- Here's a list of just the novel winners, which I found useful for pasting into a file to start tracking my own reading.
- Here's a list of all the Hugo awards through 2005, including not just the novels but all the other categories.
- Wikipedia has a good list of the novel winners plus the other nominees, for an expanded selection.
Another suggestion from Lynch in the same kick-your-writing-up-a-notch vein was to simply read more...I think he said he started reading 100 novels a year when he worked on this.
You're ahead of me on that list: I've only read 27 of the books listed and only 3 of the winners in the last 10 years. My two best decades for reading the winners were the 1960s and the 1980s, where I've read a majority. The worst were the last two decades, where I've read only 7 of the 20 winners. I can blame my lack of reading Bujold and Connie Willis for some of that, I suppose, as I've never read anything by either of these multiple award winners.
ReplyDeleteWow, did just as badly on the Nebula awards. I thought if I looked at what was nominated I would fare better, but not really in terms of percentages.
ReplyDeleteOf course, to read it all in the Nebula categories for the last twenty years I would have to read a handful of books by Swanwick and Wolfe, neither of whom I like much. And apparently I had the wrong impression of Jack McDevitt, b/c he dominates the recent list with 8 nominations and 1 win and not only has no one ever recommended him to me as an author, I've looked at a couple of his dust jackets the books seemed unimpressive.
So what I'm wondering is, can you both READ a lot and be productive as a writer, particularly starting out?
ReplyDeleteBecause I read a lot of nonfiction, but I have a hard time reading a LOT of speculative fiction at the same time that I'm trying to write it, particularly in the same genre.
I mean, I can and do read 2-3 novels a month, which seems like a steady clip to me. But 100?