The Subjective Chaos (Kind Of) Awards

19|01|18 Update

The Bloggers Seven have met with their first challenge since announcing their quest; lo and behold a book had been placed in the wrong category!

After a brief period of wailing into the void, our brave heroes searched within themselves for the truth; they would have to move the book to a new category.* Such honesty from the humble Cornell would need to be rewarded in some way, and so it was proposed that his honesty would be forever commemorated in stone**

*Paul Cornell’s Chalk, not actually being a novella, has now been moved to the Best Fantasy category

**A pebble. Well, a French pebble, so it’s fancy.

Once upon a time, there was a book blogger, struggling to work out instagram and keep up with threads on twitter.
‘Just like me’ you may be thinking, ‘Who is Chuck Wendig anyway?’ right?

One day this hapless book blogger found herself invited to take part in an adventure of alarmingly increasing proportion.
The Wise Sage from The Middle Shelf declared ‘Come! Join us on our quest to discover the Best Books Released in 2017! There will be nominating, there will be shortlists, there will be endless twitter notifications the likes of which you’ve never seen before. But there will also be companionship, reknown, and most importantly; new books to read!’

And so our brave book blogger ventured forth into this new, daring fellowship. What perils await them as they forge through C’s categories? Will they conquer the towering mountains of books? And will their bonds prove strong enough to reach an agreement in the end?

These are The Subjective Chaos (Kind Of) Awards*
Do you dare follow the adventure?

*Not really an award. There is no prize. Or a ceremony. I will be drinking though

The “Judges”

Me (Somehow, I don’t know, there may have been a mistake)

Best Fantasy

Paul Cornell Chalk

Hari Kunzru White Tears

Oliver Langmead Metronome
Silvia Moreno-Garcia The Beautiful Ones
Jeannette Ng Under the Pendulum Sun
Vivian Shaw Strange Practice
Anna Smith Spark The Court of Broken Knives
Anna Stephens Godblind

Best Science Fiction

Nina Allen The Rift
Nicola Barker H(A)PPY
Chris Brookmyre Places in the Darkness
Yoon Ha Lee Raven Strategem
Rivers Solomon An Unkindness of Ghosts
Adrian Tchaikovsky Dogs Of War

Robert Jackson Bennett The Divine Cities
Marie Brennan The Memoirs of Lady Trent
N. K. Jemisin The Broken Earth
Cassandra Khaw Food of the Gods
Emma Newman The Split Worlds
Nnedi Okorafor Binti

Best Novella

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Maurice Broaddus Buffalo Soldiers
Christian Ellingsen The Winter Fayre
Ellen Klages Passing Strange
Cassandra Khaw A Song for Quiet
Tade Thompson The Murders of Molly Southbourne
Jy Yang The Black Tides of Heaven/The Red Threads of Fortune

Best “Blurring the Boundaries”

hannah-green-and-her-unfeasibly-mundane-existence-188641900

Andrew Caldecott Rotherweird
Nicky Drayden The Prey of Gods
Ruthanna Emrys Winter Tide
Nick Harkaway Gnomon
Fonda Lee Jade City
Michael Marshall Smith Hannah Green and her Unfeasibly Mundane Existence
Jen Williams The Ninth Rain

There are some vague rules; I don’t have to read and therefore judge every category, but in order to judge a category I have to have read all of the books in that category.

I’ll probably start with either Fantasy or Blurring the Boundaries and see where I go from there. It’s a lot of reading but it’s already so much fun, and it always feels great to be a part of something.

Thank you C for inviting me to take part!

My goal is to update you at least once a month with how I’m doing, and I’ll be posting reviews of the books as I read them (if that’s allowed. I should probably check first if that’s allowed…)

Wish us luck!