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Your Chance to Have Your Say
Happy New Year! Once again, it's time to voice your opinion about what your favourite reading was from the year that just ended. Long-time visitors to the SF Site are familiar with the process. If you're new, what this is about is that we want to hear what you thought was the very best of what you read from the past year. And since we know how hard it is to pick just one favourite, you can tell us what you would put on your personal top 10 favourites. We also understand that you may not yet have read all the books from 2010 that you meant to, so we're going to give you a chance to do that -- until March 4, 2011. Once you've finished any Christmas-gift reading or any other books from last year that you expect to really enjoy (or when March 4 rolls around -- whichever happens first) send us the list of your top 10 favourites from 2010. We'll compile the responses from all our readers, weighted according to your personal rankings, and present an overall list of the top 10 books from 2010 as chosen by the SF Site readers.
What's Eligible for Your Vote
Any book is eligible if it
- meets our definition of a "book",1
- is in some way related to "speculative fiction",2 and
- was released in the 2010 calendar year.3
1.
For this purpose, we define a "book" as any collection of printed words that requires reading as a primary means of conveying the message, including but not limited to novels, novellas, collections, anthologies, chapbooks, essays, biographies, comic books, graphic novels, magazines, e-books, e-zines, blogs, etc.
2.
Related to "speculative fiction" means anything that could reasonably be said to be associated in some way with fiction of a speculative nature (including, but not limited to science fiction, fantasy, horror, historical fiction, alternate history, and probably even a fair selection of what is generally considered mainstream fiction). By "related to" speculative fiction, we mean to include such non-fiction items as biographies, essays, speculative science writing, etc., as well as any sub-genre fiction or associated non-fiction.
3.
"Released in the 2010 calendar year" means that your chosen book must have been released in English during the 2010 calendar year, either for the first time, or as a new edition, or a new translation to English, or even a "new" reprint.
If you think a book might be or should be eligible, go ahead and vote for it. Voting is wide open -- there's no list of nominations to choose from. If it was so good that you think it's one of the 10 best things you read all year, we definitely want to hear about it.
How You Vote
- In the body of an e-mail, list 4 to 10 of your favourite books of 2010, in your order of preference, with your top choice clearly indicated as #1, second choice listed second, etc. Please do not submit your list as an attachment; e-mails with attachments are filtered out and will not be read.
- Remember to clearly indicate your #1 choice, second choice, etc. as the votes are weighted according to your own personal ranking. If you didn't read 10 books worthy of inclusion, you are welcome to choose fewer than 10, but surely you read at least 4 good ones. Any choices beyond the first 10 you list will not be counted, so please just pick the 10 best.
- Remember to list the title and author for each of your choices, or the specific issue(s) of a periodical such as a magazine or comic book. If you know the publisher, you may include that information as well, although it is not strictly required.
- E-mail your list to vote@sfsite.com
with "VOTE" in the subject line.
Please remember to put "VOTE" in the subject line, or your e-mail may be mistaken for spam and automatically deleted without anyone ever reading your wonderfully insightful choices.
- Each voter may vote one time only for up to 10 books. If you share an e-mail address with someone else, only one of you should submit your list (perhaps you could agree on one list between you). If you personally have more than one e-mail address, you still only get to submit one list -- not one list per e-mail address.
You get 10 votes, so there's really no need to try and cheat. Ballot stuffers are remarkably easy to spot and will have all of their votes disqualified.
- Deadline for voting is Friday, 4 March 2011 at midnight, Eastern Standard Time.
Past & Future Results
While you're thinking about your own personal favourite books from the past year, the SF Site editors and contributors will also be working on our own version of the SF Site Best Read of 2010. We'll post the outcome of both the Readers' Choice Top 10 and the Editors' Choice Top 10 once all the results are in, so you can see how your choices compare with ours.
Have a look if you want to see which books made it to the top 10 lists in the past...
There's no list of nominees, and there's no comprehensive list of eligible works to choose from, but you may want to have a look through our New Arrivals archive, linked below, to get a few suggestions or to refresh your memory. Check out the pages listed under 2010, but note there will be some overlap because some eligible books will appear in our 2009 or 2011 pages. Also, as mentioned, these pages are not a complete list of books from 2010; they merely provide a starting point.
Some of the books of the past year
Thanks in advance for your participation. We hope you enjoy voting for your favourite books, and we're look forward to hearing from you.
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