2016 Locus Recommended Reading List Published

The 2016 Locus Recommended Reading List from the magazine’s February issue has been posted at Locus Online.

The list is a consensus by Locus editors and reviewers, and others: Liza Groen Trombi, Gary K. Wolfe, Jonathan Strahan, Faren Miller, Russell Letson, Graham Sleight, Adrienne Martini, Carolyn Cushman, Tim Pratt, Karen Burnham, Gardner Dozois, Rich Horton, Cheryl Morgan, Paul Kincaid, Ysabeau Wilce, Liz Bourke, Colleen Mondor, and James Bradley.

Short fiction selections are assembled from material from Laird Barron, K. Tempest Bradford, Karen Burnham, Neil Clarke, Ellen Datlow, Gardner Dozois, Paula Guran, Rich Horton, Brit Mandelo, Faren Miller, Nisi Shawl, Jonathan Strahan, Lois Tilton, and Gary K. Wolfe.

On the list are —

  • 28 SF novels, 22 fantasy novels, 19 YA books, 13 first novels;
  • 27 collections, 12 original anthologies, 11 reprint anthologies;
  • 7 nonfiction books, 18 art books;
  • 18 novellas
  • 32 novelettes
  • 66 short stories

Three self-published works made the list: two art books, and Penric’s Demon by Lois McMaster Bujold.

Baen Books broke into the Locus Recommended list this year with John Joseph Adams’ original anthology Operation Arcana, ending a drought going back years (the publisher had no books on Locus’ 2014 or 2013 lists.)

Those sifting the omens to learn whether Bujold’s Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen will be Hugo-eligible in the year determined by its available-for-purchase 2015 e-ARC or its February 2016 publication date can ponder what it means that the book does not appear on the Locus list.

71 thoughts on “2016 Locus Recommended Reading List Published

  1. Mike Glyer: Those sifting the omens to learn whether Bujold’s Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen will be Hugo-eligible in the year determined by its available-for-purchase 2015 e-ARC or its February 2016 publication date can ponder what it means that the book does not appear on the Locus list.

    Given that Steles of the Sky, a 2014 novel, appears on the Locus list, I don’t think that it can be taken as an authority on anything other than what the Locus personnel felt should be on it.

  2. The title for the John Joseph Adams book should be “Operation Arcana”, rather than “Operational Arcana”.

    These lists make me realise how out of date I am with my reading. Ho hum.

  3. mgdevery: Thanks for catching that. I must have a subconscious desire for it to be a military magic manual.

  4. Lots of stuff to add to my to-read list. Although when I am supposed to read these in addition to new 2016 stuff is left as an exercise for the, um, reader.

    IS it in Locus’ remit to list award-eligible works from the previous year? That would explain Steles (which had a HD release in 2014, and a TP re-release in 2015…)

  5. Unless it’s in the latest issue, I don’t think Locus have reviewed GJ&TRQ yet, so the simplest explanation may be that the staff hadn’t read it yet…

    Operation Arcana is a worthy addition to the list. The Linda Nagata story in it persuaded me to grab her novels.

  6. Mark: Unless it’s in the latest issue, I don’t think Locus have reviewed GJ&TRQ yet, so the simplest explanation may be that the staff hadn’t read it yet…

    When the reviewers might read it and when a review might appear in Locus involve rather different timeframes.

    The e-ARC became available in October, so I wouldn’t expect the distribution date to have interfered with people recommending a work if they were so inclined. Note that the Recommended list has four pieces of short fiction from magazines with December 2015 publication dates.

  7. IS it in Locus’ remit to list award-eligible works from the previous year? That would explain Steles (which had a HD release in 2014, and a TP re-release in 2015…)

    Steles appeared on last year’s Locus list, and I think you’d have to really torture logic to find some excuse for it to intentionally show up two years in a row. Unless Locus has a history of doing this, I’d feel safe assuming this was just a screw-up.

  8. Some magazines with December publication dates come out as ARCs well in advance. The list is finalized early in December.

  9. I picked up the hardcover at Barnes & Noble, though, and noted with some amusement that it distinctly states a 2015 copyright. And I’ve heard that she made royalties off of the e-arcs. Sorry, as a publisher, I count the book as coming out in 2015, without question.

  10. I picked up the hardcover at Barnes & Noble, though, and noted with some amusement that it distinctly states a 2015 copyright. And I’ve heard that she made royalties off of the e-arcs. Sorry, as a publisher, I count the book as coming out in 2015, without question

    As a publisher, it might be a 2015 book. But the Hugo rules are very clear:

    3.2.3: Publication date, or cover date in the case of a dated periodical, takes precedence over copyright date.

    If the book has a February 2016 publication date, it’s a 2016 publication.

  11. It sold thousands and thousands of copies last year, and she made royalties on the book against her advance. Sorry, again, as a legal and contractual matter, as a publisher, that is published. So, are you stating publicly here that a digital sale is insignificant, that only the physical state matters . . . ? So, even if the arc had sold one hundred thousand copies, you would have declared it ineligible until the hardcover had come out? That’s a real interesting way to do business. The rules are royally messed up, then, if a publisher can take some advantage of them so easily :p

  12. It is possible that Locus considered it as a 2015 book and didn’t think it good enough to be on the list. I’m a huge Bujold fan and I didn’t think this was as good as her earlier books, after all. It should be easy to clarify, with Locus, though.

  13. John Lorentz: As a publisher, it might be a 2015 book. But the Hugo rules are very clear:

    3.2.3: Publication date, or cover date in the case of a dated periodical, takes precedence over copyright date.

    If the book has a February 2016 publication date, it’s a 2016 publication.

    If I am reading this correctly, you are defining “Publication date” as the date on the page inside the front cover with all of the author and publisher information on it.

    Whereas I would define “Publication date” as the date on which copies were actually available for purchase by the public.

    Is there anything in the Hugo rules which defines this term one way or the other?

  14. The confusion here is that the publication date for the Bujold novel, or the e-ARC version, is November 2015. You could argue that there is a first edition (the e-ARC) which has its own copyright and publication date, and that there is a second edition (the hardcover/ebook) which has a second publication date of February 2016. I don’t think you can argue that a commercially available publication with an official release date and a matching copyright date wasn’t published.

  15. So, for the novels on the list, here’s what I …

    READ AND REALLY LIKED:
    Half the World, Joe Abercrombie
    A God in Ruins, Kate Atkinson (how is this one SFF?)
    Lair of Dreams, Libba Bray
    The Traitor Baru Cormorant, Seth Dickinson
    The Lie Tree, Francis Hardinge
    The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemisin
    Ancillary Mercy, Ann Leckie
    Uprooted, Naomi Novik
    Carry On, Rainbow Rowell

    READ AND LIKED ALL RIGHT:
    Half a War, Joe Abercrombie
    The Darkest Part of the Forest, Holly Black
    Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances, Neil Gaiman
    Railhead, Phillip Reeve

    READ AND DIDN’T REALLY CARE FOR:
    Six of Crows, Leigh Bardugo
    The House of Shattered Wings, Aliette de Bodard
    Archivist Wasp, Nicole Kornher-Stace
    Persona, Genevieve Valentine

    HAVE CURRENTLY SITTING ON MY TBR PILE:
    Dark Orbit, Carolyn Ives Gilman
    Get in Trouble, Kelly Link
    Planetfall, Emma Newman
    Radiance, Catherynne M. Valente
    Karen Memory, Elizabeth Bear

    AM LITERALLY IN THE MIDDLE OF READING AT THIS VERY MOMENT:
    Slade House, David Mitchell

    WAS SURPRISED AND/OR DISAPPOINTED NOT TO SEE ON THE LIST:
    Shadow Scale, Rachel Hartman
    The Mystic Marriage, Heather Rose Jones
    Cold Iron, Stina Leicht
    The Gracekeepers, Kirsty Logan
    The Rest of Us Just Live Here, Patrick Ness

  16. (I also, of course, have a list of books I WASN’T surprised or disappointed not to see on the list, but there’s no reason to be mean. Also listing all the 2015 books I didn’t like which also didn’t make Locus would be a pain.)

  17. Oh, whoops, forgot:

    STILL MORE BOOKS I WAS SURPRISED AND/OR DISAPPOINTED NOT TO SEE ON THE LIST:
    The Scorpion Rules, Erin Bow
    The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet, Becky Chambers
    Last First Snow, Max Gladstone
    Castle Hangnail, Ursula Vernon

  18. @snowcrash

    The eARC had a publication date of October 2015.

    You’re right. (I’d understood from someone’s post that the publication date was listed as “February 2016”.)

    By explicit Hugo rules, and by previous precedents, I’d say that makes it a 2015 book.

  19. Drawing not just from the Locus list, but from SFWA list and others:

    Read and on my Hugo longlist:
    Ancillary Mercy, Ann Leckie
    Uprooted, Naomi Novik
    Going Dark/The Trials, Linda Nagata
    Dark Orbit, Carolyn Ives Gilman
    Planetfall, Emma Newman

    On my Hugo longlist, shocked not to see on the list:
    The Invisible Library/The Masked City, Genevieve Cogman
    The Mechanical/The Rising, Ian Tregillis
    Castle Hangnail, Ursula Vernon
    Touch, Claire North

    Bummed out that it’s a 2014 book and not Hugo-eligible
    The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet, Becky Chambers

    Interesting and/or Enjoyable, but not Hugo-worthy:
    The Affinities, Robert Charles Wilson
    This Gulf of Time and Stars, Julie Czerneda
    Corsair, James L. Cambias
    Nemesis Games, James S.A. Corey
    Europe in Autumn/Europe at Midnight, Dave Hutchinson
    The End of All Things, John Scalzi
    Persona, Genevieve Valentine (how is this one SFF?)
    Karen Memory, Elizabeth Bear
    The Annihilation Score, Charles Stross
    Lightless, C.A. Higgins
    The Buried Life, Carrie Patel
    The Glittering World, Robert Levy
    Raising Caine, Charles E. Gannon
    Zeroes, Chuck Wendig
    What Could Possibly Go Wrong?, Jodi Taylor
    Doomsday Equation, Matt Richtel
    Skin Deep, Gary Kemble
    Superposition/Supersymmetry, David Walton

    Very disappointed with:
    The Traitor Baru Cormorant, Seth Dickinson
    Seveneves, Neal Stephenson
    The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, Natasha Pulley
    Speak, Louisa Hall
    Something Coming Through, Paul J. McAuley
    Unbreakable, W.C. Bauers
    The Ship, Antonia Honeywell
    Revision, Andrea Phillips

    Currently reading:
    The Sleeping Embers of an Ordinary Mind, Anne Charnock

    Currently on my TBR pile:
    Updraft, Fran Wilde
    The Library at Mount Char, Scott Hawkins
    The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemisin
    The House of Shattered Wings, Aliette de Bodard
    Time Salvager, Wesley Chu
    A Borrowed Man, Gene Wolfe
    The Grace of Kings, Ken Liu
    The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps, Kai Ashante Wilson
    Zero World, Jason Hough
    Nova, Margaret Fortune
    A Red Rose Chain, Seanan McGuire
    Luna: New Moon, Ian McDonald
    Depth, Lev A.C. Rosen
    Barsk, Lawrence M. Schoen
    Apex, Ramez Naam
    Razorhurst, Justine Larbalestier

    Bounced off, will try again later:
    The Galaxy Game, Karen Lord
    Aurora, Kim Stanley Robinson

  20. “Steles” has now been taken off the list as an error. No mention of “Gentleman”. But plenty of ordinary people bought it and read it in October 2015, so I’m thinking it’s pretty definitely a 2015 book. The 2016 hardcover looks to be the second edition, with a couple of revisions.

    @Sean Wallace, Amazon gives the pub date as 2/2/2016. Your hardback actually says 2015? That’d be definite.

    There was no mention of Oor Wombat, which I count against them HEAVILY.

    My nominations and their recommendations differ wildly in the shorter categories.

  21. Kyra: The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet, Becky Chambers

    I agree this is a fine book.

    Makes you wonder. If they’re treating it as published in 2014 — well, it wasn’t on last year’s list either.

  22. Mike Glyer: I agree [The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet] is a fine book. Makes you wonder. If they’re treating it as published in 2014 — well, it wasn’t on last year’s list either.

    Unfortunately, it is suffering from The Martian Syndrome: self-pubbed to great insider acclaim but not enough acclaim to surface in Hugo nominations, then picked up by a major publisher the following year, gaining major public acclaim but too late for a nomination.

  23. Some from JJ’s lists that I read but didn’t cover above for one reason or another:

    > “The Invisible Library, Genevieve Cogman”

    This one I bounced off — it’s a book that sounds like it would be very much to my tastes, but somehow it wasn’t.

    > “Touch, Claire North”

    Liked this all right, but didn’t love it; in part because in the end, the antagonist seemed thin to me. I very much like this author’s writings as Kate Griffin, though.

    > “The Buried Life, Carrie Patel”

    Almost the exact same reaction to this as to The Invisible Library; sounds like something I would like, but it didn’t work for me.

    > “Updraft, Fran Wilde / The Library at Mount Char, Scott Hawkins / Razorhurst, Justine Larbalestier”

    These are also on my own TBR pile. Others still on the TBR I didn’t list because they weren’t on the Locus List include The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood, A Crown for Cold Silver by Alex Marshall, The Price of Valour by Django Wexler, Darkness On His Bones by Barbara Hambly, The Hunter’s Kind by Rebecca Levene, Broken Dolls by Tyrolin Puxty … ye gods and cats I’ve still got a lot to get through.

  24. Just eyeballing the first two categories, the f/t does not look horrible.

    Which, given how easy it was for me to single-handedly review more women in 2015 than Locus did in 2014, is a little surprising. A higher fraction of the women reviewed by Locus must make it onto the recommendation list than do men.

  25. Paul Weimer (@princejvstin) on February 1, 2016 at 6:45 pm said:
    Alas T. Dewitt, it seems the Nefshons did not flow for Barsk.

    I guess it’s time to start building my raft… 😉

  26. Given Barsk came out on December 29, I would be unsurprised if it was considered for next year’s recommended reading list. Locus has historically been open to considering books published late in the year for the following year’s list. Certainly, I’d not seen or read the book by the time we were working on the list.

  27. Jonathan Strahan on February 1, 2016 at 6:49 pm said:
    Given Barsk came out on December 29, I would be unsurprised…

    I’m hoping that is the case. Such a wonderful book.

  28. “3.2.3: Publication date, or cover date in the case of a dated periodical, takes precedence over copyright date.”

    Given we all subscribe to the fiction* that cover date takes precedence,*and* “Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen” has a 2016 publication date, I conclude it is a 2016 book, to say nothing of the e-ARC being sold not as “the book” but as an “electronic-Advance Reader Copy”; another fiction* I know, but again, nudge nudge wink wink…

    *Sorry/Not Sorry.

  29. Soon Lee: I conclude it is a 2016 book

    Hugo Admins generally don’t rule on the eligibility of a work until it actually makes the shortlist. I don’t imagine that any of them will be willing to weigh in with an “authoritative” decision ahead of time.

    I think it would get disqualified if it were nominated next year. (If I were Hugo Administrator next year, I would reluctantly say that it was “published” the year before, the same way that I would have reluctantly said in 2015 that The Martian and this year that The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet were published the year before and no longer eligible.

    So I’m going to read it before Hugo nominations close this year, and nominate it if I feel it is worthy.

  30. John Lorentz said:

    I’d understood from someone’s post that the publication date was listed as “February 2016”.

    It is listed as “February 2016”. Even, or so it is reported, within the text of the “e-ARC” that people were buying in October 2015.

    JJ asked:

    Is there anything in the Hugo rules which defines this term one way or the other?

    Not for books. (It’s a little clearer for the non-prose categories, such as the BDPs where it says “publicly presented for the first time in its present dramatic form”.) No one ever anticipated a situation where a work would be available for sale to the general public but not considered “published” by its publisher until months later.

  31. JJ,

    I disagree. I could e.g purchase the January 2016 issue of Asimov’s in December 2015*. So does that make the January 2016 issue of Asimov’s a 2015 publication? I would say no, and historical precedent supports me.

    If “Gentleman Jole…” makes the ballot this year, I expect the Admins will allow it (the membership has spoken). If it doesn’t make the ballot this year but is successful next year, I expect the Admins would allow that too.

    *Not that I do anymore; as a subscriber I get it delivered.

  32. “It is listed as “February 2016”. Even, or so it is reported, within the text of the “e-ARC” that people were buying in October 2015.”

    Pulling it up the eARC lists a Copyright date of 2015, and a First Printing of February 2016. As per the link above, the publisher was selling the eARC version of the book as published in Oct 2015

    At this stage, I reckon it’s a toss-up as to whether it’s (in)eligible this year or next year.

  33. I would say no, and historical precedent supports me.

    There is an explicit Hugo rule that says that dated periodicals use their cover date as their publication date for eligibility purposes.

  34. Soon Lee said:

    I could e.g purchase the January 2016 issue of Asimov’s in December 2015*. So does that make the January 2016 issue of Asimov’s a 2015 publication? I would say no, and historical precedent supports me.

    More importantly, the Hugo rules support you in that specific case by explictly specifying “cover date in the case of a dated periodical”. But it’s neither here nor there for this discussion because Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen is not a dated periodical.

  35. @Petréa Mitchell,

    Yes, but the version of Gentleman Jole that was available in 2015 was sold an an e-ARC, not the ‘official’ published version (for given values of ‘official’).

    ETA: I would welcome some official clarification as it might affect my nomination ballot.

  36. I think this isn’t very meaningful. There were apparently minor changes to the text between the two versions, but the book was offered for sale at a premium price to the public. The designation “e-ARC” is, I think, rendered meaningless because it was offered for sale by the publisher. ARCs (Advanced Reader Copies) are offered to reviewers etc for no charge and they are embargoed from reselling them. A different thing altogether.

  37. This is the sort of case where I really wish the Hugo Administrators would make a public, general, comment on the new situation (it’s been said before that specifics will never happen since some folk (not myself) believe that the admins mentioning the title of a work would give it an unfair advantage). Something like “It has come to our attention that there were works which had so-called eARCs available for general sale to the public in 2015 for works then published in 2016. Our verdict is that works in such a situation are eligible as works that first appeared in year [ ], barring further special circumstances.”

    ‘Cause otherwise people might either waste nominations this year on things ineligible, or things that might otherwise have gotten on the ballot in their sole year of eligibility won’t due to people not wanting to potentially waste a nomination or thinking the actual publication date was the final say of its eligibility.

  38. Peter Nel: Nothing whatsoever from Analog, which is a bit sad, really.

    If the majority of Analog‘s output is partial (serialized) stories — as was evidenced by numerous of the slated Puppy offerings last year — then it’s not surprising.

    In toto, they may be good stories. But a lot of people aren’t going to be interested in nomating fragments of stories which don’t stand well on their own — and this would not be at surprising.

  39. Analog does serialized stories but last time I looked it was nowhere near the majority of what it publishes. I think it’s more that Analog tends toward a more classic nuts & bolts style of SF in which there are few opportunities for innovation, a criterion favoured by reviewers (and Worldcon voters).
    If you look at the number of stories Analog gets into the Locus list versus sister magazine Asimov’s (in brackets), the pattern is clear.

    2010: 4 (15)
    2011: 2 (14)
    2012: 5 (16)
    2013: 3 (16)
    2014: 2 ( 9)
    2015: 0 (14)

    What is unusual is Analog not having anything in the Locus list at all this year, when in recent years it gets at least a small number.

    @Peter Nel,
    Which of Analog’s 2015 stories would you have picked for the list?

  40. I picked up a couple of Analogs last year to consider if I should take up a subscription, and the gap between them and Asimovs and F&SF (not the mention the online zines) was quite obvious IMO. I think the only story of theirs that stuck with me was Sleeping Dogs by Adam-Troy Castro.

  41. I’d consider the periodical rule a precedent for other classes. It’s a very longstanding rule.

    But I still think this particular case will have to be considered by the committee.

  42. Nothing whatsoever from Analog, which is a bit sad, really.

    I have a subscription to Asimov’s, F&SF, and Analog, and I’ve started getting full-year runs of Clarkesworld when they are available in print form. The difference in overall story quality between the other publications and Analog is noticeable – Analog is a generally weaker publication.

    On a note that seems pretty much idiosyncratic to me, I also think Analog has become weaker on the whole since Quachri took over from Schmidt as the editor of the magazine.

  43. A God in Ruins, Kate Atkinson (how is this one SFF?)

    It really isn’t. Life After Life was, but the SFnal elements there aren’t in the sequel

    The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet, Becky Chambers

    Reading this at the moment, and it hasn’t got beyond ‘pleasant’ yet

    the book was offered for sale at a premium price to the public

    yes, this. It was on sale. People could buy it. It was essentially the same text as the print edition. Therefore, the ebook release date is the publication date.

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