The End of All Things on the 2015 Locus Recommended Reading List
Posted on February 1, 2016 Posted by John Scalzi 11 Comments
In the category of science fiction novels, naturally enough, alongside excellent novels by folks like Paolo Bacigalupi, James Cambias, Ann Leckie, Cixin Liu, Nnedi Okorafor, Adam Roberts, Justina Robson, Michael Swanwick and Catherynne Valente among others. Then there are the fantasy novels, first novels and all the other short fiction and non-fiction categories.
It’s an impressive list of worthy reading, and you can see the whole thing here.
It’s also a fine place to look for things to consider for awards; I would particularly suggest the non-fiction and art books categories for the Best Related Work category of the Hugo Awards. There’s some good stuff there, and the Best Related Work category, I think, is a category that’s particularly susceptible to mischief, in terms of nominations.
(Another reminder that I am myself sitting out the year in terms of award consideration. Nominate other people and works, please!)
Super pleased TEoAT made this year’s recommended reading list, and even more pleased to be in the company of excellent writers, not only in my own category, but in the list in general. Congratulations, everyone.
Great list. I always appreciate your recommendations.
Happy to see several works I missed. I’m a happy guy when my phone is loaded up with months of reading ahead.
I like this list and have read a number of the selections. I like Seveneyes, The End of All Things, and Nemesis Games in particular. What I would point out is that even though almost all the of the Puppy arguments from last year are crap and somewhat delusional they do get a small amount of support when a list comes out like this. 24 novels are recommended by Locus for Science Fiction and 0 of them are from Baen. This is true for 2014 and 2013 as well. Look at the Short Stories and you see that Orson Scott Cards “InterGalactic Medicine Show” has 0 short story nominees over the same 3 year period. I wish Locus would have a little more diversity in the list so that there was not even the appearance of a bias that could be grabbed on to by the less rational.
Exalted company for sure — congratulations!
Maybe Baen just doesn’t publish Best Of worthy stuff? That would seem to be simpler than some conspiracy (Occam’s Razor applied).
I’m a bona fide SJW and I have almost no overlap with this list in my shorter fiction categories. They left out much of what I thought was amazing.
Agree with Lurkertype. Often what I like doesn’t make a particular list. Or it makes a list, is award winning but is not nominated for the Hugos. My prime example is “11-22-63”. I am also 100% SJW. I don’t think of it as a personal slight because Fandom or juried awards often differ from my personal preference.
Besides – the pups generally make a market argument – then push stuff that doesn’t have broad market support.
Which brings up the final point. Keep in mind that while the puppies have their tails twisted the puppy leaders who are twisting them have things to sale. The point of stirring up their fans is to sell them something. At the leader level, it is just niche marketing.
The less rational will always find an appearance of bias to latch on to, jharaldson. And speaking as one who knows from the inside how the list is developed, the idea that we are organized enough to pull off a conspiracy has long been amusing.
(My opinion only, of course. Not an official statement from Locus, etc.)
@Adrienne Martini
Thank you for taking the time to comment on this. Just out of curiosity, did you or anyone you are aware of from Locus notice the continued Baen Novel absence prior to releasing the list? Is this something you discussed internally but decided was not important and stood by the editorial integrity of the list? Were Novels from Baen close to the cutoff or have they just had a truly mediocre 3 years? Thank you for your time!
Baen Books is actually *on* the Locus Recommended list this year with _Operation Arcana_ by John Joseph Adams.
So congratulations to Baen Books for making the Locus Recommended Reading List. I had the impression that Baen Books published a fairly small fraction of the SFF books in any given year, so the achievement is particularly impressive, I think. Well done! Maybe I should take a look at that one.
The short version of how the list gets made: In late fall/early winter, an email full of every title that has been published that year goes out to the list of people who are thanked in the magazine for their participation. The first round is essential a “reply back with what you’ve liked, what you didn’t, which titles you think you’ll get to soon, which titles you really want someone else to read, too, and which titles aren’t on the list.” And then it’s just draft after draft as it gets refined. Liza and Co. do an amazing job wrangling all of the data and coming up with a comprehensive list.
(and, just as a data point, I can think of one Baen title that just came out that will likely make the list next year.)