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A sweep of your responses for the first day of the Tor.com 2011 Readers’ Choice Awards has revealed…well, a very preliminary list!

Here are the top novels as of 5:00 PM EST, Wednesday, January 11:

  1. The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss (13 votes)
  2. The Seventh Throne by Stephen Zimmer (11 votes)
  3. Embassytown by China Mieville (10 votes)
  4. The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson (9 votes)
  5. The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie (5 votes)
  6. A Dance With Dragons by George R. R. Martin (5 votes)
  7. Osama by Lavie Tidhar (5 votes)
  8. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (5 votes)
  9. The Rift Walker by Clay & Susan Griffith (5 votes)
  10. The Curious Case of the Clockwork Man by Mark Hodder (4 votes)
  11. Fuzzy Nation by John Scalzi (4 votes)

As you can see from the low vote count, it’s still early days in regards to the top ten novels of 2011. The wild card in this batch is The Seventh Throne by Stephen Zimmer, a small press book that has benefitted from the author rallying his friends and fans. It will be interesting to see if Zimmer can sustain the momentum!

Let’s see how the other categories are doing.


The Best Book Cover votes break down as follows:

  1. The Seventh Throne by Stephen Zimmer (6 votes)
  2. Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey, Daniel Abraham, and Ty Frank (2 votes)
  3. Shadowfever by Karen Marie Moning (2 votes)

17 other titles got one vote, underscoring that the cover category has a long way to go yet before it reveals a dominant aesthetic or opinion.

At the moment we’re finding voters playing it safe in regards to voting on a cover, tending to vote on the visual elements of the same books that they favor in a literary sense. It will be interesting to discover whether the votes break from that trend or reinforce it. (We hope they break. More interesting that way.)


The Best Short Fiction votes break down as follows:

  1. “An Island Sojourn” by Stephen Zimmer (appearing in Dreams of Steam) – 6 votes
  2. “Absinthe Fish” by M. David Blake (appearing in Bull Spec) – 3 votes
  3. “Perfect Lies” by Gwendolyn Clare (appearing in Clarkesworld) – 2 votes

Hurricane Zimmer strikes again! 42 other pieces of short fiction garnered one vote each, which tells us a few things: 1.) It’s still early days. And 2.) We may need to seek out more short fiction!


The Best Comic votes break down as follows:

There are too few votes to collect here, so far. The only title with more than one vote so far is TURF by Jonathan Ross and Tommy Lee Edwards.

What’s in the mix so far is interesting, though. You’ll find Batman and Spawn alongside Girl Genius, and Terry Moore’s Echo, as well as a handful of manga titles and one Vertigo release, House of Mystery.

Webcomics have yet to stake their claim here, as well, but that seems likely to change.


And that’s the first day’s results! They will morph wildly as the days go on, naturally, so keep an eye on the Tor.com Readers’ Choice Awards index for updates.

If you’re wondering what this is all about and where to vote, head on over to the Readers’ Choice Awards voting post.


Stubby the Rocket is the mascot and often random voice of the Tor.com staff. Stubby is confused. Who does it give the rose to?

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