instead read the ones that I'm liking or more interested in.

Kateblue wrote: "Didn't we do this in another thread?..."

No, that was the wrap-up of the 2024 thread. I started a new one for 2025.

Ah . . . well, what I did in 2024 will be just about what I intend to do in 2025.

Thanks for doing this.

I want to be, consciously, a little less ambitious and a little more relaxed about reading “goals” this year. Haviing said that, I’ll expect to read more than the 125 books I completed in 2024.

I’d like to continue reading a good deal of short fiction. Much of it may come from the planned challenge in this group. I’ve also subscribed to Analog and will try to read the magazines as they arrive.

I’ll continue to participate in the monthly reads in this group, and also perhaps to a lesser extent in the “Hot from the Presses” and Evolution groups.

I intend to finish at least the 3rd and 4th novels in the Book of the New Sun, and possible Urth of the New Sun as well.

I’ll continue reading KSR. This may not be the year I finish my project of reading all his novels, but maybe it will be.

Having just read The White Ship: Conquest, Anarchy and the Wrecking of Henry I’s Dream, I think I’ll read a couple of related books I have on hand (Early Medieval England and The Gothic King: A Biography of Henry III). Another historical work I intend to read is The Age of Decadence: Britain 1880 to 1914. It occurred to me that many of the writers I enjoy (Wells, Kipling, Buchan, Wodehouse among them) flourished or came to prominence, more or less, in this period, and I thought it would be interesting to read a recent historical overview.

I’ve also been rereading and enjoying Divine Invasions: A Life of Philip K. Dick, and I intend to read/reread more of PKD’s works this year.

Plus I have a list of 32 books from the physical TBR I’ve semi-committed to reading this year. This overlaps with some of the above, for example it includes PKD and KSR stuff. It’s a less ambitious list than the one I worked on last year, though it includes most of the books I failed to get to from last year’s list.

My goal is to read less overall and get out into life more. But I must do my darndest to read the paper books I own, especially the whole ST:TOS collection that I inherited from my brother (I look forward to them but there are so many shiny new books at the libraries).

Cheryl wrote: "My goal is to read less overall and get out into life more."

I've never had a life, is it worth having? :)

Oleksandr wrote: "I've never had a life, is it worth having? :)"

I am just trying to get mine back. It wasn't much of one, but it sorta went away during COVID. May actually play guitar in public tomorrow. I guess I should go practice . . . I don't even have calluses anymore . . .

One of my goals (not listed above) I have decided, is to finish books I start.

Well, what constitutes “having a life”? COVID was certainly an isolating factor, and war unfathomably so. What keeps me happy is indulging in my many activities - I still work at age 67, reading, fantasy hockey, D&D, music (I play guitar & mandolin, neither very well), and so on. I have contact with people in person & online in all of these. Reading doesn’t prevent me from having a life, it’s a big part of enjoying my life!

By the way, Kateblue, you asked about being in Dripping Springs later this year. Depending on timing, I could make a trip up there to meet. It’s about 1.5 hours away, but I occasionally go that way anyway to hit Salt Lick BBQ & Duchman Winery.

sounds great -- I will put what details we have in a message to keep this discussion from getting too diverse

I learned from my mistakes last year, so now I'm going to commit only to goals I think are achievable but worthwhile:

1) Re-read at least 6 books. I re-read extremely rarely, and I've come to see that as a mistake. Last year I had the same goal, but I kinda forgot about it, and didn't achieve my goal, but this year I'm keeping my eyes on the ball.

2) Read at least 10 books written before 1950. Last year I had a similar "old books" challenge, but then I limited myself to books written before the year 1900. But in reality books from the early 20th century are already old enough to count as "old" in the sense that I'm interested in, i.e. "if it wasn't really good, it would have been forgotten already".

3) Read at least 6 books from the "global south". It's interesting to read books written from a different perspective from ours, and there are bound to be lots of relatively-unknown gems.

4) Read more unread books from my physical shelf than I add to it. Self-explanatory, I think. My TBR pile on my bookshelf is measured best in meters rather than books, so I need to do something about that.

Although not many of us posted goals for 2025, I thought I'd post an update since we're close to halfway through the year (already!).

Total page count/Total books
35,000 pages seems to be about right for me. That equates to around 110 books, including novellas. Very close to target

Monthly group books
1) Keep up with the group. Easily, as only two of the monthly books have been new to me
2) Try to complete the 4 monthly books I haven't read (Up the Walls of the World, A Midsummer Tempest, Too Like the Lightning, Anathem). 60% through Anathem, but otherwise no progress
3) Read Evolution & New Releases as I can or want to. Doing well with new releases; less so with Evolution but in progress on April-June reads.

Series
1 - Finish The Urth of the New Sun to complete The Book of the New Sun completed!
2 - Finish Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to complete the Harry Potter series. not yet, but I still plan to
3 - Participate in the Group series read. declined, read recently
4 - Potential series reads: Asimov's Empire series; The Books of Blood by Clive Barker; Dorsai by Gordon Dickson; Crown of Stars by Kate Elliott, random others.
Read the 1st books of Dorsai & Crown of Stars

Short Fiction Challenge
Participate in the group challenge to read the Hugo & Nebula winning short stories from 1939-1970.
Trying to focus more on short stories with middling success so far

Miscellaneous
1 - Reach 70% of the H/N list - need to read about 38 H/N books.
A little behind, but should be able to get there
2 - Read the 6 H/N winners I haven't read yet.No progress
3 - Read 12 biography, non-fiction or history books. On target
4 - Clear at least 40 physical books from my shelves, net of buys.
Going to come up short here; +10 through June
5 - Worlds Without End challenges as specified on that site. Most challenges are on target, need more focus on short story collections

I'm actually ahead in total books read, but notably behind in several specific challenges, e.g. read more Ukrainian books

I see that I haven't posted my goals, but they are the same as the last year, I'll find and repost a bit later

I’ll assess things later in the month.

Like last year, I plan for:
1. 40 non-fics
2. 40 Ukrainian books of novella+ size
3. All Polish SFF award nominees.
4. weekly Economist magazine (doesn't count to any other goal, GR doesn't want non-fiction magazines here)
5. All monthly reads and challenges
6. All 2025 issues of Analog and Asimov's SF magazines

Huh, it looks like I did not participate at the start of the year. I did set goals for myself though. I'll list them here and share a short update about each.

Goodreads reading goal: 91 books (matching last year which was my highest ever. It's very hard for me to reach this because I have two jobs, two preschoolers, volunteer, etc. and I'm not a faster reader.) Currently at 39 books read so if I finish what I want to for June I'll be on track.

Hugo/Nebula nominees: 24 books - I changed this goal a little from last year by excluding current nominees, so I want to read 24 from the backlist only. I'm behind on this as I've ended up focusing on 2024 releases a lot. I've only read 6 (should be approaching 12 by end of June), but I'm aiming for 3 shorter ones per month until I catch up.

2000s Year Challenge: 26 books -- read one published in each year from 2000-2025. I've done 14 so far, so I'm just over halfway.

Sequels: 12 books -- read one sequel from a series I started before the current year, one for each month, hopefully overlapping with the above challenges. I've only tackled 4 of these so far, so still a long way to go.

Non-fiction: 12 books -- again, one per month, doing even worse on this with only 3 read. Nonfiction books slow my reading pace down quite a bit, and one of the ones I chose is in Spanish so even slower, and as a result I've been bumping them to make space for easier fiction reads. I'm planning to catch up later this summer though.

Progress bar:
Annual reading goal: 39/91
2000s Challenge: 14/26
H/N list: 6/24
Sequels: 4/12
Nonfiction: 3/12

Here’s how I’m doing on the goals stated above.

“…read more than the 125 books I completrd in 2024.” — I’m at 68 as of June 20, certainly on track

“…continue reading a good deal of short fiction” — I’m averaging about a story a day, more or less my goal. The ORBIT group is interesting.

“monthly reads” — I’ve read 4 of the monthly books in this group (having already read 4 others). 2 in the Evolution group, 3 in Hot from the Presses. A respectable showing I think.

Book of the New Sun — read The Sword of the Lictor and plan to start The Citadel of the Autarch soon.

“continue reading KSR” — all I’ve achieved on this is rereading a couple of short stories. I still intend to read 2 more of his novels this year.

historical nonfiction — 2 short works, plus I’ve just started The Age of Decadence: A History of Britain: 1880-1914, a long one I specifically mentioned above.

more PKD — I’ve read The Cosmic Puppets and In Milton Lumky Territory for the first time and reread Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. I still plan to read The Simulacra for the first time.

list of 32 books from the physical tbr — I’m at 16/32.

So I’m more or less on track.

Great challenges, CJ and thanks for a new way to think about them, as you can see from the post above, the group's members usually used quantitative measures

Thought I'd post an 3rd quarter update, just to assess where I am.

Total page count 35K/Total books 110
I'm consistently hitting about 2,800 pages a month; which will put me a little short, around 33.5K, 104 books. I'm happy with this, it's reasonable given a couple crazy months.

Monthly group books
1) Keep up with the group. Done - only a few of the monthly books have been new to me
2) Try to complete the 4 monthly books I haven't read (Up the Walls of the World, A Midsummer Tempest, Too Like the Lightning). I still intend to finish Anathem, but no progress on the others.
3) Read Evolution & New Releases as I can or want to. Doing pretty well with both groups.

Series
1 - Finish The Urth of the New Sun to complete The Book of the New Sun - DONE!
2 - Finish Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to complete the Harry Potter series. - I forgot about it! Might be too late this year.
3 - Participate in the Group series read. - declined, read recently
4 - Potential series reads: finished Asimov's Empire series & should complete Foundation shortly. No progress on other series, except for the 1st books of Dorsai & Crown of Stars, and the Riddle-Master trilogy, which wasn't on my radar earlier.

Short Fiction Challenge
Participate in the group challenge to read the Hugo & Nebula winning short stories from 1939-1970. - Read several years' worth, but moved on to other things. I have read more short story collections this year.

Miscellaneous
1 - Reach 70% of the H/N list - need to read about 38 H/N books.
Gonna be tight!
2 - Read the 6 H/N winners I haven't read yet. - no progress
3 - Read 12 biography, non-fiction or history books. - short of target, only 6 so far
4 - Clear at least 40 physical books from my shelves, net of buys.
Way short of this, I've gone up 30!
5 - Worlds Without End challenges as specified on that site. - I typically set the targets high and lower it to something more realistic as I go. Doing ok here for the most part.

Updating my post from June above:

“…read more than the 125 books I completrd in 2024.” — I’m at 68 as of June 20, certainly on track

Sept. 23: now at 101

“…continue reading a good deal of short fiction” — I’m averaging about a story a day, more or less my goal. The ORBIT group is interesting.

Sept. 23: at 280 stories for 2025

“monthly reads” — I’ve read 4 of the monthly books in this group (having already read 4 others). 2 in the Evolution group, 3 in Hot from the Presses. A respectable showing I think.

Sept. 23 Since June: Partway through Hild and Little Brother for this group, plus a couple of buddy read. Since June also read Blind Lake from the Evolution group and The River has Roots and Automatic Noodle from Hot from the PRinters.

Book of the New Sun — read The Sword of the Lictor and plan to start The Citadel of the Autarch soon.

Sept 23: read The Citadel of the Autarch

“continue reading KSR” — all I’ve achieved on this is rereading a couple of short stories. I still intend to read 2 more of his novels this year.

Sept. 23: read Galileo’s Dream

historical nonfiction — 2 short works, plus I’ve just started The Age of Decadence: A History of Britain: 1880-1914, a long one I specifically mentioned above.

Sept. 23: no more historical nonfiction, unless you count How to Say No: An Ancient Guide to the Art of Cynicism, a short book on the ancient philosophy of cynicism.

more PKD — I’ve read The Cosmic Puppets and In Milton Lumky Territory for the first time and reread Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. I still plan to read The Simulacra for the first time.

Sept. 23: no more PKD

list of 32 books from the physical tbr — I’m at 16/32.

Sept. 23: now at 23/32, halfway through another.

Stephen wrote: “…continue reading a good deal of short fiction” — I’m averaging about a story a day, more or less my goal. The ORBIT group is interesting..."

One per day is a good, easy goal, need to set that for myself!

Stephen wrote: “...I’ve just started The Age of Decadence: A History of Britain: 1880-1914, a long one I specifically mentioned above..."

This sounds like a more comprehensive history of the era, but if you want the military side of things, I'd highly recommend Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War by Robert K. Massie. Massie won a Pulitzer for his biography of Peter the Great & is known for his studies of Nicholas & Alexandra. Dreadnought is a great recounting of the arms race that was a factor in the lead-up to WWI.

I don't have the energy right now to say what all I have been reading, but I will be back

Allan wrote: "Stephen wrote: “…continue reading a good deal of short fiction” — I’m averaging about a story a day, more or less my goal. The ORBIT group is interesting..."

One per day is a good, easy goal, need..."

With respect to Massie, I read the Peter the Great book you mention many years ago. Certainly very readable, and quite fascinating to me at the time. I remember being amazed, perhaps naively, that such an able and energetic individual could have existed. Of course there are such people but in retrospect I think I’d be more skeptical of the “great man” as presented. The pre-WW1 naval arms race would be an interesting subject to me; maybe I’ll read that book some time.

Stephen wrote: "Updating my post from June above:

“…I still plan to read The Simulacra…”

Actually I did read The Simulacra. A good PKD novel.

Oleksandr wrote: "Like last year, I plan for:
.."

My plans posted in June and progress on them:
1. 40 non-fics - 15
2. 40 Ukrainian books of novella+ size = 15
3. All Polish SFF award nominees. = done
4. weekly Economist magazine (doesn't count to any other goal, GR doesn't want non-fiction magazines here) = on track
5. All monthly reads and challenges = on track
6. All 2025 issues of Analog and Asimov's SF magazines = 4 of 12

Allan wrote: "Massie won a Pulitzer for his biography of Peter the Great."

Does he dwell upon possible psychic illnesses of the monarch or the fact that after his reforms, there were fewer people in lands under his control than before he took the throne?

Oleksandr wrote: "Allan wrote: "Massie won a Pulitzer for his biography of Peter the Great."

Does he dwell upon possible psychic illnesses of the monarch or the fact that after his reforms, there were fewer people ..."

It's been a good 15-20 years since I read it, so I don't recall specifically. I do recall the toll that building St Petersburg took on the citizens.

Massie spent many years studying the Romanovs. Beyond his 1967 Nicholas and Alexandra: The Classic Account of the Fall of the Romanov Dynasty, he published, in 1998, The Romanovs: The Final Chapter, when new information became available after the USSR dissolution.

The only review reference I could find was less than favorable:
"Reviewing the book in the American Historical Review, James Cracraft criticized it for overlooking the main scholarly studies in English, while relying heavily on an 1884 biography by the American historian and diplomat, Eugene Schuyler.[4] Cracraft, while stating that he cannot recommend the book to scholars, concluded:
"A colorful, dramatic, at times gripping story is told here in fine detail and in effortless prose. The book is flawlessly printed...and generously, if not always accurately, illustrated. It far surpasses, in volume rather than in acumen or grace of style, the other popular biographies of the first Russian Emperor – by Alex de Jonge and by M. S. Anderson....It will serve to advance the cause of serious history more likely than not, among the general public."

I'm ok on my Goodreads challenge 144/150 (96%)
144 books completed
35 books ahead of schedule

In my McHalo Clean that TBR Already! 2025 Edition, I've read 82 of 100 (82%)
"Great work, you're 9 books (9%) ahead of schedule." says the McHalo home page

but I'm totally failing in my promise to read short fiction in ORBIT. 1%. (I read four short things that were parts of a series.). I haven't even read the Frederick Brown stories I promised to read, much less all the old Hugo stories, which was my original goal.