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Locus Awards

Posted 2013-06-07 8:03 PM (#5224)
Subject: Locus Awards

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Posts: 9

The Locus Awards for Science Fiction and Fantasy best novel have many nominee finalists in each year. Sometimes as many as ten or fifteen or twenty. I would like to see WWE list ALL of the Locus nominee finalists and not just the top five nominee finalists for each year. I would also like to see even the top five nominee finalists in the same rank order that Locus lists them at their website. Not all at WWE match the Locus website in rank order.

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Posted 2013-06-08 9:14 AM (#5230 - in reply to #5224)
Subject: RE: Locus Awards

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Location: Dallas, Texas

d32843k - 2013-06-07 8:03 PM The Locus Awards for Science Fiction and Fantasy best novel have many nominee finalists in each year. Sometimes as many as ten or fifteen or twenty. I would like to see WWE list ALL of the Locus nominee finalists and not just the top five nominee finalists for each year. I would also like to see even the top five nominee finalists in the same rank order that Locus lists them at their website. Not all at WWE match the Locus website in rank order.

Hello d32843k. You raise some interesting questions about the Locus Awards.

We list the Locus Award Finalists on the site, not the long list of noms, because those are the ones that count. It's the same for the other awards. A few of the awards organizations make their long lists available, like Locus, but those books are not in the final vote. When Locus make their announcement they only list the top 5 finalists. Here is an example from 2013:

http://www.locusmag.com/News/2013/05/2013-locus-awards-finalists/

Five finalists in each category. For us that's 15 books since we have the SF, Fantasy and YA categories here. To include the long list would be confusing and inaccurate and would dilute the results. Not to mention the fact that it would be contrary to every other award listing we have.

As for the rank order this is news to me. We get that straight from Locus so I thought we were good to go. It turns out the issue here is that Locus themselves list the order differently in different places on their own site.

The 2012 press release after the vote:

http://www.locusmag.com/News/2012/06/locus-awards-2012-winners/

Embassytown, China Miéville (Del Rey; Macmillan)
Leviathan Wakes, James S. A. Corey (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
11/22/63, Stephen King (Scribner; Hodder & Stoughton as 11.22.63)
Rule 34, Charles Stross (Ace; Orbit UK)
The Children of the Sky, Vernor Vinge (Tor)

The SF Awards Database:

http://www.sfadb.com/Locus_Awards_2012

Winner: Embassytown, China Miéville (Del Rey; Macmillan)
11/22/63, Stephen King (Scribner; Hodder & Stoughton)
Rule 34, Charles Stross (Ace; Orbit UK)
The Children of the Sky, Vernor Vinge (Tor)
Leviathan Wakes, James S. A. Corey (Orbit US; Orbit UK)

When they make the announcement we update our database to match. Later they update their database and change the sort order of the runners up from alpha by author last name to number of votes. Note the bullet list for the announcement and the numbered list for the database. (To make matters more confusing in 2007 and 2008 they sorted the runners up alpha by title.) I'm a little puzzled why they don't announce in order of finish from the get go.

Our list matches their database from 2006 back because that's when we added the list to WWEnd. After that we put in new years according to the press releases as they came out each year. Looks like I'll have to go back in and change the sort order. Of course that means that our list won't match the press releases. What a pain.

Thanks for pointing out the discrepancy.

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Posted 2013-06-08 10:57 AM (#5231 - in reply to #5230)
Subject: RE: Locus Awards

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Location: Dallas, Texas

I've updated the Locus Awards for the last few years to correct the sort order problem. We are in alignment with the Locus awards DB now. We'll just have to remember to wait for the DB update when they announce for 2013.

d32843k

Posted 2013-06-09 11:16 AM (#5234 - in reply to #5230)
Subject: RE: Locus Awards

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Posts: 9

I defer to your expertise in how award lists work.

I have no doubt they are confusing.

It seems to me though that the Locus web site is the final say in what is correct or not vis-a-vis the Locus awards.

My guess and recommendation as to why it would be a good idea for you to include the "long list" of nominee finalists from Locus is that with your new tie-in to Amazon now you would benefit potentially from more sales credit from Amazon. That's my guess. I would like to see your site stay around for a long time. So the more money you make the better chances of your site continuing for a long time.

I also guess that there are many thousands of new science fiction books published every year. The "long list" of nominee finalists covering three Locus categories of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Young Adult would cover how many books - say sixty at most each year. I would guess that is only a couple of percent of all the new science fiction books published every year. The best sixty out of thousands.

I have only been able to turn to reading science fiction books since retiring a few years ago. On my own I developed a spreadsheet that was very similar to what your site was doing and so I switched to using your site. I no longer have enough time left to read all the science fiction books available. So I use the various awards and the various lists to try to judge a good science fiction book to read. After three years of doing this I have come to the conclusion that the Law of Large Numbers or the Wisdom of Crowds applies significantly to what is a good science fiction book or not, at least for me. Locus, it is my understanding, has more people voting for their various award categories than all of the other science fiction awards combined.

When you combine Locus (and I only look at the SF category) with the other awards - you come up with the best 100 or so science fiction books for each year. And I include the "long list" from Locus in my determination of what is a good science fiction book or not. That is about all that I have time to read plus trying to catch up with all the top science fiction books of past years. So using the Wisdom of Crowds and the Law of Large Numbers helps me to just focus on the best books of the year.

That is just a single persons opinion. But the more I learn the more I realize that I am not the only person doing what I am doing. That leads to my recommending that you include the "long list" of Locus nominee finalists in your web site. I would also go so far as to recommend that you include the Locus awards for Collections and Anthologies.

I track ALL of your science fiction awards and lists (but not Fantasy nor Horror nor Young Adult). I don't just track Locus. So I am not promoting Locus just because I like it. I just think my suggestions would add to the quality and usability of your web site and I would like to see your web site be a success and stay around for a long time.

Your web site is already fantastic. Why not make it even better and more profitable.

That's my two cents.

Administrator

Posted 2013-06-09 10:24 PM (#5236 - in reply to #5234)
Subject: RE: Locus Awards

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Location: Dallas, Texas

Well, we are going by what Locus says right now. That they choose to show the long list instead of just the finalists is neither here nor there. We only display the finalists for any of our awards because that is what people want to see and more importantly that is what they get to vote on in the final ballots. There is a reason we don't get a bunch of info or fanfare on the long lists.

Look at this long list from the 2011 Clarke award: http://blog.worldswithoutend.com/2011/02/2011-arthur-c-clarke-award-eligible-novels/ It's got 54 books on it. Or this long list of 95 books for the 2010 BFS: http://blog.worldswithoutend.com/2010/03/2010-british-fantasy-award-the-long-list/ I just don't think people really care that much about what came in 77th place for a given year. Joe Author and his publisher are not putting "Joe's book, Killer Story, came in 92nd place in the British Fantasy Society Award!" on the cover of all his books. The point of having the awards is to narrow down to just the best books. Why show a hundred books? We'll put them in our database for sure, just not on the lists.

Now, I'm all for adding more Locus categories. We have already got the list of First Novel Award books in the works. - we're missing 63 of those. Anthologies and Collections are 2 more that I'd love to have as I'm partial to short fiction too. There are dozens of awards and Best of Lists that we want to add. We're huge believers in the Wisdom of Crowds ourselves.

I appreciate your concern that we stick around a long time - we share that, I promise And also, many thanks for the kind words. We'll keep on making the site better as long as there are people who enjoy what we're doing here. We've never done this for money but I'll tell you, I would not mind making some either. We're doing better in that regard but compared to the time and effort this site requires of us we're not likely to ever break even. But who knows, perhaps some day it'll pay for us to go to Worldcon?

d32843k

Posted 2013-06-10 5:12 PM (#5242 - in reply to #5236)
Subject: RE: Locus Awards

Member

Posts: 9

Again, I have to defer to your expertise in familiarity with the various awards and their selection and voting procedures.

I am very new to this. Less than three years.

Looking at your links to the BSFA and Clarke voting long lists, I have to believe that there is longer "long list" for Locus voting too. The culling must be done somehow from a much longer "long list" before coming up with the "long list" that appears at the Locus web site.

In three years I have acquired a science fiction library of every single Hugo, Nebula, and Locus SF (short list) winner and finalist novel. Trying as hard as I can I cannot do that for the BSFA nor Clarke winner and finalist novel lists. Not even close.

I find it much harder to locate books from the BSFA and Clarke lists of finalists here in the US than for the Hugo or Nebula or Locus finalist lists. Of course, I am retired and I am trying to save money and so I generally only buy used books at a substantial discount. Nonetheless, you can't find books from the BSFA nor the Clarke finalist lists in science fiction loving Silicon Valley nor San Francisco. That leads me to believe that the BSFA and Clarke lists of finalists are not used as much by the general public to determine what is a good science fiction book to read in the US.

This is all anecdotal, of course. But I am also acquiring all the Locus SF finalists from their "long list" from their web site and having no trouble doing so all the way back to the 1970's.

Having done all this in the last three years I am still of the opinion that the "long list" of Locus novels would be helpful to include in your web site. But not for BSFA nor Clarke. It is my gut feel that readers look to Locus more than they do to any of the other award lists in determining a good science fiction book to read. I'd also include Hugo in that gut feel. This gut feel comes from what I said above and from having read books from every one of the award lists to get a feel for what the differences are.

That is just two more cents of my thoughts. Whatever you do is going to be great, regardless. You have the best science fiction web site that I have found so far. Obviously, you are doing something right. At least in my opinion.

d32843k

Posted 2013-06-11 12:18 PM (#5251 - in reply to #5224)
Subject: Re: Locus Awards

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Posts: 9

Just two more cents of my thoughts then I am pretty much done on this topic.

Very very anecdotal: I look at books on your site almost daily. The books that have the most comments and the most thorough comments mainly seem to me to come from books from the Locus SF award and secondarily from the Hugo award.

If that is true, then the users of your site would most likely welcome an expanded Locus SF section to include the "long list" of finalists, especially since the Locus long list is no where near as long as the BSFA nor Clarke long lists. I would also say that this is also more directed for the Locus SF award and not for the Locus Fantasy nor YA awards. So you could just limit the long list to the Locus SF awards and none other.

I very much think that would help your site. Constant improvement is my only goal. But whatever happens is fine with me. I'm just inputting my comments only.