Sci Fi Book Queueueueueueue

Hey everyone,

Sorry for the delay. The next person has declined to choose a book and since it's so late I figured I'd just pick the book so we can move on. I'm picking "Mission of Gravity", by Hal Clement. This is a good example of hard sf, which is kind of a sub-sub-genre of SF where you are allowed only to use real actual current science knowledge (so no warp drives, etc.)

Hope you like it! (It's also short.)

The reading period will as usual be 4 weeks and then discussion will be 2 weeks. I'll give you an extra week to acquire the book, since we are late, so the reading period will start May 24 and go until June 21. Discussion will go until July 5th.

Discussion is now open for The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, by N. K. Jemisin! Those who enjoyed the book may want to check out her sort-of sequel, The Broken Kingdoms.

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Whoops, I accidentally posted this is my own journal instead of here. Sorry for people who see this twice...

Side question for my SF/F book club:

If someone who's never read any SF/F came up to you and wanted to start reading the key books in the genre so they could start getting all the references and participating and stuff, what books do you think they should read?

I'll try to compile my own list and put it in the comments before reading anyone else's, because I'm curious what we'll come up with (and how much of it is the same as other peoples')...

Hi all,

Our next book picker lianaiad has chosen The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin. This book was recently nominated for the Nebula award!

The discussion period for How To Live Safely... is still going on, until March 16th. People don't seem to have much to say about the book, though - maybe because you guys didn't like it or maybe because it just was that unremarkable?

The reading period for Hundred Thousand Kingdoms will start on March 16 and go until April 13th. Then the discussion period will go from April 13th until April 27th.

Whee!

Discussion is now open for How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, by Charles Yu. It will last two weeks, from today until March 16th.

Discussion questions!

* Did you enjoy reading the book?
* What do you think of the writing style? Is it very similar or dissimilar to other science fiction or fantasy books you have read?
* What do you think this book is about?
* Did you like or dislike the protagonist?

Discuss! Comment! Argue! :)

Hi all,

Sorry for the late post - our next book chooser(s) passed so your friendly maintainers chose the next book as "How to Live Safely in A Science Fictional Universe" by Charles Yu.

Since we're running late we'll give you an extra week for acquiring the book, the reading period will start Feb 1 and run through March 1st. The discussion period will run March 1 through March 15th.

Enjoy!

Last I heard, discussion for the Ted Chiang short story collection was to start "around the first of January"... So I guess I'll toss out the first pebble.

I actually read the book (thanks, chenoameg) and am amused that this means I've now read exactly two books for this group, both of them short-story collections.

I am also amused that my favorite in this collection (Story of your Life) shares a basic premise with my favorite from the Tiptree Awards collection (Looking Through Lace) -- namely, first contact as described from the POV of a linguist, with learning-the-language leading to plot-relevant revelations... But apart from the premise (I like linguists), what really grabbed me about this story was 1) I liked the characters, as revealed in the future/family segments (the past/aliens segments seemed less personality-full, perhaps because they focused more on plot/idea and less on relationship), and 2) I felt he successfully played the game of making the Idea of the story and the Structure of the story and the Plot of the story all...integrated isn't quite the right word, because that implies that they are separate things stuck together, and my point is exactly the opposite: that they were a unified whole.

My other favorite was Seventy-Two Letters, partly because I liked the setting & premise, but largely because I found the ending incredibly satisfying -- it retroactively made the whole story not just playing with an amusing idea, but far cleverer than that.

Hello!

We're still in the discussion period for Neverness, but since it's my turn to pick, our next book will be Stories of Your Life: and Others by Ted Chiang.

This is a collection of short stories by a local (to me) writer; from what I understand, he writes/publishes very infrequently, and this collection includes Hugo and Nebula-award winning stories. The collection was recently republished by a local(-ish, to you Boston folks) small press, so it *is* in print. See: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1… or http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-97… (Small Beer Press)

(Incidentally, for Seattle-ish people who may be interested, Ted Chiang has a reading on Friday (12/10) with another local author at Pilot Books in Capitol Hill.)

I'll declare the acquisition/reading period to be through the end of the year, with discussion starting around the first of January. Is that enough time? The book is eight stories over 320 pages.

Hello!

Did you read Zindell's Neverness? I hope so, because I actually finished a book on time and I am curious what other people thought.

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I guess discussion period will be open for two weeks - jadia, does that sound right? I'll also post "next book" in the next few days or so to give people acquisition time prior to reading period prior to discussion period.

Just a reminder that our reading period begins now-ish for Neverness, by David Zindell. This will last til - hm, let's say, right after Thanksgiving (11/28). Then we'll have 2 weeks for a discussion period.

Wheee!