Readers Choice Winner for January

And now . . .

the end is near . . .

and so we face . . .

the final curtain . . .

What’s that? We suffer from an overdeveloped sense of melodrama? Rubbish. What possible evidence do you have to support that?  What? Oh. Right. Well. When you look at it that way, you might have something there . . .

Amateur psychoanalysis aside, the last week in January marked the final (for now, at least) appearance of SF Gateway’s Readers’ Choice spotlight. Readers’ Choice ran from February 2013 and over that year gave us an insight into the reading habits of the SF Gateway community. there were some obvious award-winning novels proposed, some forgotten classics, some titles that deserve to be better-known and a few gems from out of left left field. We thank you for each and every one of them.

As with any community-based initiative, some people respond more enthusiastically than others and that was certainly the case here. So, it’s fitting that the last four submissions to the Readers’ Choice spotlight came from four of our most engaged readers.

Vernor Vinge‘s Hugo Award-winning A Fire Upon the Deep was proposed by Starman Dave – who won a prize in the first Readers’ Choice in February last year.

Arthur C. Clarke‘s transcendent Childhood’s End – tackling no less a topic than the future of the human race – was submitted by The Star Plunderer.

Hyperion, another Hugo Award-winner, by Dan Simmons was the pick of Shrike (appropriately enough).

And last, but not least, @thremnir suggested we all read James P. Blaylock‘s The Digging Leviathan – not an award-winner, but a book included in David Pringle’s influential Modern Fantasy: The Hundred Best Novels.

Call us sentimental, but we’re disinclined to end the Readers’ Choice with anyone disappointed, so it’s books for all! We’re going to send a couple of our essential SF Gateway Omnibuses to each of the above – enjoy!  And, for those who like to keep count of such things, the click-through stats proclaim A Fire Upon the Deep as the book that garnered the most interest, so there will also be copies of Philip K. Dick‘s Dr. Bloodmoney and T.J. Bass‘s Half Past Human for Starman Dave.

Thanks to the four SF Gateway stalwarts above – and, indeed, all of you who entered suggestions or enjoyed other readers’ recommendations. Feel free to keep telling us about your favourites, either via Twitter or on the Forum – it’s always interesting to see what you’re all reading.