SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

From a discussion we were having in the "How many of our Club Books have you read?" thread I did some looking into how our runner-up books have fared. Not every month had a poll and if there were any in the real early days they're gone. I managed to get data on 147 months.

39/147 runner-ups have gone on to become monthly reads. Books that were runner-ups multiple times before winning were Prince of Thorns, The Caves of Steel, The Diamond Age, The Hobbit, and The Neverending Story. They were all runner-up twice before winning. They may have been in more polls but not as runner-up.

Cyteen takes the prize for being runner-up 4 times but has never won. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, God's War, and The Emperor's Blades all were runner-up 3 times with no wins.

11 other books have made it to runner-up twice, with Fevre Dream looking likely to be the 12th. Surprising books to only make it as far as runner-up are Jurassic Park, The Hunger Games, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, The Magicians, and The Night Circus.

I do know that Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was in, at least, a fourth poll but it didn't even make the top 3.

Great data, Kim. Thanks!

Fascinating.

Just goes to show, don't give up on your favorite!

Did you make a list? We all love lists.

I did make a list. Trying to work out the best way to share it.

Ok here it is, The Runner-Ups.

I'm seeing a lengthy list of recent nevers...

Thanks, this is a great reference!

Awesomeness. :D

Sometime soon I'll update it to include all books that have made it to the polls.

Sarah Anne wrote: "I'm seeing a lengthy list of recent nevers...

Thanks, this is a great reference!"

I'm guessing that's because we've been doing so many themed polls it's rare to see the same books popping up. Back when we used to do a lot of random polls we took inspiration from previously nominated books.

What a great resource! Thank you! Glad to see that I've read 14 of them.

I will advocate for a runner-up month each year, where the past 11 runners-up are in the poll for that month.

Laz wrote: "I will advocate for a runner-up month each year, where the past 11 runners-up are in the poll for that month."

I'm pretty sure we have done that every year already. The next one will be in January.

Poor God's War and Fevre Dream. One of them must win next year.

I'm really pulling for Fevre Dream. It's brilliant. At least it will definitely be in the runner-up poll.

I wanted to read God's War until I found out the tech is based on insects. Ewww...

My tech certainly has a lot of bugs.

Hey, the bug tech was cool! Great intro to biopunk for me. And the gender reversed roles were amazing. plus the action scenes. I fell in love (hard) with Kameron Hurley because of this book. Nyx is one of my fave female characters of all time.

Kim wrote: "I'm pretty sure we have done that every year already. The next one will be in January. "

Ah, cool. I must have forgotten, or it was a different group that didn't want to try that.

Not including wins here are the most nominated authors

C.J. Cherryh 14
China Mieville 11
Michael Crichton 11
Isaac Asimov 10
Cory Doctorow 10
David Brin 10
Jo Walton 9
Octavia E. Butler 9
Ursula K. Le Guin 9
Lois McMaster Bujold 9

And here are the most nominated books (not including winning nominations). On its' 7th nomination The Caves of Steel finally won.

Throne of the Crescent Moon 7
Little Brother 7
The Drowning City 6
The Scar 6
Swordspoint 6
The Caves of Steel 6
Cyteen 6
Jurassic Park 6
Tooth and Claw 5
The Emperor's Blades 5

Omg The Scar I have always wanted to read that as well after Perdido.

Only around 35% of poll winners won on their first nomination. So just because someones favourite book doesn't win first time doesn't mean we won't read it.

Here is my much updated version of the spreadsheet - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...

Kim, if you want more work ;), you could add number of votes and percentage of total votes. Some second place entries got more votes than many winners in different polls.

No, no I do not :P

Heh.

This isn't a definitive list but it's the best I can get from the poll data. Some months we didn't have polls, I'm not sure how things were done when the group started, I'm sure some polls were deleted, one of them is missing all vote data.

This is fantastic information! It must have taken you forever.

Thanks, Kim. Is there any way to get a copy emailed? I tried to copy and paste it into my spreadsheet, but that functionality was blocked.

I did the same thing :)

And, just to be the irritating guy, Feb 11 Sci-Fi winner should be Hyperion

Hank wrote: "And, just to be the irritating guy, Feb 11 Sci-Fi winner should be Hyperion"

Thanks, you're right. It's one of those months where the actual book read doesn't match the poll for some reason. I can't remember why now, possibly a run-off poll. We used to do more of them.

Valerie wrote: "Thanks, Kim. Is there any way to get a copy emailed? I tried to copy and paste it into my spreadsheet, but that functionality was blocked."

If you PM me your email address I can send it to you.

Thank you, Kim.

After some slicing and dicing, I've identified 110 independent titles that were the second runner-up, but never an official group read. Of these, I've read 20.

So, once I reach that lofty "read all the books" goal, I have an alternate target for which I can set my sights. #dorklike

Wait...dorklike? or just plain....

I am like a dork, but obviously not really because I am so cool.

Or not.

Actually meant to be #dorklife. I needs a nap.