I have a whole bunch of fiction novels I have picked up over time from used bookstores and other sources. About 2/3 of them are Hugo/Nebula/World Fantasy Award nominees (and some times winners) that are not carried in my library.
I decided starting June 1, I’m going to start to read those award nominee books that I own - in publishing date order. I have set a life goal to have read all of the H/N/WFA nominees published after 1980 before I die. 450 or so books to go, with roughly 10-12 new ones every year (there are always overlaps).
However, in some cases, there are prequel titles. I’m reading the prequels in the order that the nominee was published. For example, going to re-read the Earthsea original trilogy around other books published late 80's/early 90s, since that’s when
Tehanu, the Nebula nominated book came out. Some books come
very late in their respective series, such as
Quantum Rose, volume 6 in Catherine Asaro’s Skolian Empire space opera series. Which means a bunch of previous volume reading to get to the actual nominee. Oh, and I’m only re-reading earlier books if I want to. I’m probably not going to re-read all the Asimov Robot books leading up to his 1984 Hugo nominated Robots of Dawn
Spent last night until 2am organizing and creating spreadsheets figuring out what I need to read some of these series.Three rules
- Books can only come from a library, used bookstore (or other used source like a garage sale), or gift. No new books, no online shopping.
- I can bail out of any book after 100 pps if I want to.
- I can choose to skip a book if I want to. For example, I’m not reading Dan Simmons any more - so I’m going to skip Song of Kali. Same with Larry Correia and Marion Zimmer Bradley.
tbh, sometimes the organizing and acquiring of the books is as fun as the actual reading of the books
Also, while people poo-pooh awards, I have found that at least for the Hugos and Nebluas, and a little less so the World Fantasy Awards, they are generally pretty good guideposts to quality, new, “good” SF/F
Here’s a screen shot of part of the spreadsheet