Tag Archives: Locus Recommended Reading List

Rocket Stack Rank Issues Apology, Hullender Off Locus Panel

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Rocket Stack Rank has answered “An Open Letter With Respect to Reviews Published on Rocket Stack Rank” with an apology and commentary. The open letter was coauthored by Brooke Bolander, Indrapramit Das, Ada Hoffmann, Keffy R.M. Kehrli, Rose Lemberg, Sunny Moraine, Suzanne Palmer, Charles Payseur, A. Merc Rustad, K.M. Szpara, Bogi Takács, and JY Yang, and has been cosigned by well over 100 others since it was posted yesterday.

Rocket Stack Rank’s “Apology & Open Letter Responses” begins:

We apologize to all readers and authors we’ve harmed and offended. Greg [Hullender] has withdrawn from the Locus Recommended Reading List panel.

We apologize for offending non-binary and trans people who use “they” as their pronoun. Our criticism of fictional non-binary characters in stories hurt real people who read and identify with those characters. What we’d previously dismissed as differences of personal preference or as “neutral” linguistic arguments, actually exposed a major blind spot.

We also apologize for trying to “explain” trans people to a cis audience in two reviews (The Black Tides of Heaven & The Red Threads of Fortune). It is not our place to do that no matter how much history Greg had in the LGBT movement, and we should have known that.

Moving forward, we will no longer single out the use of “they” as pronouns for non-binary characters as a Pro or Con of a story. We will treat non-binary characters the same way we treat gay, lesbian, bisexual, and trans characters. For existing reviews, we will update each with a correction and comment that links to this post. In general, if people tell us about errors in pronouns or gendering, we’ll thank them for their feedback and correct the errors.

We continue to listen and to learn, and we will do better.

The apology is followed by a paragraph-by-paragraph response to the Open Letter, accepting some of the criticisms, disagreeing with others, for example —

We do not promote ourselves as the one-and-only authority on short fiction, as evidenced by the search link we provide with every story that lets readers find reviews written by people with very different tastes from RSR, as well as direct links to recommendations from prolific reviewers where available.

Other parts of the response vary between accepting the criticisms and making further apology, explaining measures being taken to avoid similar problems in the future, and trying to document the inaccuracy of a few specific criticisms.

Meanwhile, Locus, which has been under pressure to drop Hullender from the Recommended Reading List panel, has issued this statement:

[Editor’s note: I have been covering this story in the Scroll, however, I did not want to delay reporting these developments for eight or ten hours til the Scroll is ready to post.]

2016 Locus Recommended Reading List Is Out

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

The list is… is a consensus by Locus editors, reviewers, and other professionals — editor-in-chief Liza Groen Trombi; reviews editor Jonathan Strahan; reviewers Liz Bourke, Carolyn Cushman, Paul Di Filippo, Gardner Dozois, Amy Goldschlager, Paula Guran, Rich Horton, John Langan, Russell Letson, Adrienne Martini, Faren Miller, Colleen Mondor, Tim Pratt, Rachel Swirsky, Tom Whitmore, and Gary K. Wolfe; Bob Blough; Mark R. Kelly; Paul Kincaid; Cheryl Morgan; and Graham Sleight.

The young-adult list compiling group wrapped in Laurel Amberdine, Gwenda Bond, Barry Goldblatt, Justina Ireland, Justine Larbalestier, Eric Smith, and Tiffany Trent.

The art book section had help from Arnie Fenner, Karen Haber, and Francesca Myman.

The short fiction categories were compiled by Strahan with input from Dozois, Guran, Horton, Langan, Miller, Swirsky, and Wolfe; and editors and reviewers John Joseph Adams, Charles Payseur, Nisi Shawl, and A.C. Wise.

On the list are —

  • 23 SF novels, 30 fantasy novels, 12 horror novels, 24 YA books, 13 first novels;
  • 28 collections, 13 original anthologies, 8 reprint/year’s best anthologies;
  • 15 nonfiction books, 15 art books
  • 11 novellas
  • 33 novelettes
  • 78 short stories

The horror novel category is a fresh addition — last year’s list did not include it.

Only one self-published work made this year’s list, an art book – last year’s list had three.

Baen did slightly better than indie, with two books on the 2017 list, a fantasy novel and a story collection. The publisher often attracts little notice from Locus, placing only one work on last year’s list (2015), and zero in 2013 and 2014.

The Locus Poll & Survey will soon open for online voting. When it does, the form can be found here.

2016 Locus Recommended Reading List Published

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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.

2015 Locus Award Shortlist

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The finalists for the 2015 Locus Awards have been posted at Locus Online.

What are the results of this wide-open online vote of sf readers, free of charge for anyone to participate, (although the votes of Locus subscribers count double)?

Not a single work or person on either the Sad Puppies 3 or Rabid Puppies slate is listed among the finalists. Zero.

There also is not a single work published by Baen, or any Baen editor, although that is consistent with the Locus Recommended Reading List published earlier this year.

Less predictably, it is almost impossible to find a finalist in the Magazine category that also is credited as the publisher of even one of the short fiction finalists. Asimov’s alone enjoys that distinction. A strange dichotomy.

Lastly, because File 770 has discussed both works, let it be noted that the Nonfiction finalists include Ray Bradbury Unbound, Jonathan Eller (University of Illinois Press) and Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century, Volume 2: The Man Who Learned Better: 1948-1988, William H. Patterson, Jr. (Tor).

The winners will be announced during the Locus Awards Weekend in Seattle WA, June 26-28, 2015.

2015 Locus Recommended Reading List Appears

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The highly influential Locus Recommended Reading List has been posted by Locus Online.

The 2014 list is a consensus by Locus editors and reviewers with some input by 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, Paul Kincaid, and others — with inputs from outside reviewers, other professional critics, other lists, etc. Short fiction selections are based on material from Jonathan Strahan, Gardner Dozois, Rich Horton, Lois Tilton, Ellen Datlow, Alisa Krasnostein, and Paula Guran with some assistance from Karen Burnham, Nisi Shawl, and Mark Kelly.

On the list are —

  • 28 SF novels, 22 fantasy novels, 18 YA books, 11 first novels;
  • 14 collections, 12 original anthologies, 11 reprint anthologies;
  • 12 nonfiction books, 13 art books;
  • 16 novellas
  • 53 novelettes
  • 58 short stories

The list is always a focal point of discussion during awards season. This year it may also provide ammunition for the Sad Puppies 3 campaign because despite its breadth it contains a grand total of zero works written by —

  • Larry Correia
  • Brad Torgersen
  • John C. Wright
  • Vox Day
  • Sarah Hoyt
  • Dan Wells

— five writers who were on last year’s Sad Puppies slate, and a sixth, John C. Wright, who has been constantly mentioned as a writer they will endorse in 2015. Four members of last year’s slate, Correia, Torgersen, Day and Wells, made the 2014 Hugo ballot (though none was on last year’s Locus list, either).

Oh, and the current Locus list also contains absolutely zero works published by Baen Books.

Entering the Lists

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The Locus Recommended Reading List is a widely-respected memory jogger that many fans consult while filling out their Hugo Award nominating ballots. It’s wide-ranging: this year’s list included 61 novels in various categories, plus other books and dozens of novellas, novelettes and short stories.

Diana’s book did it, so I was personally curious how rare it is for something to make the Hugo ballot that wasn’t on the Locus list. This year there were four “unlisted” fiction and related book nominees.

Best Novel
Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer (Tor; Analog Oct. 2006-Jan/Feb. 2007)
The Last Colony by John Scalzi (Tor)

Best Short Story
“Distant Replay” by Mike Resnick (Asimov’s May-June 2007)

Best Related Book (from the Locus Non-Fiction and Art book categories)
The Company They Keep: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community by Diana Glyer; appendix by David Bratman (Kent State University Press)

Last year was a different story. Only the 2007 Hugo-nominated novelette “All the Things You Are” by Mike Resnick (Jim Baen’s Universe Oct 2006) was absent from the Locus list.