SFF Hot from Printers: New Releases discussion

Hi all and let's discuss the overall outline of our reading in 2020. Right now I see it that way:
Jan - 2 (or 1?) of 2019 novels voted by the group
Feb - 2 (or 1?) of 2019 novels voted by the group
Mar - 1 of 2019 novels voted by the group till March 12th (March 13th is deadline for Hugo nominations) + maybe one of Nebula nominees (announced Feb 20th)
Apr - Nebula nominee?
May - PKD nominee?
Jun - Hugo nominee?
Jul-Dec - novels published 2020?

Also more general: haw many novels are you comfortable reading per month? For as this group is a filial of H&N novels, were we have 2 books per month + challenges, it can be hard for many to commit for a lot of additional reading

Also, shorter fiction: are many of you interested in going thru 2019 novelettes and short stories? Because I've made folders for them but no one posted there

For me it depends on the length of the novel (and if I enjoy reading it, but that's of course an unknown varible). Around 300 pages I would commit to 2 for 500 pages and upwards only 1. I have around 10 BotMs from the various groups I'm member of and have to balance those.

*variable* ... sigh ... on the app for the time being and can't edit.

Thanks for the reply, Gabi! What about your preferences of what to read more specifically month-by-month? Esp., do we need more nominated 2019 works (Nebula, Locus, Hugo, Clarke, PKD Awards) or more 2020 stuff?

I won't commit to any books, but if I have time, I try to read at least one book as a part of this group in Jan-March and at least one Hugo-nominated work after that.

I'm interested in shorter works, bit don't really know where to start. That's why I normally stick with the shortlisted works: then I don't have to decide. But if your goal is to nominate something, well, then this approach doesn't work.

But if you suggest a couple of short stories/novelettes, I'll gladly read them and comment.

My preferences would be eligible for nominations till the nominations are through, then hopefully only few nominated that I haven't read, and last part of the year emphasis on 2020 contenders to be ready for next year's nominations.

I have a sizeable hard-copy TBR pile at home and moving my way through those is a priority for me so I can't commit to staying on top of monthly reads for the group -- I'd like to, but I'm probably going to backload a lot of award season reading. I will happily vote and try to read what we select as a group.

In terms of what to read each month: two novels is certainly too much for me, on top of the H&N nominees group. I would suggest perhaps one novel and one shorter work (novella or novelette) to accompany it each month. Once the nominee shortlists have been announced I'd also suggest sticking to those nominees, specifically for N&H awards (so no PKD/locus/clarke).

Re: shorter fiction, I would be happy to read through them, and will definitely read the shortlist nominations, but we'd be more encouraged if we could vote on them as monthly reads. That's why I'm suggesting one full length and one short length per month.

Just my 2 cents!

Oleksandr wrote: "Esp., do we need more nominated 2019 works (Nebula, Locus, Hugo, Clarke, PKD Awards) or more 2020 stuff?."

On this question, my preference would be sticking to 2019 books until 2020's award season is over (after the World Fantasy Awards) which is in Sept or Oct, I forget exactly. But that would still give a few extra months of group reading for the 2020 releases than we had this year.

I like the look of your plan, Z.

My thoughts:

2 novels per month - this gives us a choice if we just dont like one of them. Or if we cannot get hold of them. I like the way you move through the awards as the year moves on. I think we should include all the awards - that is what this new group is for isn't it.

Definitely include novellas each month. At least 2 or 3.

I would like to read the short stories each month. But I really dont know how to get hold of them.

Also, what is the difference between a novella and a novelette? Or are they pretty similar?

All of these plans sound good. I will be more able to participate in a few days. Have fun!

Cordelia wrote: "I would like to read the short stories each month. But I really dont know how to get hold of them.

Also, what is the difference between a novella and a novelette? Or are they pretty similar?"

I shortly post in Short stories folder some links to free short SFF works.

The difference is that

Novelette: Awarded for a science fiction or fantasy story of between seven thousand five hundred (7,500) and seventeen thousand five hundred (17,500) words.
Short Story: Awarded for science fiction or fantasy story of less than seven thousand five hundred (7,500) words.

Here are top short stories of 2019 https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

A general issue: queues in libraries are long and for our members to join monthly reads they need to hold in advance. In our main group we set the following nomination procedures:
nomination 1ts-7th of the month one month prior to the reading (January for March, etc)
voting - 8thy-14th, so members have 1.5 month to get a book

However, in our specific case before the Hugo nomination the schedule is tighter, e.g. Nebula to be announced on Feb 20 and we want to read at least 1 before Mar 13 (Hugo deadline)

What are Your suggestions?

Maybe we should nominate and vote on everything leading up to the Nebula shortlist announcement now so folks can get a head start on holds? It's hard to preselect from a shortlist we don't have yet... but I'm also expecting that library wait times are longer for this group than the other one since these are all new releases, and possibly hyped.

To answer the first post, yes I would be interested in reading short stories and novelettes as long as they are free and:
- Written by female authors/authors I like, and/or
-In the locus recommended list, and/or
-Something the other members recommend
(I think you folks have read one already)

As for reading novels, my BR schedule is full until the end of March. I will dedicate more time, however, when I get the Hugo package and work my way through the finalists.

Novellas are a bit tricky as most are not available for free, so I'll just wait and see.

I'm pretty unhappy with the nomination and polling timelines we currently have in this group. Polls close on 14th of the preceding month, so we only have half a month to obtain the books. Since I get my books almost exclusively from the library, I'm always at least a month late to the discussions.

I would support to switch our timetable to that of the parent group: nominations open two months earlier (i.e. January's Monthly Reads would open for nomination first week in November), polls close on 14th of that month. Wasn't that our original plan, anyway?

Antti wrote: "I'm pretty unhappy with the nomination and polling timelines we currently have in this group. Polls close on 14th of the preceding month, so we only have half a month to obtain the books. Since I g..."

I agree. One of the points in favor of shorter span between nominations and reading was to see which new releases are all the hype. Let's lengthen the process - setup a thread for Feb 2021 noms and set appropriate end-dates there

I agree, also. It is difficult to get new books on short notice without paying a high price. And if a book is brand new--they are hard to get from the library sometimes. Six months later--unless it's a big hit--not so much.

I notice we haven't got a year-plan for 2021 (like there was for 2020).

Nebula nominations deadline is Feb 28th, so the nominees will probably be announced mid- March or so?

Philip K. Dick Award winner is announced April 2nd and BSFA Award winner Apr 2.-5.

Hugo nominees will be announced mid-April.

I couldn't find info on ACC awards this year, but isn't the shortlist usually announced sometime in June-July?

So...

Our group nominates/votes two months in advance (yay!)
Therefore May Monthly Reads are chosen in March.

Unfortunately Nebula nominations probably come bit too late for March voting. How should we deal with them? Choose them for April voting, postpone voting in March until we get the Nebula shortlist, disregard Nebula shortlist altogether (I mean, we've probably already read most if not all the books on the shortlist)?

For June, we could just pick the PKD and BSFA winners in April and skip the voting process, if we wanted.

July: Perhaps automatically pick the Hugo nominees that we still haven't read (if there are any, naturally)

Aug: Pick books from ACC shortlist?

Sept-Dec: 2021 books (SF & F)

No preference, depending on availability and affordability.

I thought that maybe for May to select a work of one of the authors, who advertised their works in this group, especially if they give free copies to readers (not a necessary but welcome approach). Maybe a book from BSFA shortlist as a second nominee.

The rest of the year sounds fine

Just checking in. Sorry for being so absent. Whatever you guys think, except that, if it costs a lot, I'm not buying it. So if the library doesn't have it available, I may not be in on some of the big, marketed works.

I hope most of our monthly reads are available in libraries and/or are relatively cheap, but notify me if/when my assumption is wrong. I got like 90% of books from libraries, but I got access to a few of big ones so almost everything is there even if I have to wait (usually weeks, not months)

I get most of them from my (relatively small town) library, though some take a while to arrive.

I proposed earlier that we could skip nomination process in April altogether, and straight up put up two polls:

1) Nebula Nominees We Haven't Read Yet
2) PKD/BSFA Award Winners.

There are six Nebula nominees in Novel/Novella categories we haven't read yet as a group:

The Midnight Bargain, C.L. Polk
“Tower of Mud and Straw”, Yaroslav Barsukov
Finna, Nino Cipri
“Ife-Iyoku, the Tale of Imadeyunuagbon”, Ekpeki Oghenechovwe Donald
The Four Profound Weaves, R.B. Lemberg
Riot Baby, Tochi Onyebuchi

We could just make a poll out of those and choose one of the June MR's from that list

The other MR could be either PKD or BSFA winner: PKD award is announced 2.4. and BSFA winner sometime between 2.-5.4.

How about if we've read neither of the winners, we put up a vote; if we have read one but not the other, it'll straight up be our other June MR; if we've read both, then we'll have a normal nomination process for any 2020/2021 book?

This is a great idea, Antti and I second it. Also, in our parent group one of the Nebula nominated authors suggested his novella for a buddy read - Tower of Mud and Straw by Yaroslav Barsukov. It is available online as both text and audio. So we can have it in the poll for June or as a buddy read

Hi all, so are there any comments re Antti's suggestion?

I do like Antti's suggestion, but at some point I'd prefer to tackle Hugo nominees we haven't read yet, since some of us are actually able to vote on those, as opposed to the spectator sport of the Nebulas. Maybe for July?

We could use the same idea for July MR: every Hugo nominee we haven't read yet goes straight to poll. Hugo nominees should be announced in mid- to end-April, right?

April 13, unless there are delays

How long does the voting of Hugos usually take?

I like it, as well as the Hugo suggestion, but at some stage I'd like to make a real start on 2021 fiction as well.

Agree, MH.

It might be fun looking forward to have novella or novelette themes some months. I like our usual of one sci-fi and one fantasy novel or novella, but I’ve been on a novella kick this month and it has been fun. If we did it as a group we could maybe aim to read four novellas together one month and even have some friendly competition to see which novella the group likes best. Same with novelettes and short stories. I’m just thinking how some of us have expressed that we didn’t read as much in non-novel categories this past year.

Novellas are a really good idea - they're short, so you can get a bunch done, and recently they've been one of the stronger award categories.

Love the novella idea - I have also gravitated towards audio novellas this month, and I feel so accomplished when I read several in one week!

I have had some trouble getting copies of novellas and novelettes at my library, so I might have to given in and buy them online.

I like the idea of more novellas but I want to add that
1. alas there are more popular but fresh novellas with no audio, quite a few get audio months after the print release, unlike novels
2. we ought to think how to choose 4 - four polls? one poll were first 4 novellas got max votes?

I’m not sure what it is like to set up polls in goodreads. Is it possible to allow everyone four votes? If so we could do the normal process and just let everyone nom and vote for four each. I hear you on not as many novellas being available in audio. I have found a number that are, but yeah, that could be an issue.

Kristenelle wrote: "I’m not sure what it is like to set up polls in goodreads. Is it possible to allow everyone four votes? If so we could do the normal process and just let everyone nom and vote for four each. I hear..."

It has 1 vote per poll, but you can create multiple polls, so I've seen other groups setting identical polls for 1st and 2nd choice

Oh, interesting. Hmm. That could get complicated. I’ve seen other groups do voting in the threads rather than polls before. So everyone could just say their first, second, third, fourth in the thread and it could be worked out by hand...which wouldn’t be too terrible since we are a small group. But I think it could also work to just go with the top four of a single poll.

Or top two of a sci-fi poll and top two of a fantasy poll.

I guess thread-voting is an interesting alternative, hanks for the idea, Kristenelle!

Kalin wrote: "I do like Antti's suggestion, but at some point I'd prefer to tackle Hugo nominees we haven't read yet, since some of us are actually able to vote on those, as opposed to the spectator sport of the Nebulas."

If Hugo nominees are announced Apr 13th, then we could forget the PKD/BSFA Awards, put all the unread Hugo nominees immediately into a poll and vote for them during April. Then we would have in June a Nebula nominee and a Hugo nominee, and we could reserve July for the novellas.

So we have two options:
A: June Nebula & PKD/BSFA, July Hugo, August Novellas
B: June Nebula & Hugo, July Novellas, August 2021 SF/F.

Which one seems preferable? I'm indifferent.

I like B a lot!

Are we thinking the novellas will be 2020 or 2021 releases? I was planning ahead for 2021 releases in my head.

It could be a combination of both. If it's July, I might still be looking to read some Hugo nominees, but I'm also way behind some or most of you in 2020 reading.

Gabi wrote: "How long does the voting of Hugos usually take?"

Voting period usually ends around the end of July. I don't know when it will be this year because there is a lot of turbulence with DisCon III organizing.

For the last two years, I have usually read many of the eligible novellas. This year I haven't. So I would like to read some 2020 novellas. I don't even know what the likely ones are, which is not my usual method.

However, if people have 2021 novellas in mind, I'm ok with that because I don't want to be in this situation where I have read none of them next year.

Gabi wrote: "How long does the voting of Hugos usually take?"

Last year deadline was 23 Jul 2020,

Kalin wrote: "I like B a lot!"

I also prefer B but both variants are fine.

I like B. I've read a third of the field for 2020 novellas (focused on the top as usual), but that leaves plenty of gaps, and I'm looking forward to reading the 2021 field.

I can, by myself, just get the Nebula nominated novellas now (say that 5 times fast!) so whatever you guys think.