Rather than wait for the Hugo voters' pack this year, I have acquired the written fiction nominees as far as possible, and this has meant getting to the novellas first. Unusually, four of the five works shortlisted in this category were published as standalone volumes, which will boost my book count for this month.

( 5) San Diego 2014 by Mira Grant; 4) After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall by Nancy Kress; 3) The Stars Do Not Lie by Jay Lake; 2) On a Red Station, Drifting by Aliette de Bodard; 1) The Emperor’s Soul by Brandon Sanderson )

My reading of this year's nominated fiction for the Hugos did not end particularly well. Although I very much liked my favourite in this category, I was disappointed by the other five and indeed found three of them rather poor.

( 7) Kiss me Twice, 6) Countdown, 5) The Ice Owl, 4) No Award, 3) Silently and Very Fast, 2) The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary, 1) The Man Who Bridged The Mist )

Fortunately none of this year's Hugo nominees is actually a bad book, an improvement on some previous years (no Willis, no Sawyer). Even so, I found it pretty easy to rank the nominees as follows:

( 6) Deadline, 5) No Award, 4) A Dance With Dragons, 3) Leviathan Wakes, 2) Embassytown, 1) Among Others )

Last of the Hugo nominees for this year for me; a sequel to last year's Feed, taking forward the story of newsbloggers in a near-future USA covering the aftermath of the zombie apocalypse. Lots of action and capers, but I did not enjoy it as much: the previous book's narrator is here present only as a voice in her brother's head, there is no ( Read more... )

Ranked by Goodreads popularity, with LibraryThing popularity and rankings from both sites provided for comparison.

GoodreadsLibrarythingnumberaveragenumberaverageA Dance With Dragons, George R.R. Martin332974.1327564.04Embassytown, China Mieville29443.868423.95Deadline, Mira Grant24794.262704.29Leviathan Wakes, James S.A. Corey17104.032113.97Among ( Read more... )