Now that we have the Mythopoeic Awards what can we expect next up?

 I want to recast my vote for the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus_Award (its been mentioned elsewhere). Whatever your feelings about Libertarianism its a great award with many high quality books.

We've been discussing this recently and it looks like what we're going to do is put together a list of award candidates (Prometheus, Tiptree, Aurealis, Ditmar, Hugo/Locus 1st Novel, Gemmell etc.) and conduct a poll to let our members pick the next one that we add.  We'll post the number of missing books to complete each award in the poll so everyone can see if there are any low hanging fruit.

I know I keep saying it but we are actually really close to getting user submissions finished.  When that gets wrapped we'll open submissions to a handful of users (Uber Users and log time friends of WWEnd to start) and get that group to focus on adding the missing books for whichever award wins the poll.  With everyone working the same award we'll be able to add it much faster.  If it works we'll do another poll for the next award and the next and so on until we just run out.  Of course we can do the same with the best of lists too so maybe we'll mix 'em in with the awards.

That's the plan for now at least. It all depends upon available time, as usual.  We're getting crushed at work (lots of overtime and business trips etc.) and the regular site maintenance has been heavy too (RYO reviews, contests etc.) so I can't give any meaningful timeline at this point.  I did want to let you guys know what we're working towards at least.

Actually, if anyone wants to help us out there's plenty of research needed for the awards I've mentioned above. So, for instance, if you want to do the research for Prometheus you could compile a spread sheet with the complete list of books, authors and publishers with the award years etc. and flag the missing ones that will save me from having to do it and I can work on some other site enhancements.  If you are interested in helping just let everyone know in this thread which award you want to research so we don't have any overlap.

Thanks Rhonda and Dr. N!

Rhonda, just skip the children's category for now.  We're looking at adult and YA only at this time.

Doc, Warhammer is indeed a can of worms!  The Horus Heresy is pretty extensive but a drop in the bucket next to the whole of Warhammer.  Perhaps we'll find an Uber User who's a fan and is willing to dive in!  I get a little giddy looking at the Star Wars universe too.  So many books!

I'm glad you like the idea.  We definitely want to give our members more say in how things develop on the site and we hope the poll will be a bit of fun.  The user submissions is an exciting new direction for us.  We've got lots of members who want to pitch in and we're finally going to give them an avenue to do so.

It may take awhile to run out of awards but more are being created all the time plus we want to get to some of the best anthology/collection awards that are part of the Hugo and Locus awards etc. too.  We've gotten many requests for more coverage there.

Ah, yes!  Hadn't thought of that.  The big series don't scare me so much knowing we'll have some help with the data entry soon.  I fully expect we'll find some uber fans who will take it on themselves to fill in the big franchises.  It can't be as convoluted as the Star Wars universe, can it?

That would be much appreciated!  I think we're pretty close as a result of the WoGF so Tiptree may be that low hanging fruit.  On the short stories that have been nominated we'll need to know what collection or anthology they're originally from so we can list the book on the site.

Thanks everyone!

Yeah, that's going to be fun to figure out... for somebody

That's exactly why we haven't done the Tiptree already.  My thought is we put in the original publication when it's from a collection or anthology or if it came from a magazine originally we would try and find a later collection or anthology that has it.  Basically it needs to be in a book so we can link it to Amazon and so people can get their hands on the story.  No idea how we should handle the online or unavailable ones at this time.  Somebody will come up with something eventually.

Ah, very nice!  I like a quick win.

This is awesome! It looks like we're got a little more than half of the required books so not too shabby.  Thanks for jumping in with both feet!

HRO - 2014-03-29 8:13 AM And the spreadsheet is complete !!! (though I still want to do some editing, including going over it with a fresh brain to catch some typos). There are three tabs in the spreadsheets - novels/collections, individual stories, and other (anthologies, non-fiction, etc.) There are only about four or five stories that don't seem to be available anywhere except the original magazine/ezine so it's more complete than I thought it was going be. Glad to help out! And now I shall go resume my life.

Thanks so much for the effort!  Glad to hear there are only a handful of availability issues for us to deal with.

Thanks, Rhonda, I got the spreadsheets!  Very thorough as expected   This is not low hanging fruit by any means but The Land Down Under has produced many fine authors and they are definitely under-represented on the site right now.  I think this award will go a long way towards rectifying that.  Of course this brings up an interesting question about which of the Aurealis awards to add first.  More on this point further down.

Thanks, DrNefario!   This one looks really good too and we're not far off from completing it which is nice.

So, I got to thinking about the awards we should be adding to the site a little more carefully and I've come up with a more complete list of the ones that are still active that we would like to consider for the poll.  Here's what I came up with:

• Andre Norton
• Aurealis SF
• Aurealis Fantasy
• Aurealis Horror
• Aurealis YA
• Aurealis Collection
• Aurealis Anthology
• Aurora (English)
• Bram Stoker First Novel
• BramStoker YA
• Bram Stoker Collection
• Bram Stoker Anthology
• David Gemmel Legend Award
• David Gemmel Morningstar Award
• Ditmar
• The Kitschies Red Tentacle
• The Kitschies Golden Tentacle
• Locus 1st Novel
• Locus Collection
• Locus Anthology
• Prometheus
• SF&F Translation Award
• Shirley Jackson Collection
• Shirley Jackson Anthology
• Sidewise
• Sunburst
• Sunburst YA
• Tiptree

As you can see I've separated out the different categories for each award that has multiple novel/book categories that would apply to WWEnd.  This has made the list quite a bit longer and has created some interesting problems for our members to sort out in the poll.

Each award has it's pros and cons as far as which should get priority in the voting.  The Tiptree would give us more women authors/works which is a big priority for us but the Aurealis would help us boost our Australian author content as would the Ditmar.  We've had calls for more anthologies and collections to be added to the site, a goal that I share, and as you can see there are many awards to help us cover those more thoroughly.  We're still a little behind on the Horror so perhaps the Stoker needs to go first.  For that matter YA is still growing in the genre and we could use some help there as well.  And of course, there's the question of should we go for the ones that are closest to being completed?  The Gemmell will be far quicker to add than the Tiptree for example.

However it works out, it will be interesting to watch.  I think we'll want to narrow the list down to a handful of choices for the poll to make it a little more manageable.  If you had to pick 5 from this list to vote on which ones do you think would do the most for the site?

Rhondak101 - 2014-04-02 10:04 AM Dave, You know that the researcher in me is going to look up all of these awards However, at first thought I would note two things. I think that there's going to be a lot of author overlap between the four Aurealis categories and the Ditmar, so that's less work in the long run. Second, I'd start with Aurealis SF (of the two awards I've done the spread sheets for) because the amount of series in the Fantasy awards is insane!

Ha, I could have guessed that!  Overlap makes things slightly easier for sure.

Yes, I have thought about it.  Some day I'll get in there and fix it.  I'm still cheesed about the changes they made so I'm in no hurry.  The split is the answer.

Coolness!  Perhaps some overlap will occur before we get to the Sunburst.

I like that idea too.

HRO - 2014-04-02 6:25 PM There are several awards the have a category for best collection that are not included in your list - World Fantasy, Nebula, Hugo, etc. I'm not sure exactly, but I know most of them have it. Another award to add to the list is the Gaylactic Spectrum Award. You can view the spreadsheet HERE. It's similar in scope to the Tiptree ("to honor works in science fiction, fantasy and horror which include positive explorations of gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered characters, themes, or issues" so there are a few titles to appear on both lists. (Two birds, one stone, etc.) The Gaylactic does get a bit complicated because in various years additional categories were added (stories, graphic novels, other works, etc.). But perhaps it could initially be added to the site with just the novels?

WF, Nebula and Hugo don't have those categories as far as I can see.  I used the awards index on the Locus site for research.  I'm focusing on current awards so left off the Gaylactic which appears to have ended in 2011.  I did miss the Lambda though.  For some reason I thought it was for poetry.  I'll add that to the list.

Thanks everyone!

WF, Nebula and Hugo don't have those categories as far as I can see. I used the awards index on the Locus site for research. I'm focusing on current awards so left off the Gaylactic which appears to have ended in 2011. I did miss the Lambda though. For some reason I thought it was for poetry. I'll add that to the list.

Thanks everyone!

Here is the updated list with links.  The Ditmar apparently has no site - the official site link redirects to Wikipedia.

• Andre Norton
• Aurealis SF
• Aurealis Fantasy
• Aurealis Horror
• Aurealis YA
• Aurealis Collection
• Aurealis Anthology
• Aurora (English)
• Aurora YA (English)
• Bram Stoker First Novel
• Bram Stoker YA
• Bram Stoker Collection
• Bram Stoker Anthology
• David Gemmel Legend Award
• David Gemmel Morningstar Award
• Ditmar
• The Kitschies Red Tentacle
• The Kitschies Golden Tentacle
• Lambda
• Locus 1st Novel
• Locus Collection
• Locus Anthology
• Prometheus
• SF&F Translation Award
• Shirley Jackson Collection
• Shirley Jackson Anthology
• Sidewise
• Sunburst
• Sunburst YA
• Tiptree
• World Fantasy Collection
• World Fantasy Anthology

I don't know if the pool is open to lists, but if so, I'd like to see Jeff Vandermeer's Fantasy: Essential Reading list added. It's a marvelous list, full of interesting and unusual literary fantasy. I think WWE has 26 of the 60 books, so that only leaves 34 to add...

There is no reason we can't do the same plan for lists.  Perhaps we can alternate between awards and lists?  Say two awards then a list then repeat?  What other significant lists are out there that we should have?

+1

There are a bunch in the old adding lists and series thread, I'll try dig some out. 

Nice idea!  Some possibilities:

• Fantasy: Essential Reading by Jeff Vandermeer. Jeff notes that the list is "skewed to my own definitions of fantasy and my own obsessions with technique".  The list is all the more interesting for it's idiosyncrasies.
• Ted Gioia's list of Conceptual Fiction that Rhonda found looks to be pretty interesting as well.
• Fantasy:  The 100 Best Books by Cawthorne & Moorcock has been mentioned a number of times as being an excellent list candidate.  I can't seem to find the list itself online, but I have the data in my book spreadsheet and can make it available to those interested.
• The Ballantine Adult Fantasy series was an absolutely seminal series.  In it's time, it was very much more important than the current pair of Masterworks series.
• 100 Must-read Science Fiction Novels and 100 Must-read Fantasy Novels by Andrews & Rennison are both solid lists.  However, arrangements to disseminate the list contents might have to be made with the authors, as I remember that one of them had remonstrated with a blogger who had posted the lists, complaining that it might hurt sales of the books.  This was some years ago, so the passage of time may have altered their views.
• Owlcroft's 100 Great "Works" of Science Fiction & Fantasy is a very interesting list, albeit a little unwieldy, as his definition of a work includes such things as Pratchett's Discworld (some 40 books), Cabell's Biography of Manuel (25 books), Baum's Oz (15 books) and Wolfe's Briah Cycle (12 books).
  
• The Seven-League Shelf, a fairly traditional list of some 34 books taken from Baird Searles' A Readers Guide to Fantasy (1982).  I believe that there is also a companion list for SF, but I'd have to do some digging to find it.
• The New Ace SF Special had a short but spectacular life and might be worth including.
  

This one interests me quite a bit and we have had many people ask about it's inclusion.

Very cool!  Care to finish off the Gemmell Morningstar?  We're missing 7 from that award:

• Warrior Priest, Darius Hinks (Black Library)
• Tymon's Flight, Mary Victoria (HarperCollins Australia)
• Malice, John Gwynne (Pan Macmillan)
• The Garden of Stones, Mark T. Barnes (47 North)
• The Grim Company, Luke Scull (Head of Zeus)
• Headtaker, David Guymer (Black Library)
• The Path of Anger, Antoine Rouaud (Gollancz)

The Legend and Morningstar will go in together since they're both really short awards.

Hey look, it's a new award!  Enjoy!

That would be worth adding to our list of lists!

Rhondak101 - 2015-05-02 1:15 PM Just by eyeballing--i'd say that 80% or more are already in. I volunteer to do the spreadsheet and investigation--I am currently avoiding grading papers--so I am happy to do it!

Thanks, Rhonda!