By far, the most popular big list we run is the r/fantasy  top novels poll. Every other year people vote for a list of 10 of their favorite fantasy and sci-fi books of all time and the mods then try to make sense of all the different spelling variations to come up with the final results. Looking at you Georg RR Marting, George, GRRM, G.R.R. Martin and just plain Martin. (Also we say novels but really it’s novels and/or series, with rounding up to the biggest series)

This year the enthusiasm was wild and we got 13 subsequent posts analysing the data (linked below)! If there’s one thing our members love it is stats and arguing over personal taste. A lot of the discussion come from people having different views of “favorite” and “best“. I strongly believe the most popular books =/= the best fantasy books, cause best is subjective, one person’s treasure is another’s trash. And even personally tastes change and I don’t have the same favorites I had 5 years ago.

As usual I really struggled to narrow it down to just 10 votes, but at least here I can list all the ones on my original long list and NO ONE CAN STOP ME! Also “of all time” really means “at this moment in time likely to change by next vote the more amazing books I read.”

 My top 10 favorite Fantasy and Sci-Fi books of all time:

• Legendborn by Tracy Deonn: my review, goodreads page – I have been talking about this book non-stop for over a year, of course it made the cut. It just hit me in every perfect way, from the way Bree was dealing with her mother’s death to the way racism and magic were intertwined.
• The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells: my reviews 1-4, Network Effect, Fugitive Telemetry, ART appreciation post, goodreads page This murder cyborg is relatable to me in a way few characters are, and def more than a robot should be. And ART is just a joy and a gem.
• The Earthsea Cycle by Ursula K. Le Guin: my review of The Tombs of Atuan, The Farthest Shore, goodreads page I only recently started reading this series but I love it. It’s a slow read, so so different than my usual fare, but so magical.
• The Dark Abyss of Our Sins by Krista D. Ball: my review, goodreads page. I’m a huge fan of all of Krista’s books that I’ve read, but I picked this series for my favorites because I think it’s her strongest overall and has the widest appeal
• The Broken Earth by N.K. Jemisin: my review of The Fifth Season,  goodreads page,  yup, excellent series, I still need to read the 3rd but the first 2 books were very strong
• The Kingston Cycle by C.L. Polk: my review of Witchmark, Stormsong, Soulstar, goodreads page Come for the bycicle chases, stay for the amazing bi main character in book 3 who I’d die for.
• Discworld by Terry Pratchett: my review, goodreads page The only one of my old favorites to make the cut, I loved it on the first and still love it whenever I pick a book up for a reread
• The Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold: my review, goodreads page I’m slowing making my way through this very fun series. I love that it’s pretty episodic so I can just drop in and out when I’m in the mood
• The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune: my review, goodreads page I loved the vibes of this book
• The Tarot Sequence by K.D. Edwards: my review, goodreads page This series is so much, best case of found family I know

The runners up that are still some of my favorites and choosing was very hard:

• The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison goodreads page
• The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujoldgoodreads page
• The Lady Astronaut Universe by Mary Robinette Kowal goodreads page
• Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
  by Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman  goodreads page
• Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch goodreads page
• City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett goodreads page
• The Bone Ships by R.J. Barker goodreads page
• Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky goodreads page
• The Memoirs of Lady Trent by Marie Brennan goodreads page
• The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia A. McKillip goodreads page
• Vita Nostra by Marina Dyachenko, Sergey Dyachenko goodreads page
• The Reborn Empire by Devin Madson goodreads page
• The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow goodreads page

I also did a similar post back in March with my favorite books by women. If you’re into lists. I’m very into lists. I even have a list of lists.

The stats:

Here are all the analysis and discussion posts we had after the results were posted, ordered chronologically since a lot of the posts are in reply to other posts and it was just a wild couple of weeks:

• Quick breakdown of Top Novels Poll by author, year, and gender
• Top 13 in the r/Fantasy Top Novels Polls 
• How many of the r/Fantasy’s 2021 Top Novels have you read? – I got: 84 of 233 · 36%
• Some further stats from the Fantasy Top Novels of 2021 Poll
• A look at the RECENT entries on /r/fantasy’s list of Top Novels
• 2021 Top Novels: Overread and Underread Books
• Voting Clusters in 2019 Top Novels Poll
• 2021 Top Novels Voting Clusters: More data, more clusters
• The 80/20 divide, A look at Gender Diversity on the Top Novel 2021 voting ballots.
• An alternative Top Novels list for people who voted slightly outside the mainstream 
• Look at the Nationality/current residence of Top Novel 2021 authors
• Top Novels Poll – my favorites down list: Under Ten Votes by Janny Wurts

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