Good Omens took an immediate lead and never let go. I may have to give it another chance (fourth time? fifth? I never seem to get past the first fifty pages). I will also have to check out The Mote in God's Eye as I'd never even heard of that before this month.
While I was a bit sorry to see so many ties and crazy close races unbroken in the lower half of the poll, posts and calls for more votes didn't seem to be having much effect, so I finally called it and posted the results. Clearly our resident Pratchett fainboi never did manage to rally the troops, or The Long Mars would have gotten much more love, so you can take these results without the grain of salt needed in the last few months.
Massage your raised upper forebrain for Young Adult titles you would like to see on September's poll. I'll be calling for nominations on Thursday.
I nominate "Johnny and the Dead" by Terry Pratchett.
ReplyDeleteThe poll is over.
DeleteSeptember's poll is over already?! Lame. "Johnny and the Dead" is an amazing YA title.
DeleteYou will probably get more seconds if you wait until the post where I call for nominations. ;-)
DeleteYA novels!!!! YEE HA!!!
ReplyDeleteAhem. Sorry. I'll try to contain my RAGING ENTHUSIASM until you post the call for nominations.
Gah! I'm going to have to narrow down the list from 50, aren't I? You're a cruel man, Chris. Very, very cruel.
I've been suggesting a YA poll for... uh... I don't even know how long, it was probably my first suggestion. FINALLY! :)
DeleteDispute my antipathy for Prachett, Good Omens is pretty awesome. It does start off slow, but it has some fantastic and funny moments. Neil Gaiman's writing raises it to a much higher level.
ReplyDeleteDo you like both Pratchett and Gaiman? People who like both, predictably, love Good Omens. I honestly can't stand Pratchett, god knows why, and because of that I think Good Omens is only so-so. Mote in God's Eye is one of my dad's favorite books but I found it too 'hard sf' for my own tastes. I think I voted for Sassinak in this.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, when you first started these polls, I was under the (perhaps mistaken?) impression you were explicitly going to use the results as something of a reading list, but the blog seems some what short on book reviews and/or 'reading the best SF book AS A WRITER' posts. I'm kind of curious to know if you feel your relationship to reading has changed as you work on your writing. Neil Gaiman has said becoming a writer can take the joy out of reading because you can see the joints: do you feel that has happened to you? Or do you feel it helps your technique to see how other people do various things? (If you've posted anything about this already, feel free to link me.)
I've found Pratchett hard to get into both times I've tried him.
DeleteThere was one poll that was explicitly about what I should read to review (it ended up being Bradbury) but it's one of the things I never got around to mostly because I think that there's a very narrow subset of my readers who would really want to read what would basically amount to an expository essay on literary analysis. That's a LOT of work for something with not so much interest, so maybe it might be a torch I pick back up if/when I am able to phase out the last of teaching, Ian is off to school at least a few hours a day, and I have considerably more time to write.
I'll wait patiently for that expository essay on literary analysis because I'm one of the few who would actually enjoy it.
DeleteI like Pratchett, though not in the OMG, Pratchett!! Squeeeee! way. Just, you know, like a normal person. And that's weird, because I'm not a normal person.