SFFWorld's Favorite/Favourite 2011 Book is...

[Mark Lawrence]

But they weren't. In the case of Rothfuss, yourself and Beardy Martin, sure - but the other seven positions were completely different.

It is true. GRRM does have a beard...

Pat Rothfuss has the beard GRRM's beard would be if it took steroids and mind altering drugs... but I'm missing the point of harping on about it?

In any event - we will have to agree to disagree about the similarity of the polls - I feel they're remarkably similar.


A Dance with Dragons - Also 1st on GR
The Heroes - Also a GR finalist (16th)
The Wise Man’s Fear - Also 3rd on GR
The Crippled God
The White Luck Warrior
Leviathan Wakes - 6th here / 9th on GR SF
Ready Player One - 7th here / 2nd on GR SF
The Iron Jackal by Chris
The Dragon’s Path
Among Others - 10th here / 12th on GR
Prince of Thorns - 11th here / 10th on GR

The audiences are different, too. SFFWorld is genre, Goodreads is everything. You'll find more cross-genre readers there than here, so you might have people who tried Beardy Martin but nothing else, or who picked up King's book (which won the sci-fi votes).

There's not really much to compare. As I said above, you'd have to visit other genre-focus sites like Tor or Suvudu to get an idea of how we compare to fandom as a whole.

Most of the folk I know from the forums are also on GR, but yup, it's a different constituency so the similarities in results impress me.

Haven't looked at the Tor thing but I did see that the list of 415 books (put together to remind voters of the eligible books) did not include Prince of Thorns or Among Thieves... I also heard that some of the top spots were taken by rather unknown books, presumably as a result of concerted fan action.

Small polls are vulnerable to that kind of thing. I think the one here was fair and unbiased but it should be noted that 5 friends could have put any book into the 6th spot.

So, in short, great poll - congratulations to the winners!

[Danogzilla]

Since voting closed I've read a few other eligible books. I like the way the voting panned out, but were I to re-vote my list would probably look like this:
1 Dance With Dragons
2 Wise Man's Fear
3 Leviathan Wakes
4 Prince of Thorns
5 Dragon's Path

It is true. GRRM does have a beard...

I had a beard. Beautiful, bushy, woman-repelling thing that it was...I miss it dearly.

[Heather Myst]

Thanks for putting this together Rob. I must say I think the best book ended up on top.

[Eventine]

This year was the first I didn't vote since the poll started. While I had read a few less new releases than usual, I didn't feel the ones I had read were worthy of votes. While I enjoyed aspects of both the new Martin and Bakker books, I didn't think they were great and were flawed enough that I didn't want to influence the poll with votes for them.

I hadn't read Among Others when the polling closed, if I had it probably would have been my sole vote. Good to see a non-BFF making the list - there always seems to be the token one

[TooNice]

It's the most widely read is all.

true...next to a wise man's fear of course.

[Mithfânion]

A Dance with Dragons by George R. R. Martin (116 total points)
The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie (92 total points)
The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss (76 total points)
The Crippled God by Steven Erikson (66 points)
The White Luck Warrior by R. Scott Bakker (46 points)
Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey (40 points)
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (36.5 points)
The Iron Jackal by Chris Wooding (32 points)
The Dragon’s Path by Daniel Abraham (27 points)
Among Others by Jo Walton (21 Points)

I understand the comment about there not being many women there, but as has been pointed out, this is a forum with a clear preference for epic Fantasy and that is a field in which the female authors are simply dominated by male authors in quantity and quality IMO. So in light of that preference this result is a natural consequence.

The one book by a woman that did make it into the top 10 isn't even epic Fantasy.

Anyway, fairly close race between ADWD, The Heroes and TWF for top spot as expected. Surprisingly good showing from Erikson really. Forge of Darkness will probably be in contention for the best of 2012 year award, along Joe's Red Country. No GRRM, Rothfuss or Bakker this year. Or Jordan/Sanderson for that matter. No JV Jones either. Or Peter Brett. Not a lot of competition for next year's election, contrary to 2011.

[End Of Disc One]

true...next to a wise man's fear of course.

I really doubt more people read TWMF than ADwD.