Got Death With Interruptions recently and realized the author José Saramago was a Nobel Laureate in literature, which in turn got me reading about said prize and more particularly criticisms and controversies thereof. Looking down the list of laureates I recognize some, and don’t recognize a lot more.
Thinking about the Nobel in literature got me thinking about others, like the Hugo, the Pulitzer, and of course the R.L. Stine creative writing award, which in turn leads to the question- What literary awards, if any, do you trust?
Goodreads Annual awards.
Not necessarily who wins, but I’ve found a lot of good books by looking at the nominees in the categories I’m interested in.
Most of them are simply irrelevant to me. Yes, the book might be award-worthy, but I can virtually guarantee that I have differing preferences than the committees. The more “highbrow” the further I’m usually from their rating.
The more “highbrow” the further I’m usually from their rating.
One of the reasons I appreciate the Hugo for Novels is because it tends towards stuff that isn’t as high brow like John Scalzi, Martha Wells, Dan Simmons, etc. and even some of their earliest winners and nominees are folks like Heinlen, Asimov, and Frank Herbert, so its a bit more of a genre fans award.
I think of the major awards the one that matches my tastes best (and still only at an about 25% hit rate) is the Nobel Prize. After the various scandals and fiascos of Worldcon (especially the Chengdu fiasco) I will not ever trust the Hugos ever again (and even before that they maybe had a hit rate of about 10%).
I’m with some of the other posters I’ve read here, though. In general I think industry awards are essentially self-love in the grotty sense of the term.
I pay absolutely no attention to awards. Not in books, not in any media.
If I had to pick one, the Nobel. I don’t care much about awards.
pretty much just the Lambda, Hugo, and Nebula awards. if a book has those it gets my attention.
