Popular SF/F/H Novels of 2014

In 2014, SF Signal noted the upcoming appearance of over 3400 titles: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, and December.

To prepare the lists below, I looked each title up at Goodreads, eliminating those for which Goodreads had no data or a publication date prior to 2014. Then I ranked the remaining ~2100 books by the cube of their current score (expressed as a percentage) times the log of the number of voters. Finally I broke them up into somewhat arbitrary categories to yield the “top X” lists below, and as usual, I removed the actual Goodreads data, leaving only the ordering. Note that this procedure significantly favors books released earlier in the year.

Here’s a key to the abbreviations and terminology:

F = Fantasy
H = Horror
PR = Paranormal Romance
Sequels = Titles likely to draw on information arising in earlier, related books by the same author
SF = Science Fiction
UF = Urban Fantasy
YA = Young Adult

Top 25 SF/F/H (Non-Sequels, Non-YA, and Non-UF/PR)

Brian Staveley, The Emperor’s Blades (Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne)
Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven
Robert Jackson Bennett, City of Stairs
Stephen King, Mr. Mercedes: A Novel
M.R. Carey, The Girl With All the Gifts
Katherine Addison, The Goblin Emperor
David Mitchell, The Bone Clocks
Claire North, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August
Josh Malerman, Bird Box: A Novel
Sebastien de Castell, Traitor’s Blade
William Gibson, The Peripheral
Daniel Suarez, Influx
Stephen King, Revival: A Novel
John Scalzi, Lock In
Daniel Price, The Flight of the Silvers
Nick Harkaway, Tigerman
Jeff VanderMeer, Annihilation: A Novel (Southern Reach Trilogy)
Michel Faber, The Book of Strange New Things: A Novel
George R.R. Martin & Gardner Dozois, Rogues
Dean Koontz, The City
M. D. Waters, Archetype
Peter Watts, Echopraxia
Robin Spriggs, The Untold Tales of Ozman Droom
K. J. Parker, Academic Exercises
John Joseph Adams (ed.), The End is Nigh

Top 25 SF/F/H Sequels (Non-YA and Non-UF/PR)

Brandon Sanderson, Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive, Book 2)
Brent Weeks, The Broken Eye (Lightbringer)
Brian McClellan, The Crimson Campaign (The Powder Mage Trilogy)
Robin Hobb, Fool’s Assassin: Book One of the Fitz and the Fool Trilogy
Anthony Ryan, Tower Lord (A Raven’s Shadow Novel)
Lev Grossman, The Magician’s Land: A Novel (Magicians Trilogy)
R. A. Salvatore, Night of the Hunter: Companions Codex, I
John Gwynne, Valor (The Faithful and the Fallen)
R. A. Salvatore, Rise of the King: Companions Codex, II
Scott Sigler, Pandemic: A Novel (Infected)
James S.A. Corey, Cibola Burn (The Expanse)
Patrick Rothfuss, The Slow Regard of Silent Things
Charles Stross, The Rhesus Chart (Laundry Files)
H. Paul Honsinger, For Honor We Stand (Man of War)
Patrick W. Carr, Draw of Kings, A (The Staff and the Sword)
Douglas Hulick, Sworn in Steel: A Tale of the Kin
Jonathan L. Howard, The Brothers Cabal
Ann Leckie, Ancillary Sword (Imperial Radch)
Sam Sisavath, The Fires of Atlantis (Purge of Babylon, Book 4)
Hannu Rajaniemi, The Causal Angel (Jean Le Flambeur)
John Ringo, Islands of Rage and Hope (Black Tide Rising)
Django Wexler, The Shadow Throne: Book Two of the Shadow Campaigns
Marcus Sakey, A Better World (The Brilliance Saga, Book Two)
Peter F. Hamilton, The Abyss Beyond Dreams: A Novel of the Commonwealth (Commonwealth: Chronicle of the Fallers)
Evan Currie, Out of the Black (Odyssey One, Book 4)

Top 25 Young Adult SF/F/H/UF/PR (Non-Sequels)

Pierce Brown, Red Rising
Leslye Walton, The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender
Mary E. Pearson, The Kiss of Deception (Remnant Chronicles)
Melissa Landers, Alienated
Marie Lu, The Young Elites
Rachel Hawkins, Rebel Belle
Danielle Jensen, Stolen Songbird
Joe Abercrombie, Half a King (Shattered Sea Series)
Amy Engel, The Book of Ivy
Maggie Stiefvater, Sinner (Shiver)
Danielle Paige, Dorothy Must Die
Katie Alender, Famous Last Words
Victoria Scott, Fire & Flood
Josephine Angelini, Trial by Fire
Claudia Gray, A Thousand Pieces of You (Firebird)
Sally Green, Half Bad (The Half Bad Trilogy)
Joseph Delaney, A New Darkness
A.S. King, Glory O’Brien’s History of the Future
Rae Carson, The Girl of Fire and Thorns Stories
Alisa Krasnostein, Kaleidoscope: Diverse YA Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories
R.C. Lewis, Stitching Snow
Martina Boone, Compulsion (Heirs of Watson Island)
Kiersten White, Illusions of Fate
Julie Kagawa, Talon (The Talon Saga)
Juliet Marillier, Dreamer’s Pool: A Blackthorn & Grim Novel

Top 25 Young Adult SF/F/H/UF/PR Sequels & Related Works

Marissa Meyer, Cress (Lunar Chronicles)
Tahereh Mafi, Ignite Me (Shatter Me)
Sarah J. Maas, The Assassin’s Blade: The Throne of Glass novellas
Rick Riordan, Percy Jackson’s Greek Gods
Richelle Mead, Silver Shadows: A Bloodlines Novel
Alexandra Bracken, In the Afterlight: A Darkest Minds Novel
Laini Taylor, Dreams of Gods & Monsters (Daughter of Smoke and Bone)
Neal Shusterman, UnDivided (Unwind Dystology)
Maggie Stiefvater, The Raven Cycle #3: Blue Lily, Lily Blue
Veronica Rossi, Into the Still Blue (Under the Never Sky)
Pittacus Lore, The Revenge of Seven (Lorien Legacies)
Leigh Bardugo, Ruin and Rising
Victoria Schwab, The Unbound (An Archived Novel) (The Archived)
Gena Showalter, The Queen of Zombie Hearts (White Rabbit Chronicles)
Cassandra Clare, The Course of True Love (and First Dates) (The Bane Chronicles)
Julie Kagawa, The Forever Song (Blood of Eden)
Ransom Riggs, Hollow City: The Second Novel of Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children (Miss Peregrine’s Children)
Cecilia Bernard, Inside Divergent: The Initiate’s World
Rick Yancey, The Infinite Sea (5th Wave)
Kasie West, Split Second (Pivot Point)
Erin Hunter & Dan Jolley, Warriors Super Edition: Bramblestar’s Storm
S. J. Kincaid, Catalyst (Insignia)
Jennifer Estep, Killer Frost (Mythos Academy Novels)
Scott Sigler, THE CHAMPION
Robin LaFevers, Mortal Heart (His Fair Assassin Trilogy)

Top 5 Urban Fantasy & Paranormal Romance (Non-YA and Non-Sequels)

J. D. Horn, The Line (Witching Savannah, Book One)
Christopher Buehlman, The Lesser Dead
Simone St. James, Silence for the Dead
Seanan McGuire, Sparrow Hill Road
C. J. Burright, Wonderfully Wicked

Note: This category has only 5 entries, because nothing else that fit the category appeared above the 25th item on any other list. I have to look each title up manually to make a decision about how to categorize them, and I’m sorry, but I suspect it would be quite a lot of work to find 20 more given the available data. In fact, including some of these entries stretches the definitions of urban fantasy and non-sequel. Even taking the “sequel bump” into account (scores tend to go up for sequels as readers bounce off earlier books), the dearth of high-scoring titles in this category is a surprising result because urban fantasy sequels simply dominate the top 200 results. Perhaps SF Signal has overlooked some series starters this year. Or maybe it’s a very difficult field to get noticed in at first.

Top 25 Urban Fantasy & Paranormal Romance Sequels (Non-YA)