Clarke Award shortlist

[nwhyte]

As Martin Lewis has mercilessly chronicled, I correctly predicted four of the six shortlisted novels for the Arthur C. Clarke Award. Just to update the table I posted then, with the 1 March figures in parentheses:GoodreadsLibrarythingnumberaveragenumberaverageEmbassytown, China Miéville2819 (2539)3.85825 (787)3.95Rule 34, Charles Stross1206 (1087)3.56354 (335)3.75Hull Zero Three, Greg Bear849 (791)3.23299 (292)3.35The End Specialist (The Post-Mortal), Drew Magary1072 (927)3.83171 (158)3.74The Testament of Jessie Lamb, Jane Rogers139 (128)2.9684 (81)3.17The Waters Rising, Sherri S. Tepper167 (163)3.4775 (70)3.23Though it may not be immediately obvious, the big relative winner in the last three and a half weeks is Drew Magary's The End Specialist, which has 15.6% more entries on Goodreads and 8.2% on LibraryThing, comfortably ahead of the field in both cases. However in absolute terms, Embassytown is still far ahead, accounting for 45-46% of all copies of any of the six books, surprisingly consistently whether you count books registered as of 1 March, or registered as of today, or registered between the two dates. Rule 34 is also still ahead of The End Specialist in absolute numbers, and so is Hull Zero Three among LibraryThing users. The Testament of Jessie Lamb and The Waters Rising remain far behind. (The Waters Rising posted a big relative gain among LibraryThing users but from a very low base.)

I'm behind on reviewing (and have a busy week ahead, so it will be some time before I catch up); so far I have read Embassytown, The Testament of Jessie Lamb and The Waters Rising, and have made a start on Hull Zero Three and The End Specialist. I shall make a considered judgement when I have finished them all, but for me Jessie Lamb is way ahead so far.