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When one looks in the box, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the cat.

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We’ve tallied your responses to the Tor.com 2011 Readers’ Choice Awards as of 5:12 PM EST, Friday, January 13 and, oh my, you guys are funny.

Author campaigns dueled it out for supremacy on Friday and a new title achieved the #1 slot in the Novel and Short Fiction categories. Here are the top novels as of the end of the work day on Friday:

  1. The All-Pro by Scott Sigler (68 votes)
  2. The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss (63 votes)
  3. The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson (40 votes)
  4. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (34 votes)
  5. Embassytown by China Mieville (32 votes)
  6. The Seventh Throne by Stephen Zimmer (30 votes)
  7. A Dance With Dragons by George R. R. Martin (29 votes)
  8. Among Others by Jo Walton (24 votes)
  9. Fuzzy Nation by John Scalzi (24 votes)
  10. Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey (16 votes)

The next 10 most voted on titles consist of the same books listed in yesterday’s update, so we’ll skip that for now. (Although we’ve noticed N. K. Jemisin’s The Kingdom of Gods started an upward journey just before the cut-off, so we might see a change in that line-up on Tuesday.)

One of our favorite votes on Friday came in the form of a Lev Grossman fan insisting that the author “dominates all novels… sexually” followed by Grossman’s subsequent response. Our favorite author campaign yesterday, though, resulted in these Best Short Fiction results:

  1. The Shadow War of the Night Dragons, Book One: The Dead City(appearing on Tor.com) – 51 votes
  2. “An Island Sojourn” by Stephen Zimmer (appearing in Dreams of Steam) – 15 votes
  3. Awakening of Evarun, Part 1″ by Tom Barczak – 10 votes
  4. “Absinthe Fish” by M. David Blake (appearing in Bull Spec) – 5 votes

Six other short stories received 3 votes, with many others receiving less.

Scalzi fans rallied on the insistence that each vote would save a starving kitten. Suddenly, the voting comment thread was rife with chaotic pleas for the health of kittens and “The Shadow War of the Night Dragons, Book One: The Dead City” shot well past its rivals.

Good job, internet. You’ve saved this kitten:

(Actually, you did save some starving kittens. Scalzi ended up making a donation to the Humane Society thanks to the fervor of his fans!)


The Best Book Cover votes break down as follows:

  1. The Seventh Throne by Stephen Zimmer, cover by Matthew Perry (20 votes)
  2. The All-Pro by Scott Sigler, cover designed by Donna Mugavero (13 votes)
  3. Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente, cover by Beth White, design by Peter Lutjen (11 votes) – See how the cover to Deathless was created.
  4. The Alloy of Law   by Brandon Sanderson  , cover by Chris McGrath (8 votes)
  5. Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey, cover by Daniel Dociu (6 votes)
  6. Rift Walker by Clay & Susan Griffith, cover by Chris McGrath, design by Grace M. Conti-Zilsberger (5 votes)
  7. The Unremembered by Peter Orullian, cover by Kekai Kotaki (4 votes)
  8. My Life as a White Trash Zombie by Diana Rowland, cover by Dan Dos Santos (4 votes) – See how the cover to White Trash Zombie was made.

Five other titles got 3 votes while many others received 1 or 2. Cover voting habits haven’t really wavered. It’s still a follow-the-leader field there. (Check out a bunch of cover galleries.)

Just a note: ebook covers are also eligible, which we hadn’t made clear before.


The Best Comic votes finally got a little bit more varied:

  1. Across Thin Ice – 15 votes
  2. Girl Genius – 5 votes
  3. Animal Man (The New 52) – 4 votes
  4. XKCD – 4 votes
  5. TURF – 3 votes
  6. Schlock Mercenary – 3 votes
  7. The Order of the Stick – 3 votes

The top comics voted on are predominantly online, with Animal Man being the largest exception to that. Across Thin Ice has benefited from an author campaign but most of the other votes in the top titles in this category are aggregations across a wide swath of voters.

With the large presence of webcomics, we’re actually a little curious in regards to the absence of more well-known strips like Hark! A Vagrant, Dinosaur Comics, Penny Arcade, and the like.


And that’s the third day’s highly amusing results. You saved a kitten! Great work. We’ll be off for the Monday holiday, but we’ll be back with voting tally updates on Tuesday. Keep an eye on the Tor.com Readers’ Choice Awards index for updates.

The usual reminders: Don’t insults the votes of others. And don’t vote in this post. You vote here and only here.


Stubby the Rocket is the mascot and often random voice of Tor.com. It bets you anything someone isn’t going to read this post and will vote here anyway.

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