Roundup of the 2023 science fiction fantasy award winners; And how 2023 stacks-up to the best SFF books of the past 50 y

Hey all! Two years ago, I wrote a piece trying to use 50 years of science-fiction & fantasy awards data to determine some of the greatest novels since 1970. It was a fun exercise applying data science (comparing books across time, weighting novels, etc.) to my favorite hobby-- reading science fiction. There's a lot you can dive into there if interested in SFF across the ages and methodology.

Each year I try and write an update based on the latest round of awards; here's the results from 2022, and alas I've wrapped up the latest for 2023: https://medium.com/@cassidybeevemorris/the-greatest-science-fiction-fantasy-nove...

There's no paywalls or ads or anything funky like that, it's just a fun project -- appreciate any and all feedback. Hope you enjoy!

Thanks for the number crunching and sharing, that's an interesting look across the awards.

I think it's a pity that The Locked Tomb was nominated for best series Hugo this year, since that knocks it out of being nominated after Alecto comes out, if Alecto sticks the landing it would have been it's best chance for a series win.

No mention of Venomous Lumpsucker (Arthur C. Clarke Award winner) in the Honorable mentions, or indeed City of Last Chances the BSFA winner even though you mention the British Fantasy Award (and I agree that The Spear Cuts Through Water is a good book).

The Coral Bones by E. J. Swift and The Red Scholar's Wake were on both the Clarke and BSFA shortlists and also worthy of note.

Fun! Thank you.

Good work; hope you keep it up. Another reason for Nayler not to make the Hugo cut, assuming official interference, is that Nayler apparently is another person who believes that the current Chinese grasp for great-power status is going to fall flat. I'm still wondering how The Spare Man could make the ballot (I thought it was at best "meh"), and then do so poorly in the vote; which is another way of saying one suspects that there were two or three novels ahead of it that got withdrawn for one reason or another.

>1 caszius: Thanks for posting this. I really enjoyed reading your analysis.

>6 Neil_Luvs_Books:

Agreed, found both the approach and the accompanying commentary very enjoyable. Bonus points for the Scalzi feedback.

Reading this makes me feel similar to the way that sports news coverage makes me feel. Gonna start rooting for authors like they're my team. Thank you for sharing!

With Great Cities having originally been a planned trilogy, I'm unsurprised it didn't come close to Martine. Jemisin had to squish in a lot of stuff, and frankly her heart didn't seem in it (likely due to the same reasons it's a duology now).

Perhaps you should edit the description (and cover image?) on the page. You make it sound as it's about novels published in 2023, when in fact they were published in 2022.

So much good feedback, thanks for reading! I'm not good at responding to all, but will try:

>2 Aquila: I didn't realize Locked Tomb is no longer eligible, that's a real shame! And an odd rule. I'll have to do more reading about why that's how it works.

>3 andyl: Thanks for the additional callouts! I haven't read all of those yet, but will try and check out; any favorites out of those 4?

I didn't want the article to turn into a laundry list of winners, but did feel compelled to call out a few given the "top 5" award winners this year were a little controversial.

>5 Shrike58: I hadn't heard that about Nayler, really interesting. Anxiously awaiting those nomination stats, that's for sure.

>9 Watry: Yeah agreed on the second book; it seems Jemisin just wasn't into it-- I believe she mentioned the pandemic being quite hard on her. Too bad because the 1st book was very creative.

>10 anglemark: Yeah when I first started this a few years ago, I didn't really notice that I was using _award year_ instead of published year. Tricky to walk back now with the yearly updates. Also, I figure in-the-end people aren't as hyper current as some of us, and are mostly looking for the most recent recognized books (not ones published last month, for example).

>11 caszius: A series that has been nominated becomes eligible again after two more books, I believe.

>16 Aquila: Yes, two more installments and at least 240,000 words.

The reasoning for the rule is so that the same finalists don't dominate the category year after year; for example, I am sure The Expanse would have been a finalist every year, but instead it was up in just 2017 and 2020.

>12 caszius:
I really liked Venomous Lumpsucker - which is a biting satire.

The Coral Bones I liked, but wanted to like a lot more, set in 3 time periods, with links between them. Don't get me wrong it is a very good book, I just wanted a bit stronger resolution.

Tchaikovsky is as reliable as usual and City of Last Chances is an ambitious fantasy with a multitude of viewpoint characters about a city under occupation and an uprising against that occupation.

TBH I am surprised de Bodard's The Red Scholar's Wake didn't do better in the Hugo and Nebula awards, as her shorter work has got a fair bit of attention recently, and The Red Scholar's Wake did well (4th in the SF category) in the Locus Award.

Interesting and well worth the read. I'm not a fan of reading award books, only because they've won awards. But the lists point me to books I otherwise might have missed, so that's great.

>18 andyl: Bodard seems to have been between US publishers at the time, so there were distribution issues; her next novella is coming out from Tor though.

Thank you for all of that effort! For me the awards the last few years have been skewed by Andy Weir getting completely left out for Project Hail Mary and before that The Martian. PHM is the best scifi book I've read in years and so many people when they try it, feel the same.

There is so much to read and so little time!

>21 Karlstar: I'm a big fan of Project Hail Mary as well. But I never get too bent out of shape over who does or doesn't get awards. I find awards are often given for reasons other than the actual merit of the book.

>13 caszius: Another thought that comes to mind is to wonder if you take the Dragon Awards seriously. They have evolved from an effort by a bunch of sore losers to vote themselves a participation award, to something that does make an interesting comparison with the other awards.

>21 Karlstar: Hugo-wise, Andy Weir fell victim to the eligibility rules. Because The Martian was initially self-published in 2011, and then republished by a traditional publisher in 2014, by the time it was widely known, its original publication was too long ago to be eligible. (But because the Astounding Award (Not a Hugo) has different eligibility rules, Weir did win that in 2016.)

I enjoyed The Martian but thought Project Hail Mary was tedious, and ranked it last.

>22 ChrisG1:

I mean the list of great writers who have never won a Hugo is massive. Gene Wolfe, Iain Banks, Christopher Priest, Guy Gavriel Kay, Alastair Reynolds, Stanislaw Lem, Cordwainer Smith, Stephen Baxter, Paul McAuley, J.G. Ballard, M. John Harrison, Ken Macleod and so on.

Even taking any one individual award's yearly shortlists as a guide still does not reflect the range of talent. You kind of have to look at the the shortlists for all the awards to get some idea. Especially as many of those primarily published outside the US are hampered through less exposure.

>25 andyl: That's a good list of non-winners. I was a bit disappointed that Kay didn't win anything last year for All the Seas of the World, I thought it was quite good.

>1 caszius: I enjoyed the read and the analysis for the greatest novels since 1970.

I wish CJ Cherryh got more respect. I didn't see Downbelow Station listed at all, though it won a Hugo.

>27 fuzzi:. I agree with you on C.J. Cherryh! I think her work is sadly under-valued.

>28 jillmwo: I also agree about C.J. Cherryh. I don’t know how many times I have reread Downbelow Station and really enjoyed her other novels in her Company-Union-Alliance universe.

>29 Neil_Luvs_Books: and another one is coming out later this year, woo!

>30 fuzzi: good to know that another Cherryh novel is coming out. I’ll keep my eyes open for its release.

>31 Neil_Luvs_Books: I'm happy about it too but it will be a while... Alliance Unbound is scheduled for an October release.

>32 ScoLgo: and it's only book #2 in the new trilogy.

>33 fuzzi: >32 ScoLgo: cool! I still have to read Alliance Rising. I forgot that was in my TBR list. Looking forward to reading that one later in 2024. 😀

>34 Neil_Luvs_Books: More Cherryh to read, that's good to know.

>35 Karlstar: I have read a LOT of Cherryh by now but there is still quite a bit of her catalog remaining. Her career has been very prolific!

>36 ScoLgo: I got behind in her Foreigner series, have been playing catch-up the last couple years. It's been a delight.

>37 fuzzi: I never did read Cherryh’s Foreigner series even though I have a couple of those books on my book shelf. So many have told me it is outstanding but I have just never got around to it.

>38 Neil_Luvs_Books: Should you decide to read the Foreigner series, begin with the first book. The series is a single story and does not reward reading out of order.

>39 ScoLgo: Reiterating your point. The Foreigner series needs to be read in order.

>40 jillmwo: >39 ScoLgo: good to know!