Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
I doubt that Free First Book would get the required number of nominations, and if it did, I doubt it would be voted as the selection of choice.
I like the idea of "literary prize winner," and I'd be happy with "any prize for literature." Locus Magazine's Best SF of the year, Hugo winner, Newberry award, Lambda award, the Eppies--anything. Because, again, I trust the selection process--needing several nominations to be on the ballot, and then needing to win the vote, means that it's not likely that a RITA award winner is going to be the selection of the month. (And if it is, hey. It probably has a broad appeal outside the romance genre to get that many votes.)
The nominations thread alone would give several of us fascinating books to consider, some of which would be far outside of our normal reading range.
I know this wasn't aimed at me; am commenting anyway.
Two months of classics isn't a dealbreaker, but it'd be nice to have each month have a different scope. After all, with the nomination process as it is, we could theoretically throw open every month for anything. And there've been arguments about "this or that book is not really in category X," but they're brushed aside with, "well, then people won't vote for it." (And that seems to work just fine.)
I like the idea of every month having a different range of books, even if there's a lot of potential overlap. SF & mystery aren't mutually exclusive categories; fantasy & romance sometimes overlap; we have SF classics, and so on. A different category wouldn't exclude all classics (unless it were specifically "books less than 20 years old" or something like that), but it could bring in a range of books that aren't currently allowed except for in the free-for-all month.
|
Very well said, I wish I was able to phrase it the way you have! I love your whole post and I have highlighted/emboldened the points that I agree with the most. Thank you for expressing what I couldn't.