Using Awards Lists As a RA Tool: Locus Awards

This is part of my ongoing series on using Awards Lists as a RA tool. Click here for all posts in the series in reverse chronological order. Click here for the first post which outlines the details how to use awards lists as a RA tool. 

Every year I celebrate the Locus Magazine Recommended Reading List as the best resource for you to understand the best of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror for the widest audience.  Click here for my post about the 2023 titles (published in Feb 2024) and my 4 specific ways to use the list.

That longer list is used as the "long" list to create the 10 finalists in each category for the Locus Awards.  That list just came out here.

If you were overwhelmed by the longer Recommended Reading List, this one is way more manageable. 

But the advice I give on using the longer list as a resource works even better for these top 10 lists in each category. From that post:

First, take the list itself, and check your collections. Do you own these books? You should. These are some of the best titles in Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror from 2023-- I personally review quite a few of them.

Second, use it to help readers who want books in these genres, but also, to help readers who want to give these genres a try-- especially the stories and novellas. These are proven winners, titles you  can suggest with ease as they were vetted by a group of experts. [see below for a list of those experts]

Third, especially in the collections, anthology, and all of the shorter fiction categories, pay attention to the authors producing these stories. Many will become the novelists whose books you will be clamoring to get soon. I know this because...

Fourth, they make this list every single year, so there is a great BACKLIST! You know I love the backlist. Seriously though, you need to assess your collection, you want a suggestion that is on the shelf, you want to discover a newer voices in the genres, you want to make a display? For all of these things and more, you need to look back more than just one year. Don't worry. I made it easy on you.

Okay now to the current list. You can click on the image or here to see all of the categories, but I have reposted the most relevant to you and have added the link to my review where appropriate. 

Click here for the full list

The Locus Science Fiction Foundation has announced the top ten finalists in each category of the 2024 Locus Awards. These results are from the February 1 to April 15 voting, done by readers on an open public ballot. Congratulations to all of the finalists!

The Locus Awards winners will be announced June 22, 2024, during the in-person Locus Awards Ceremony, held in the historic Nile Hall at Preservation Park in downtown Oakland, California. Join MC Henry Lien and special guest Connie Willis for an entertaining presentation of the awards, plus program items and a catered reception. Additional virtual events include author readings, panels with leading authors, and more. Buy your ticket today!

The top ten finalists in each category are:

SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL

• The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport, Samit Basu (Tordotcom)
• A Fire Born of Exile, Aliette de Bodard (Gollancz; JAB Books)
• Red Team Blues, Cory Doctorow (Tor; Ad Astra)
• Furious Heaven, Kate Elliott (Ad Astra; Tor)
• Translation State, Ann Leckie (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
• The Terraformers, Annalee Newitz (Tor; Orbit UK)
• Starter Villain, John Scalzi (Tor; Tor UK)
• Lords of Uncreation, Adrian Tchaikovsky (Orbit US; Tor UK)
• System Collapse, Martha Wells (Tordotcom)
• The Road to Roswell, Connie Willis (Del Rey)

FANTASY NOVEL

• To Shape a Dragon’s Breath, Moniquill Blackgoose (Del Rey)
• The Keeper’s Six, Kate Elliott (Tordotcom)
• Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries, Heather Fawcett (Del Rey; Orbit UK)
• Dead Country, Max Gladstone (Tordotcom)
• The Water Outlaws, S.L. Huang (Tordotcom; Solaris UK)
• Paladin’s Faith, T. Kingfisher (Argyll)
• He Who Drowned the World, Shelley Parker-Chan (Tor; Mantle)
• My Brother’s Keeper, Tim Powers (Baen; Ad Astra)
• City of Last Chances, Adrian Tchaikovsky (Ad Astra)
• Witch King, Martha Wells (Tordotcom)

HORROR NOVEL

• Vampires of El Norte, Isabel Cañas (Berkley) Becky's review
• The Reformatory, Tananarive Due (Saga; Titan UK) Becky's review
• A Haunting on the Hill, Elizabeth Hand (Mulholland; Sphere)
• Starling House, Alix E. Harrow (Tor; Tor UK)
• How to Sell a Haunted House, Grady Hendrix (Berkley; Titan UK) Becky's review
• Don’t Fear the Reaper, Stephen Graham Jones (Saga; Titan UK) Becky's review
• A House with Good Bones, T. Kingfisher (Nightfire; Titan UK) Becky's review
• Lone Women, Victor LaValle (One World) Becky's review
• Silver Nitrate, Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Del Rey; Jo Fletcher) Becky's review
• Black River Orchard, Chuck Wendig (Del Rey; Del Rey UK)

FIRST NOVEL

• Chain-Gang All-Stars, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah (Pantheon)
• The Strange, Nathan Ballingrud (Saga; Titan UK)
• The Saint of Bright Doors, Vajra Chandrasekera (Tordotcom)
• Threads That Bind, Kika Hatzopoulou (Razorbill; Penguin UK)
• These Burning Stars, Bethany Jacobs (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
• Godkiller, Hannah Kaner (Harper Voyager UK; Harper Voyager US)
• The Marigold, Andrew F. Sullivan (ECW)
• Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon, Wole Talabi (DAW; Gollancz)
• Some Desperate Glory, Emily Tesh (Tordotcom; Orbit UK)
• Ink Blood Sister Scribe, Emma Törzs (Morrow; Century)

NOVELLA

• The Crane Husband, Kelly Barnhill (Tordotcom)
• The Last Dragoners of Bowbazar, Indra Das (Subterranean)
• “Linghun”, Ai Jiang (Linghun)
• The Salt Grows Heavy, Cassandra Khaw (Nightfire; Titan UK) Becky's review
• Thornhedge, T. Kingfisher (Tor; Titan UK)
• Rose/House, Arkady Martine (Subterranean)
• Lost in the Moment and Found, Seanan McGuire (Tor)
• The Mimicking of Known Successes, Malka Older (Tordotcom)
• The Lies of the Ajungo, Moses Ose Utomi (Tordotcom)
• Mammoths at the Gates, Nghi Vo (Tordotcom)

ANTHOLOGY

• The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume 7, Neil Clarke, ed. (Night Shade)
• Christmas and Other Horrors, Ellen Datlow, ed. (Titan UK) Becky's review
• The Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction (2022), Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki & Eugen Bacon & Milton Davis, eds. (Caezic)
• Never Whistle at Night, Shane Hawk & Theodore C. Van Alst Jr., eds. (Vintage)
• The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2023, R.F. Kuang & John Joseph Adams, eds. (Mariner)
• Out There Screaming, Jordan Peele & John Joseph Adams, eds. (Random House; Picador)
• New Suns 2, Nisi Shawl, ed. (Solaris UK)
• The Book of Witches, Jonathan Strahan, ed. (Harper Voyager US; Harper Voyager UK)
• Mothersound: The Sauútiverse Anthology, Wole Talabi, ed. (Android)
• The Best of World SF: Volume 3, Lavie Tidhar, ed. (Ad Astra)

COLLECTION

• The Essential Peter S. Beagle, Volumes 1 & 2, Peter S. Beagle (Tachyon)
• Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance and Other Stories, Tobias S. Buckell (Apex)
• The Wishing Pool and Other Stories, Tananarive Due (Akashic)
• White Cat, Black Dog, Kelly Link (Random House; Ad Astra)
• No One Will Come Back For Us, Premee Mohamed (Undertow) Becky's review
• Jackal, Jackal, Tobi Ogundiran (Undertow) Becky's review
• Skin Thief, Suzan Palumbo (Neon Hemlock)
• Lost Places, Sarah Pinsker (Small Beer)
• The Best of Michael Swanwick, Volume Two, Michael Swanwick (Subterranean)
• The Best of Catherynne M. Valente, Volume One, Catherynne M. Valente (Subterranean)

NON-FICTION

• The Fiction Writer’s Guide to Alternate History, Jack Dann (Bloomsbury Academic)
• 42: The Wildly Improbable Ideas of Douglas Adams, Kevin Jon Davies, ed. (Unbound UK)
• Wish I Was Here: An Anti-Memoir, M. John Harrison (Serpent’s Tail; Saga 2024)
• All These Worlds, Niall Harrison (Briardene)
• 101 Horror Books to Read Before You’re Murdered, Sadie Hartmann (Page Street Publishing) Becky's review
• Space Crone, Ursula K. Le Guin (Silver)
• Ex Marginalia: Essays on Writing Speculative Fiction by Persons of Color, Chinelo Onwualu, ed. (Hydra House Books)
• A Traveller in Time: The Critical Practice of Maureen Kincaid Speller, Maureen Kincaid Speller (Academia Lunare)
• Owning the Unknown: A Science Fiction Writer Explores Atheism, Agnosticism, and the Idea of God, Robert Charles Wilson (Pitchstone)
• Being Michael Swanwick, Alvaro Zinos-Amaro (Fairwood)

Click here for all of the categories (including YA and Nonfiction) and check your collections. These are books you should be adding to your collections.