Don't make fun of renowned author Dan Brown (2013)

Re:Don't make fun of renowned author Dan Brown (2013) by somenameforme on Tuesday February 04, 2025 @09:17AM (#42932601)

Of course there are personal tastes, so I'd simply look at large scale data. The winner for 2022 is A Desolation Called Peace. [1] As per Amazon it ended up with far fewer purchases, lower reviews amongst those who purchased it (in spite of a rather conspicuous amount of reviews that are generally critical of the book then giving it 5 stars anyhow), and it won the Hugo.

Of course the Hugo obviously shouldn't just be "#1 book [in genre] on Amazon" because the entire point of awards is to focus on quality, which may not always be clearly reflected by sales. But when even the relatively small minority of people buying the winning book don't seem to like it as much as other books, something is quite wrong. Let alone the fact that Project Hail Mary came in last place, also behind books like She Who Became the Sun. [2]

[1] - https://www.amazon.com/Desolation-Called-Peace-Teixcalaan-Bo...

[2] - https://www.amazon.com/She-Who-Became-Shelley-Parker-Chan-eb...

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Re:Don't make fun of renowned author Dan Brown (2013) by edanm on Monday February 10, 2025 @09:56AM (#43001014)

FWIW, A Desolation Called Peace is one of my favorite SF books I've read in the last 10 years. I really enjoy that series.

I like Project Hail Mary, too, and it's certainly more popular because the author is far more well known, but there's no question in my mind which one is "better", certainly in terms of deserving to win an award.

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