The #1 order of business is to find books in those three categories. If we don't get votes on this thread or to the email account, then we'll have to just look for them ourselves. The problem with picking them ourselves is not having the top ten based on people's votes. We would just take what books the judges think are worthy and then decide how many are too many per category.

So, the judges may need to look for books in these three categories and then once we have judges assigned to the categories they can start reading.

I've posted a thread HW Book Award: Rating System for Judges to discuss how to choose a winner.

What do you guys think about Standalones? Does that have to be fantasy? If we open that up to thriller, sf, historical fiction, etc are we then obliged to do the same in our series categories?

OK, here are a list I made of titles that would fit in these categories. I'm wondering if we should break them up between YA and Adult. If you have any books to add to this list post below. And, if you want to be a judge for one of these categories, let me know.

I've emailed this list with links to each book on Amazon to the [email protected] and can resend to any judge.

Best Series
Legend of the Guardian King by Karen Hancock
Circle Trilogy by Ted Dekker
Song of Albion by Stephen Lawhead

Best Series (YA)
The Dragon Keeper Chronicles by Donita K. Paul
The Door Within Trilogy by Wayne Thomas Batson
Dragons in Our Midst by Bryan Davis
The Lost Books by Ted Dekker
The Dragon King Trilogy by Stephen Lawhead (Is this YA?)

Best Series Intro
Auralia's Colors by Jeff Overstreet
Hero, Second Class by Mitchell Bonds
Skin Map by Stephen Lawhead
Starlighter by Bryan Davis

Best Series Intro (YA)
The Curse of the Spider King by Wayne Thomas Batson and Christopher Hopper
By Darkness Hid by Jill Williamson

Standalone
Supernatural Thriller
The Sending by Matt Koceich
Fantasy
Summa Elvetica by Theo Beale
The Muse by Fred Warren (Splashdown books, view here)

Best Series Intro (SF) (Do we want to add an SF award?)
A Star Curiously Singing by Kerr Nietz
Perditions Gate by James Somers
The Personified Project R. E. Bartlett
Starfire by Stuart Vaughn Stockton
The Word Reclaimed by Steve Rzasa

Looks good to me! All the Christian fantasy books I've read are on there, so I don't have anything to add.

There are a few books there on my waiting list, but unfortunately I haven't read any of them. I haven't read a great deal of Christian fantasy, so that's why my Frank Peretti vote was the only one I could come up with.

If you want to be a judge, I've posted a separate thread for that here. Go there to tell me what category you want to judge and what books you'll be reading. If you've already said you want to judge, go there and confirm now that we have a better idea of what we are doing.

Since some of these categories have a lot of books (namely the series categories), we could split it up to at least two judges per series with them posting their rating on each book. That way it is more fair and you don't have to read 20 books this year just for this (we'd never see you on here and you'd need another job)



That's ok, I appreciated all the votes I got. Let me know if you want to be a judge and you'll get a great intro course into Christian Fantasy.

I've come up with a way to make it so all you have to do to be a judge is read as many books as you want in these categories. Your rating will be averaged in with the other judges. This will open it up to people who can only afford to buy a book or two. Go check out the HW Book Award: Judges Picking Their Category thread for more info.

This thread will stay just for naming suggestions of books to add to each category.

I would add The Prophet of Rain to the Standalone fantasy category. I think technically the writing is more on a 4th-6th grade level. But it's still an impressive read. I'm also surprised that Binding of the Blade by L.B. Graham and Oracles of Fire by Brian Davis never made it into the series category, but that's not exactly a suggestion to add them.

Go ahead and nominate them. I don't think they will win though.

I'll add them, but one way of weeding out bad books will be that we need at least two judges to read and rate a book/series for it to be eligible.

Sounds good.

I just updated the Judges picking their category thread and am poking my head in to see if people are still interested in this award or have questions. I've updated the first post in these threads so you don't have to read through all of our brainstorming. PM me if you have any questions or post below.

I just need to get up and go to town...
One question I just thought of:
We are not considering LOTR as a choice, but what about other Tolkien authored works like The Children of Hurin? I am reading that for school and writing a paper on it, so I am sure I would be able to rate it.

Good question, not sure.

Tim, is this still going on, or would you like me to archive this thread?

*archives *