The numbers have been tallied for last year, and here's the charts for the top 100 fantasy, science fiction and horror books as voted for by the readers of SFcrowsnest over the course of last year. There's some great books riding high in the list, including Hidden Empire, Kraken, Coraline and Best Served Cold.

There's also some great reads I haven't got around to yet, but now I have no excuse. You, the people, have spoken.

1 . Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie - ( 1527 )



2 . Coraline by Neil Gaiman - ( 1499 )
3 . Kraken by China Mieville - ( 1340 )
4 . Terminal World by Alastair Reynolds - ( 1226 )
5 . Hidden Empire by Orson Scott Card - ( 1211 )
6 . Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson - ( 1205 )
7 . The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi - ( 1193 )
8 . Regenesis by C.J. Cherryh - ( 1179 )
9 . Thirteen Years Later by Jasper Kent - ( 1174 )
10 . Desolation Road by Ian McDonald - ( 1162 )
11 . Changes (The Dresden Files book 12) by Jim Butcher - ( 1157 )
12 . Blonde Bombshell by Tom Holt - ( 1155 )
13 . The Fuller Memorandum by Charles Stross - ( 1150 )
14 . A Pleasure To Burn: Fahrenheit 451 Stories by Ray Bradbury - ( 1147 )
15 . The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon - ( 1120 )
16 . No Mercy by Sherrilyn Kenyon - ( 1099 )
17 . The Restoration Game by Ken Macleod - ( 1089 )
18 . The Light Of Other Days by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter - ( 1087 )
19 . Splinter by Adam Roberts - ( 1086 )
20 . Tales Of The Otherworld by Kelley Armstrong - ( 1081 )
21 . Orphaned Worlds by Michael Cobley - ( 1072 )
22 . The Stars Like Dust by Isaac Asimov - ( 1070 )
23 . The Rise Of The Iron Moon by Stephen Hunt - ( 1063 )
24 . Fool's Fate by Robin Hobb - ( 1060 )
25 . The Passage by Justin Cronin - ( 1055 )
26 . Up The Bright River by Philip Jose Farmer - ( 1038 )
27 . Angelglass by David Barnett - ( 1035 )
28 . Boneshaker by Cheri Priest - ( 1030 )
29 . The Summoning (The Darkest Powers book 1) by Kelley Armstrong - ( 1027 )
30 . Dragongirl by Todd McCaffrey - ( 1024 )
31 . Necropath by Eric Brown - ( 1023 )
32 . The Winds Of Dune by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson - ( 1000 )
33 . A Mighty Fortress by David Weber - ( 999 )
34 . Starship: Flagship by Mike Resnick - ( 995 )
35 . Dragon Age: The Calling by David Gaider - ( 992 )
36 . Marked by PC and Kristen Cast - ( 990 )
37 . Elric: In The Dream Realms by Michael Moorcock and illustrated by Michael Wm. Kaluta - ( 989 )
38 . Mammoth Book Of Best New SF 21 - ( 988 )
39 . Brian Lumley's Necroscope: The Plague-Bearers by Brian Lumley - ( 987 )
40 . Havemercy by Jaida Jones and Danielle Bennett - ( 972 )
41 . The Osiris Ritual (A Newbury And Hobbes Investigation) by George Mann - ( 968 )
42 . The Thingummy by Danny Danziger and Mark McCrum - ( 965 )
43 . The Terminal State by Jeff Somers - ( 963 )
44 . The Kosher Guide To Imaginary Animals by Ann & Jeff Vandermeer - ( 962 )
45 . The Nemesis List by R.J. Firth - ( 956 )
46 . Necroscope: Harry And The Pirates by Brian Lumley - ( 955 )
47 . Small Miracles by Edward M. Lerner - ( 951 )
48 . Zendegi by Greg Egan - ( 950 )
49 . Metal Swarm by Kevin J. Anderson - ( 944 )
50 . The Superman Guide To Life boxset - ( 929 )
51 . The Best Of H.P. Lovecraft - ( 915 )
52 . Clementine by Cherie Priest - ( 904 )
53 . Nights Of Villjamur by Mark Charan Newton - ( 902 )
54 . Orcs Bad Blood 2: Army Of Shadows by Stan Nicholls - ( 900 )
55 . The Adamantine Palace by Stephen Deas - ( 898 )
56 . The Edge Chronicles: Clash Of The Sky Galleons by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell - ( 888 )
57 . Hawkmoon: The Mad God's Amulet by Michael Moorcock - ( 883 )
58 . Eternal Vigilance III: Bound In Blood - ( 882 )
59 . Fun With Rainbows by Gareth Owens - ( 881 )
60 . Primary Inversion by Catherine Asaro - ( 880 )
61 . Hard-Luck Diggings: The Early Jack Vance - ( 876 )
62 . Galileo's Dream by Kim Stanley Robinson - ( 867 )
63 . We, Robots edited by Allan Kaster - ( 865 )
64 . The Palace At Midnight by Robert Silverberg - ( 860 )
65 . Guardians Of Paradise by Jaine Fenn - ( 856 )
66 . Writers Of The Future: The First 25 Years - ( 854 )
67 . Engineman by Eric Brown - ( 854 )
68 . Bitter Angels by C.L. Anderson - ( 852 )
69 . Catacombs by Anne McCaffrey - ( 847 )
70 . The Superman Handbook by Scott Beatty - ( 845 )
71 . The Machinery Of Light by David J. Williams - ( 843 )
72 . Freedom by Daniel Suarez - ( 838 )
73 . Grave Secret (Harper Connelly series book 4) by Charlaine Harris - ( 825 )
74 . In His Majesty's Service (Three Novels of Temeraire) by Naomi Novik - ( 793 )
75 . Once Bitten, Twice Shy by Jennifer Rardin - ( 792 )
76 . Drood by Dan Simmons - ( 790 )
77 . A Mighty Fortress audio book by David Weber - ( 787 )
78 . Superman: Earth One by J. Michael Straczynski - ( 783 )
79 . The Boys Are Back In Town by Christopher Golden - ( 782 )
80 . Sherlock Holmes: The Seventh Bullet - ( 777 )
81 . Icons: The DC And Wildstorm Art Of Jim Lee - ( 775 )
82 . The Devil's Playground by Jenna Black - ( 756 )
83 . The War Of The Dwarves by Markus Heitz - ( 747 )
84 . New Model Army by Adam Roberts - ( 745 )
85 . The Book On Fire by Keith Miller - ( 739 )
86 . Seeds Of Earth (Book One of Humanity's Fire) by Michael Cobley - ( 732 )
87 . The Gabble And Other Stories by Neal Asher - ( 729 )
88 . The Sweet Scent Of Blood: Spellcrackers.com by Suzanne McLeod - ( 727 )
89 . Out Of The Dark by David Webber - ( 727 )
90 . Not Less Than Gods by Kage Baker - ( 724 )
91 . Crimson Shadows: The Best Of Robert E. Howard Volume One - ( 716 )
92 . The Awakening by Kelley Armstrong - ( 714 )
93 . Black Glass by John Shirley - ( 705 )
94 . Burning Shadows by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro - ( 703 )
95 . Lift Off by Scott Robertson - ( 700 )
96 . All Together Dead by Charlaine Harris - ( 692 )
97 . Elves Once Walked With Gods by James Barclay - ( 685 )
98 . Swiftly by Adam Roberts - ( 680 )
99 . In The Night Garden by Catherynne M. Valente - ( 669 )
100 . Werewolves Of Montpellier by Jason - ( 668 )

To vote for your favourite book for 2011, just find the review of the novel from our 2011 archive and click the voting button at the bottom of the page. If there's not a review of a particular book yet, what are you waiting for? ... submit it here.

A note on reviews and how the charts are compiled.

1. Counting the Charts

The Hyper Hundred charts are compiled from votes made by readers from SFcrowsnest review pages. Click on the little red thumb’s up icon at the bottom of the review to vote for a specific book.

The chart year – 2010, 2011 etc – refers to the year when the review ran, rather than when the book was first published.

E.g. if we get sent a 2009-published novel to review by the publisher in October 2009, and our review is published in January 2010, then the book will only appear in the 2010 chart. The books we review are sent to us by publishers, and include re-issues of classics, paperback versions of hardbacks, compilations of multiple volumes of prior works, illustrated editions, audio-books, small press limited editions etc. We don’t discount any books from a particular year’s chart. If it’s a new edition and not just a second printing of an existing ISBN, it’s eligible for inclusion in the charts for that year.

What this means is that if Penguin do a new science fiction classics line and reissue an old Arthur C Clarke novel this year and twice as many readers vote for it than the current Twilight novel, Arthur gets a better chart position than the twinkle-twinkle vampires, even though he’s dead and his book first appeared in 1957. This is no different from the music charts, where every time one of The Beatles dies, their entire back catalogue gets re-issued, then suddenly half the charts are singles from Revolver and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

If, in 2011, you’re voting for a 2006 book where SFcrowsnest published the review in 2007, then bear in mind you’re not making any impact on the annual 2011 chart (although you might be helping your favourite author for any best of decade/century charts we do!). It has to be a review published by us in 2011 to count towards the 2011 chart.

2. Reviewing the Books

To be voted on, a physical book has to be sent to us to review. Normally it’s the publisher that does this, sometimes it is the author (one of our existing reviewers might even buy the book themselves and submit a review). Once a book is received, it’s offered out to our list of over a hundred fans to review on a first-come first-served basis. Reviewers will tend to pick books they like, or at least, think they might like if they haven’t read anything by that particular author before.

To get on this list of reviewers you have to earn your spurs first by submitting a range of well-written reviews to our editor, Geoff. Please bear in mind not all books received are reviewed, however (too many books, too few reviewers, too little time in the day). Not all reviews received are run, also… if they’re too biased, illiterate, from a publicist pretending to be a reader etc.

If your favourite author/book didn’t get featured on SFcrowsnest, remember that we can only review what we’re sent. Moan at the PR function in the author’s publishing house, then write decent reviews yourself to send to us!

If you are an author and your book gets a bad review from a reviewer, try not to take it to heart. Any review is always one person’s opinion, and opinions are like arseholes… everyone’s got one. Even the same person’s tastes can change over time regarding what they enjoy or dislike.