It's 2015? Already?

As part of my self-styled sci-fi book education, I have been exploring lists of the best books, representatives of their time. The usual suspects were included, of course, but there were some other lists that really rounded out the selection with books I had never heard of, and have actually enjoyed. These books have been drawn from the past Hugo and Nebula Award winners, as well as David Pringle's Best 100 Science Fiction Novels, and others. (It goes without saying that many of the best books, and some of my favourites, don't appear on any list. It doesn't mean they aren't good, nor does it mean that inclusion on the lists is a guarantee of excellence. I can vouch that this is most definitely not the case.)

The main problem, of course, is that reading these gives me a great idea of where the genre has been, but not necessarily where it is. Is cyberpunk still a thing? Are people still writing about zombies? What about aliens? Are they still popular? As an aspiring writer, it is probably a good thing to know what people are buying. It might not change my writing, but it will at least set my expectations for publication at a realistic level.

There is a catch, of course. The Awards handed out by various committees are decidedly NOT a reflection of sales, but of the variety of books published and often the interests of the boards and members. And so we have come to this. I can choose to follow the rankings at the various book sellers, newspapers and pundits, or peruse the Awards for an idea of what is making waves. I have chosen the later.

To this end, I have focused on six sci-fi awards to get as wide an appreciation as possible. The beleaguered Hugos are in, of course, as are the Nebula Awards. I have also included the British, Australian and Canadian Sci-Fi awards, with the final additions of the Arthur C. Clarke awards for a fun finish. This year, that has netted me 26 books across the spectrum of the genre.

We have some military sci-fi, some that borders on speculative fiction, time travel, alien attacks, zombies, and much, much more. Two of the books are on two different lists, and a third appears on three of the six. About two-thirds of the selection are stand alone, while of the remainder, about half are the first book in their respective series. The remainder are partway through an already running series, which may prove to be a challenge. I will address those as they come up in my reading.

The plan is to read at a natural pace, which means a book every week or two. Some, if they catch my fancy, will probably only be a few days. Others, where there are multiple books ahead of the selection, may take a little longer to get to.

I am not guaranteeing that I am going to love every book. As a matter of fact, given my experience with previous award winners, I am pretty sure that the opposite will be true. Also, my review will not be spoiler free. I want to talk about what I like and what I don't like about a particular book. I will post the list in the next post. If you want to read along, I will let you know roughly the order I will be hitting them.

Comments, as always, are welcome.