Marooned: Science Fiction Books on Mars pointed me to this site Honor Roll, purportedly listing the top 1000 SF books based on awards received and including the top 276 science fiction authors based on awards received.
Nice idea, but skewed just a bit by the fact that as time goes by, more and more awards are created. This means, of course that classic writers who WERE the top award winners when there were only one or two awards presented for the genre are now pushed fairly far down on the list.
There may also be some kind of agenda here, since in checking the list of authors, I found that nominations are included as well. Definitely skewy, since that information is not available for many awards – especially juried ones.
And I’d have removed any author who publicly proclaims that their stuff isn’t science fiction – but that’s me.
Excellent points. I wondered how the scores were calculated but didn’t look for the explanation or FAQs.
Paul,
well, I just did and wish I hadn’t. Those folks are missing a host of awards and don’t count everything. For example, with the Hugo, they only list Novel and Dramatic Presentation, Long Form.
They also erroneously state that a Heinlein novel “won in 66 but was listed in 67″ to avoid confusion. Wrong – the awards are always given for the ‘previous year’s offerings.
I put absolutely no stock in that site, not at all.
Maybe when Senator Orrin Hatch finishes his investigation of college football’s Bowl Championship Series, he can look into the SF Honor roll.
FYI, the site states that Heinlein’s “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” was nominated twice: 1966 and 1967. It won in 1967. The site scored only the win.