Worlds without End

As if I need another book-related site to belong to, I’ve recently discovered Worlds Without End, a fan-run community site for award-winning science fiction, fantasy and horror books. Their motto is “We don’t want you to ever have to read a bad book again.” In theory, I don’t agree with that notion because not all award-winning books are to everyone’s liking and not all non-award winning books are bad. Focusing only on award-winning reads means missing a lot of gold!

Not that choosing to focus on award-winning, recognized books is a bad thing. What the site chooses to focus on is, of course, their prerogative. Says Dave Post of Worlds Without End:

“The goal of the site is to give you the tools to find the best books for you. We’re not suggesting that you only read the award winning books but the awards do give you a glimpse into what was considered the best or at least what was popular for any given year. We cover a bunch of different awards so you can find the ones that you like and compare the awards and best of lists to see what rises to the top. From there you can read reviews and excerpts and talk to other folks about the books you’re interested in and hone in on the likely ones for you. Time has not been kind to all the award winners and there are more than a few right out stinkers in there too. We hope to help you avoid those where we can.”

WWE is a well organized and active site inviting you to discover great books. Sign up and you gain access to their BookTrackr that tracks your reading history, highlighting your statistics towards reading all the award winning/nominated books and/or books on various lists of recognition. There are the typical book giveaways, interviews, podcasts, forums and a lot more.

They also run challenges, such as the 2013 Woman of Genre Fiction Reading Challenge, which resulted in me staying up too late last night adding books to my reading list and selecting the authors I want to read for the challenge. Twelve authors for twelve months, including reviews. Gee, how ever will I manage? Challenges like this will help me chip away at that massive to-read pile, helping me to focus on what to read next. Since I’m starting five months late, I don’t feel guilty using some of the books I’ve already read this year.