[pat5150]

Ever since I created the Hotlist a decade ago, there is one thing that never changed. Every week, I keep on receiving messages from random SFF readers looking for recommendations. I have a reading list that I usually post once a year, but this time around I wanted to do things a bit differently. So I came up with a shortlist of SFF novels/series that I feel remain criminally unread. You can find the post here.

I narrowed it down to a mix of fantasy and science fiction works from Guy Gavriel Kay, Stephen R. Donaldson, Paul Kearney, Jeff Somers, C. S. Friedman, GRRM, Brian Ruckley, and David Louis Edelman. Some of these books/series are only a couple of years old, while others date from the 90s. And even though most of them are not that "old", most of them have never been or are no longer widely read. There are a lot more such works, but I wanted to keep the list short to maximize the exposure it would provide. . .

I'm curious to discover what you guys feel are other novels/series that inexplicably remain underrated and underappreciated by genre fans out there?

Cheers,

Patrick

[worry]

People haven't bought enough copies of my international conspiracy techno-thriller The Stonemason's Quarry.

[Andorion]

Adrian Tchaikovsky never gets enough recognition though that has changed here recently.

I feel that Sebastien de Castell's Greatcoats books don't get enough attention though they are easily better than most other new books/authors being published now.

LM Bujold is mostly known for the Vorkosigan books, but her Chalion books are excellent

[Tsundoku]

Thorough agreement on Paul Kearney, Celia Friedman and Guy Gavriel Kay.

[polishgenius]

I like the idea of the post but when you've listed books by, in particular, Martin and Kay, two of the most legendary authors in the game, it seems a bit daft.

[worry]

His post isn't about authors though.

[polishgenius]

worry, on 13 December 2015 - 04:30 AM, said:

His post isn't about authors though.

I got his point, but... The Sarantine Mosaic? Really?

I dunno, maybe it's just the sites I read. But it seems to me to get plenty of attention.

[worry]

Well, for a rough comparison, A Game of Thrones has 1 million+ ratings on Goodreads and the first Sarantine books has 8100.

[Ribald]

worry, on 13 December 2015 - 05:55 AM, said:

Well, for a rough comparison, A Game of Thrones has 1 million+ ratings on Goodreads and the first Sarantine books has 8100.

And The Crippled God has 12,276 ratings and 528 reviews on Goodreads...
Midnight Tides has around 17,500 ratings
Deadhouse Gates has 28000 ratings
Gardens of the Moon has 49000 ratings.
Oh, and Willful Child has 893 ratings on Goodreads.
Night of Knives has 5228
Return of the Crimson Guard has 5991 ratings.

That sort of puts the Sarantine Books into a better comparative light than Game of Thrones don't you think? Game of Thrones is an outlier.

[worry]

No, I don't think that.

[Ribald]

Game of Thrones has a major television show adaptation that is well established and has been running for several seasons... Sarantine does not. So comparing them doesn't make much sense.

The Black Company First Chronicle has 22000 ratings

Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch has 31000 ratings.

Game of Thrones, like Lord of the Rings, is an outlier in terms of popular ratings on Goodreads.

Even Sanderson's Mistborn Final Empire has 163000 ratings... no where close to Game of Thrones.

So comparing Kay to Martin doesn't really reveal much.

Even the Sword of Shannara is only at 49000 ratings.

Salvatore's The Crystal Shard is at 29000 ratings.

[worry]

But pg mentioned Martin and Kay specifically. Why would I use any other arbitrary author to make my point?

[Ribald]

Because, while Kay is a classic fantasy author, Martin is currently the most popular adult fantasy author in the genre. So comparing the number of ratings for Martin's most popular book against a lesser known work of Kay's doesn't actually reveal anything useful.

Personally I don't think the number of ratings on Goodreads is a particularly good metric of anything other than current popularity.

But if you want to make a comparison between Martin and Kay, you could compare one of Martin's lesser known works rather than book one of his most popular series, for instance Dreamsongs by Martin has only 4322 ratings. So in comparison to Sarantine's 8000 Kay is sitting pretty.

[Ribald]

In fact The Summer Tree by Kay, book one of the Fionavar Tapestry (which I think is Kay's most famous and well read book) has fewer than 15k ratings.

Tigana has under 28000 ratings.

And the combined Fionavar Tapestry has around 41000 ratings.

But it seems that the majority of the work by Kay have fewer than 15000 ratings.

So 8000 is on the low end, but not hugely low compared to the rest of his work.

Whereas Dance with Dragons has 0ver 300,000 ratings, only a quarter of A Game of Thrones.



The range of other authors I gave demonstrated a sample of what the number of ratings were like for other popular fantasy authors who did not have a major HBO fantasy series.

[worry]

It's not supposed to reveal anything. Everyone knows that 8100 is larger than 8099 other numbers, including 4322, and that both of them are tiny in comparison to 1,000,000, so both are candidates for under-read books. Thus you'd move on to the question of criminality, which is a matter of quality. And even then you'd not compare them to each other, but to the high quality high volume books. You're not comparing Dreamsongs and Sarantine to each other, but both to AGOT, to determine criminally un(der)read status.

[Ribald]

And yet Crimson Guard has only 5000 ratings so it is even more under read than Sarantine.

Willful Child doesn't even make 1000 so it is even more under read than that.

The reason I posted the number of ratings of other well known books was to show a context for the numbers.

If PG thinks that Kay is well known and well read and Kay's ratings are typically less than 15000, then having a number of ratings around 8000 on Goodreads suggests that while it is one of his lesser known (or at least lesser rated books on goodreads) it is not phenomenally less so than any of his other works. Whereas comparing it to 1,000,000 ratings on goodreads makes it seem like it is completely and utterly obscure. Which is clearly not the case.

[worry]

Also, pat quite clearly seeks "underrated" works. A work with few ratings (and Goodreads is the most popular site for such activity) is (potentially) underrated. I see no better way of making such a call, since Amazon.com (the only close rival of Goodreads) has as much to do with book as product vs. book as story.

[Ribald]

And by providing the numbers of ratings for other well known and well read books I put the number of ratings for Sarantine in context... whereas comparing it to Game of Thrones does not put it in context.

[Ribald]

Robert Jordan's Eye of the World has 209,000 ratings on Goodreads... and if we compare that to Game of Thrones at over 1,000,000 it suddenly looks under-read.

[worry]

Ribald, on 13 December 2015 - 09:36 AM, said:

And yet Crimson Guard has only 5000 ratings so it is even more under read than Sarantine.

Willful Child doesn't even make 1000 so it is even more under read than that.

One might consider these numbers quite low, but that's not enough. They have to be criminally so, in comparison to the major works of SFF. So a book with even just 3 ratings still might not rate, if it's a matter of low quality. It's a multi-dimensional question. If the Sarantine books are equals to AGOT, and have 8000 vs 1,000,000 then that is both relatively unread and potentially criminal.