The Gemmell Legend Award

So, the David Gemmell Awards are the only awards I bother to mention. 

VOTE HERE (2 clicks, no registration)

And I mention them because I approve of the public vote, and because I support them as a memorial to David Gemmell who is one of my favorite fantasy authors, was a very interesting man, and died too young.

Also...

                                                                      ... the prize is a big fuck-off axe. Even the finalists get little big fuck-off axes. How cool is that? Actually, scratch the '?' - it's cool.

So, King of Thorns is listed, but cunningly did not appear on the list until nearly a week after the big burst of launch publicity for this year's award. So we're playing it hardcore this year - who needs those early-bird votes? Right?

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So what do the competition look like?

Here's an info graphic. 

The blue columns are scaled to each author's total number of ratings on Goodreads. 

The orange column are scaled to the number of ratings on Goodreads for the book eligible for the award.

The authors boxed in red are the five that made the shortlist.

It's apparent (and welcome) that the voting has to some significant degree been based on the popularity of the book not the author (otherwise Brooks and Weis + Hickman would be in).

On these data Robin Hobb is the surprise omission as she is both wildly successful and her current book has done very well.

By the same measure Helen Lowe is the surprise inclusion but she's clearly a dark horse as she defeated me + Prince of Thorns in the Gemmell award for debut novels last year against similar odds!

Brent Weeks and Joe Abercrombie are the clear favorites with their large fan-bases (reported recently as having sold 2 million+ and 3 million+ books) and a big uptake for both the volumes in question.