The poster child for, well, posts

Welcome to the third annual review of popular posts and topics here on SF and Nonsense. The first such round up, Postscript (or is that post post?), continues to run a strong second place in all-time popularity among my posts.

The winner is ...

The most popular all-time post? That continues to be, in a cake walk, the October 12, 2010 post Betrayer of Worlds. It's hardly intuitive that the announcement of book four (of five) in the Fleet of Worlds series (with Larry Niven) should be so popular. My theory is that a page name that is a straight book title -- rather than my wont, a play on words incorporating the book title -- ranks higher in Google's secret search algorithm.

Number three, down a single peg from second place in previous years, is Trope-ing the light fantastic (life-sign detectors) (from February 25, 2009, about a particular SFnal trope). Does this post draw Star Trek fans? Biologists? I don't know. Other entries in my Trope-ing the light fantastic post series aren't as popular.

Ranked fourth (up from sixth a year ago), from February 11, 2011, we have Creative Destruction. That's another Lerner book title, drawing upon the concise description of capitalism by economist Joseph Schumpeter.

To those of you Googling the phrase "Creative Destruction" out of dismal-science curiosity, two comments. First, my Creative Destruction -- a themed collection of eight stories, ranging from flash fiction to a short novel -- deals with computer science. IMO, computer science is a primo example of Schumpeter's virtuous cycle of the better supplanting the no longer competitive. Second, beyond my techiness, I have an MBA.

Ranked fifth, sixth, and seventh are three more posts dealing with the Fleet of Worlds series. These are, respectively, There is no fate (of worlds) but what we make ourselves (from August 21, 2012, about Fate of Worlds, the latest and final book of the series), Fleet of Worlds (at last) (from November 8, 2011, about the trade-paperback reissue of Fleet, the before-I-had-started-blogging first book of the series), and Of fleet Fleets and Known Space (the series overview).

Rounding out the top ten are Kilometerstone (et. al.) (from December 10, 2008, broaching the possibility of an online chat) and two more posts related to the Fleet of Worlds series. Those are Of Gw'oth and Jotoki (from September 10, 2010, contrasting two alien species) and Ring(world) around the betrayer (from September 15, 2010, listing the many interviews Larry and/or I gave in association with release of Betrayer of Worlds on the fortieth publication anniversary of his Ringworld).

(Betrayer of Worlds is the long-awaited back story of adventurer Louis Wu, who was celebrating his 200th birthday when readers meet him in Ringworld.)

The older the post, of course, the more opportunity it has had to have accumulated readers. What about visits in only the most recent month, to give old and new posts an equal shot? Here are the top five (four of which we've already seen):

• Postscript (or is that post post?)
• There is no fate (of worlds) but what we make ourselves 
• Kilometerstone (et. al.) 
• Trope-ing the light fantastic (life-sign detectors) 
• Publishing (black and) blues (new on March 19, 2013, discussing the state of publishing)

What else can I report? Among popular search terms leading people to SF and Nonsense is "Gw'oth." No, that isn't a typo. The Gw'oth are quite alien aliens I invented for the Fleet of Worlds series. We've already seen Of Gw'oth and Jotoki as a popular post; I'll boldly predict that last week's Quoth the Gw'oth ... (with background about the Gw'oth and their home world) will have a place of honor in next year's summary.

Also interesting -- to me, anyway -- is that many of you click through to this blog from my new (opened for business in March 2012) authorial website, Edward M. Lerner: Perpetrator of science fiction and techno-thrillers. (What?!? You haven't visited there yet? Here's your chance :-)  )

For context, today's post is the 299th since I began SF and Nonsense in August 2008. And, as always, if anything herein has piqued your interest in a book title, click the corresponding cover thumbnail on the right to read more.)