Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion

For the last year, this group is had a Fantasy/Sci-fi book challenge, which you may have noticed from the front page. That challenge expires at the end of this month, so shall we create another one?

(A Challenge is a Goodreads feature to let you set a goal to read X many books of some criteria in a given timeframe. Last year's was a general fantasy/sci-fi book challenge, but other possibilities exist. So can other timeframes. You accept the challenge by specifying how many books you plan to read. You designate that a book is part of the challenge by placing it on a shelf you designate for that purpose, such as sfhf-challenge-2013 or whatever.)

You can view the current results of this year's (2012's) challenge here.

Jonathan, Xdyj, Sean, Deeptanshu, Vera, Steve, infael, Hypervorean, Macamboy, Christine, Chris, Susan & Hannu achieved their goal for the current challenge already! Congratulations!

Ready for another challenge? Should it be for a full year? Or maybe half a year so we can align with the calendar?

Jonathan, Xdyj, I assume you guys set up last year's?

A new challenge sounds good, don't mind whether it is a general one or something more specific, as long as it gives plenty of scope for people to read what they want. I once did an A to Z challenge, one year to read at least one book by an author whose name starts with each letter of the alphabet (surname that is). It was fun at first, but then once I'd got a few letters out of the way I realised that most of the authors/books I wanted to read had the same few letters. After that it just got annoying, and defeated the object of the challenge.

New one! New one!

Steve wrote: "I once did an A to Z challenge, one year to read at least one book by an author whose name starts with each letter of the alphabet (surname that is). It was fun at first, but then once I'd got a few letters out of the way I realised that most of the authors/books I wanted to read had the same few letters...."

Yeah the alphabet seems tough. Some letters just don't offer many possibilities. On the other hand, I have to expand my bookshelves, I notice there are a lot of authors whose new book side by automatically whose names start with "S" (Sanderson, Scalzi, Stephenson, Stross.)

Just "Science Fiction and Fantasy books" is certainly the simplest, though we could do something like "X books by authors you never read before" or "X books from the NPR top 100 SF/F list," Or some such challenge.

(Come to think of it, I don't think we're limited to only one Challenge, If we want to try something a little more exotic.)

how about this...most books read from the SF Masterworks series...all out in paperback, most easy-to-find titles (all been printed under other imprints, or currently in print from others)...over 100 books in the series. Or we read novels, one from each year (by copyright)....see how far you can go back in time without skipping a year....SF or SF-related counts...lit-crit, author bios, magazine serials, ect. Only restrection I would place would be on fanzines, only because they are usualy too darn short.

All great ideas. I've been wanting to read more from the NPR list & SF masterworks (if we're going to do this, should probably include fantasy masterworks too, for those in the group who prefer fantasy to sf).

I do think the going back in time year by year could be a lot of fun though, it is an interesting challenge, and could provoke some interesting discussion and more book discovery - can imagine like 'I'm struggling with 1988, can anyone recommend any good books from that year', or 'I can recommend a brilliant fantasy book from 1979...'. Think that challenge would have to be a full year, otherwise most people wouldn't get back that far...

Or could be a group challenge, see if between us we can get back to 1950 or something. Or ask for volunteers to each do a decade or something...

Spooky1947 wrote: "how about this...most books read from the SF Masterworks series..."

Remember that this isn't a competition, it's a self-motivating challenge in which each member chooses their own goal for the number of books to read (in whatever category.) So, no "most".

Well the old challenge has ended, looking forward to the next one whatever it may be, particularly as I only joined the previous one half way through.

Anyone else any thoughts on what sort of challenge it should be?

Steve wrote: "Well the old challenge has ended..."

Yes, it has. Congratulations to the following members who completed their SF/F reading goal for July 2012 - July 2013:

Jonathan, Xdyj, Sean, Deeptanshu, Vera, Steven, infael, Steve, Hypervorean, Macamboy, Christine, Chris, Shaad, Susan & Hannu

All in all, 93 members signed up, with an average goal of reading 22 SF/F books in the year ending July 1, 2013. A total of 1,347 books were read toward this challenge. Thanks to all the participants, too!

You can view the full and final results of the 2012-2013 challenge here.

I've created a SF & HF 2013 Reading Challenge for the group.

The challenge is simple: set yourself a goal for how many science fiction amd/or fantasy books you'd like to read by the end of this calendar year!

To join this challenge, just enter a number of books for your goal and the name of a shelf you will use to keep track of those books. (I imaginatively called mine sfhf-2013-challenge. It seems the shelf you name gets created for you automagically when you create the challenge.) For a book to count toward your challenge goal, you'll need to add it to that shelf and set the "Date I finished reading" or just "date read" to a date between July 1, 2013 and December 31, 2013. (By the way, you can update your goal at any time during the challenge.)

PS: Graphic design is not my thing. Anyone wants to make a better 110x110 pixel logo, please do!

Good evening!

The choice of titles and/or authors isn't limited by any other criteria apart from genre (of course), right?

The choice of titles and/or authors isn't limited by any other criteria apart from genre (of course), right?"
I think, you can impose an additional challenge upon yourself by taking books only from the NPR list or from the second half of the alphabet or only pre-1990 books etc.
I'm participating but didn't yet harden the challenge. Just imposing the challenge itself isn't that tough, though.

Well, it's a "welcome to fantasy" thing for me so setting up a list and getting it though is enough of a challenge in my account.
Either way I'll be keeping track with you guys and maybe harden it a bit myself, if possible.

Thanks for the reply.
Joyful readings to all!

Victoria wrote: "The choice of titles and/or authors isn't limited by any other criteria apart from genre (of course), right?"

That's correct.

The fact that we've got one "general science fiction and fantasy" challenge needn't stop us from creating another, more specific challenge.

I was thinking of merging Spooky's suggestion of using the SF Masterworks list combined with the NPR Top 100 SF/F and the Locus Magazine Best SF of the Century and Best Fantasy of the Century lists to get a combined sense of "classic" or "popular" or "important" or "good" science fiction and fantasy (pick the adjective your most comfortable with :)

It also occurred to me a combined list of Hugo Award Winners and Nebula Award Winners might be another way.

The idea of restricting the list or "hardening" the challenge is to help us push ourselves outside our normal comfort zones.

It's entirely possible to have the same book on more than one shelf and we can even make a new Challenge retroactive to July 1.

I'm just still collecting member opinions here...

I like the idea of a general challenge ... although last time I didn't pay attention to the July 1 deadline & set myself up for not-success. Hmm, now I've got to decide what seems like a reasonable six-month goal. Thanks for setting this up!

What about a (more general) SFF award winners restriction? Hugo and Nebula are just two of several - like the World Fantasy Award (http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/24...), Mythopoeic, Locus (http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/31...), Gemmel, Tiptree, PKDick, A. Clarke, Campbell, BSFA etc.

G33z3r wrote: I was thinking of merging Spooky's suggestion of using the SF Masterworks list combined with the NPR Top 100 SF/F and the Locus Magazine Best SF of the Century and Best Fantasy of the Century lists to get a combined sense of "classic" or "popular" or "important" or "good" science fiction and fantasy (pick the adjective your most comfortable with :)

It also occurred to me a combined list of Hugo Award Winners and Nebula Award Winners might be another way.

I wondered about creating (if such a thing doesn't exist already) an ultimate Top 100 SF/Fantasy list, using the above mentioned lists/awards, along with any others of note, like the World Fantasy Award, Arthur C Clarke award etc as mentioned by Andreas. The idea would be, the more lists it is on/awards it has got, the higher a book is ranked. I came across this ultimate list of travel books a while back which adopted this system.

That said, it does look like a lot of effort!

Steve wrote: "I wondered about creating (if such a thing doesn't exist already) an ultimate Top 100 SF/Fantasy list, using the above mentioned lists/awards, along with any others of note..."

But, all those lists already think they are the ultimate top 100. :)

Back in March, Stefan took a shot at creating such a list for his highly entertaining March Madness SF&F Style. He made it by taking several lists (he never said exactly which, I presume it's a trade secret :) and smashing them together with some kind of weighting algorithm. The list of top 64 he came up with can still be found here . I thought there were a few omissions and a couple of over representations, but it was a pretty good effort (and a fun "tournament").

You'll never really get a consensus. It's probably just easier to go ahead and merge the lists, giving everyone a few hundred excellent books to choose from rather than trying to pare it down.

The awards are generally pretty indicative of the year (though I reserve the right to respectfully disagree). But they have to give one and only one every year, so in a year when there are several terrific books, someone gets stiffed (consider that Dune and The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress came out in 1966, or The Left Hand of Darkness and Slaughterhouse Five both came out in 1970.)

One of the reasons I pinned the NPR and Locus lists in our Recommendations section is they both represent fan-based polling and the results are a collection of what's popular today. And so is Goodreads' Listopia Best SF/F

Okay I'm confused about the SF Masterworks series. I knew there was a paperback series and also a hardback series, and I was vaguely aware they'd been reissued recently, but are we talking about three separate lists with just a bit of overlap? Is one of the lists considered to be the definitive or authentic list or are they all equally valid?

Steve, im new to this series, i know the individual titles, just learned of the series...i thought it was just one series...more info please. :D

I like the idea of the list being from the Hugo and Nebula awards. I've read a few or these and allways find them to be good books.

Spooky1947 wrote: "Steve, im new to this series, i know the individual titles, just learned of the series...i thought it was just one series...more info please. :D"

The SF Masterworks series was start in 1999 by Millenium books, beginning with 'The Forever War' by Joe Haldeman. There's 70+ books in this series. Millenium then released 10 books in hardback format, these are different titles.

Gollancz then took over and re-started an SF Masterworks series in 2010. There's some titles that are the same, but a lot that are different, and they are still adding more titles. You are a lot more likely to find new books to read in the Gollancz series, even if you have read a lot of SF books.

The wikipedia article on the different SF Masterworks series is very good - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SF_Maste...

thanks Steve. i am thinking of putting together a set of these :)

I've established a new Challenge for the Group, the Science Fiction and Fantasy 2013 Gold Challenge!

It's an Award-Winning challenge!

Any novel or novella which has won a Hugo, Nebula, Clarke, BSFA, Aurora, Aurealis, Locus or PK Dick Award can count towards your self-established goal.

To join this challenge, just enter a number of books for your goal and the name of a shelf you will use to keep track of those books. (I imaginatively called mine sfhf-2013-gold-challenge. It seems the shelf you name gets created for you automagically when you create the challenge.) For a book to count toward your challenge goal, you'll need to add it to that shelf and set the "Date I finished reading" or just "date read" to a date between July 1, 2013 and December 31, 2013. (By the way, you can update your goal at any time during the challenge.)

Hope that works for everyone interested.

Thank you for setting this up. I'll have to make up my mind which books I'll read for this challenge.
Could you please link the relevant goodread lists in the challenge description and/or here?
I found:
http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/50...
http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/35...
http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/23...
http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/24...
http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/21...

Woot! Woot!

I take it we are supposed to avoid having books on both challenges?
If that's so, is it ok to make alterations at this point?
( SF & HF 2013 Reading Challenge & Science Fiction and Fantasy 2013 Gold Challenge)

Victoria wrote: "I take it we are supposed to avoid having books on both challenges?..."

That wasn't my intent, though it may have been in others' minds (?). I think anything that qualifies for the Gold Challenge also qualifies for the SF&HF Reading Challenge, too (You'd have to put the book on both shelves.)

G33z3r wrote:

That wasn't my intent, though it may have been in others' minds (?). I think anything that qualifies for t..."

Υeah, that's exactly why I'm asking.
I'm having some on both and wanted to know if I should sort them out.

Thanks!

I'm treating any Gold Challenge books as also on the main challenge list - they're only a 6 month challenge after all, and otherwise I wouldn't manage many on each challenge. I'm aiming for 15 on the main challenge, and 7 for the Gold Challenge. The 15 on the main challenge shouldn't be a problem, but of those I'll have to choose at least 7 award winners so I can meet both challenges. Will be interesting picking...

Steve wrote: "I'm treating any Gold Challenge books as also on the main challenge list..."

Me, too. I did add one small codicil to my Gold Challenge, in that I want them to be books I haven't previously read (which perversely means they'll be more recent.)

A reminder to those of you who signed up for our group's SciFi & Fantasy 2013 Challenge or SciFi & Fantasy 2013 Gold Challenge that you only have a couple of weeks to top your goal! (And congratulations to all who already have!)

Remember that for a book to count towards your challenge goal, you must add it to the shelf you named when you created the challenge and give it a "date read" within the July 1, 2013 — December 31, 2013, period of the challenge.

While this half year's challenge is in its final spurt, what's the plan for next year 2014's challenges?
Bronze / Silver / Gold ?

Andreas wrote: "While this half year's challenge is in its final spurt, what's the plan for next year 2014's challenges? Bronze / Silver / Gold ?"

You anticipated my question, which is: What would the group like for our next Challenges?

(For those who haven't participated before, a Group Challenge provides an optional goal you can set for yourself to read a certain number of books, according to the criteria of the challenge. It's a Group-oriented complement to the Goodreads annual Reading Challenge. Because each Challenge lets you set your own goal for the number of books you want to read, it's a form of self motivation, not a competition.)

(Our current two Group Challenges are the "SciFi & Fantasy 2013 Challenge", which is simply to set a goal to read a number of science fiction and fantasy books by year-end; and the SciFi & Fantasy 2013 Gold Challenge, which is to set a goal to read a number of Award-Winning sci-fi and fantasy books by year-end.)

(Note that Goodreads only displays two Group Challenges on the Group Home Page (and it displays exactly two.) You can see all Challenges, including past Challenges, by clicking the word "Challenges" on the banner line on the homepage, or by clicking here to see all our Group Challenges. Because only two are displayed, I'm leaning strongly towards having exactly two Group Challenges running at any time.)

So, what do people think about new Group Challenges for our sci-fi and fantasy genre?

Should the challenge last an entire year, or just a part of the year? Three months? Six months? Other? (Shorter challenges might be more focused, and also let new members join in more easily, though there is nothing to stop anyone from joining in mid-Challenge, since you set your own goal. An annual challenge matches the Goodreads Reading Challenge.)

I think one challenge should be simply reading books within our group's focus, science fiction and fantasy.

As for a second challenge, should we specify "award-winning" again? Or some other criteria, such as books from our Book Discussions? Books from one of our "favorites" lists, such as the NPR Top 100 SF&F? Or, something based on time period, such as new books in 2014? Or something more personal, such as books by authors you haven't read before?

By the way, if we have more than one challenge, they don't have to run over the same timeframe. E.g., We could have an annual challenge and then a series of 3-month challenges.

Please share your thoughts below!

I definitely vote for keeping one challenge that's just reading SFF books -- I appreciate the flexibility to just pick something that fits my mood & schedule. I like the calendar year as a challenge length, but I don't feel that strongly about it.

How about authors you haven't read before as a second challenge idea? People could take it in a lot of directions depending on personal preference -- newer writers/older writers/more epic fantasy/more military sf/award winners -- but still be pushed to read something a little outside of their usual selections.

I don't want to open up a can of worms, but I'm wondering how people interpret the "heroic fantasy" in our group? Honestly, I'll say that I interpreted that as simply trying to exclude urban fantasy. So, if I were reading Jim Butcher, I probably wouldn't count Dresden Files books for our general group challenge, but I'd count Codex Alera books (which is not to say I necessarily find Tavi a more heroic figure than Harry). What do others think about the "heroic" requirement -- how are you interpreting it? or are you ignoring it?

Hillary wrote: "I don't want to open up a can of worms, but I'm wondering how people interpret the "heroic fantasy" in our group?..."

I think we've been ignoring it.



I don't know exactly what the Founder (Connor) had in mind. Maybe Jonathan or Xdyj recall. The definition of "Heroic Fantasy" is pretty vague, like "Epic Fantasy". Aren't Harry Dresden and Mercy Thompson heroic enough? Sometimes I can't even tell science fiction from fantasy!

And what to make of alternate realities such as "The Man in the High Castle" (which doesn't have hero) or Steampunk such as "Boneshaker", time-traveling gaslight fantasies such as "The Anubis Gate", or "soft" stories such as "The Man Who Bridged the Mist" or "Night Circus"? All of which we've had as topics of group discussions this year. Or really hard to classify books such as "Watership Down", one of the group's earliest book discussion topics?

great pic, G3z33r :-) I'm all for ignoring the qualifier -- I tend to find narrow genre definitions frustrating anyway ("literary fiction" being my MOST hated description -- as if SFF can't be literary) even when useful & some of the most discussion-worthy reading material certainly seems to blur the boundary lines ...

I'm playing with the thought of reading through the hugos that I haven't read yet. That would be 44 books which seems like a nice target.

for me, heroic fantasy means Conan, S&S, Red Sonja...REH is the wellspring for me.

I have a idea for a new challenge...it's a bit radical...a short one, maybe run 3 months...graphic novels. No, GN are not just super-heros...alot of class fantasy and SF in them thar comics...Watchmen (in the NY Times top 100 novels), V for Vendetta, Mause, From Hell, The Walking Dead, Conan, Kull, Red Sonja...the old EC Comics Weird Fantasy, Weird Science Fiction, and Weird Science-Fantasy have all been re-printed and all high-quality stuff...Graphic Novels are far from all Batman and X-Men. Comic Book shops are going thru hard times :(despite what you see going on at the box-office at your local theater). We would be doing our bit to help. No local comic shop, no problem, Graphic Novels are at your local bookstore, used bookstore, e-book format, and if you are cheap or a poor collage student, can be stolen on the web from the usual suspects.

It would be a chance for many of us to try something new.

Andreas wrote: "I'm playing with the thought of reading through the hugos that I haven't read yet. That would be 44 books which seems like a nice target."

This is approximately what I had in mind when I signed up for our current (soon ending) SF&F Gold Challenge.

But, with Group Book Discussions, new books in favorite series or by favorite authors, a few hot new buzzworthy books, and the usual stack of magazines, I'm sure I'd never get close to 44!

Everyone seems happy with the General SF/F Challenge, so I think I'll consider that full-year Group Challenge a given.

Any other thoughts on the more focused challenge? There's been one suggestion for each:
- Authors new to the reader / full year(?)
- Hugo Award winners / full year
- Graphic Novels / 3 months

Anyone else want to add expressions of support for one of those?

Lacking an obvious consensus, I suppose I should set up a poll... soon... calendar's running out.

In addition to the "given" General SF/F Challenge, I would love a challenge to read "new" authors. However, for the sake of old-timers like me, I would like "new" to include authors not read in recent memory and not listed on our current books read list on Goodreads. I would like the opportunity to rediscover some authors I may have read long ago. (I may have read Avram Davidson's The Kar-Chee Reign after it was published in 1966 on the backside of Ursula K, LeGuin's Rocannon's World, Ace 50-cent Double G-574, but I sure don't remember it!) It could be one of the less-than-a-year challenges.

A further thought struck me. Instead of expanding on the idea of new authors, which would be a good short-term challenge by itself, why not precede it with a short-term challenge to read old SF/F? Some of the science in old SF is laughable by today's standards, but some of the action is still very entertaining, like in E. E. "Doc" Smith's space adventures. It is also interesting to see by comparison how far SF has advanced as literature in the last few decades.

I've set up a poll to help determine what our 2nd Group Challenge should be for 2014. It has the 4 options proposed here:

- SF/F Authors new to the reader / full year(?)
- Hugo Award winners / full year
- SF/F Graphic Novels / 3 months
- "Old" SF/F / 3 months

Click here to cast your vote .

Poll runs through Wednesday, January 8.



(For those who haven't participated before, our Group Challenge provides an optional goal you can set for yourself to read a certain number of books, according to the criteria of the challenge. It's a SF&F-oriented complement to the Goodreads annual Reading Challenge. Because each Challenge lets you set your own goal for the number of books you want to read, it's a form of self motivation, not a competition.)

(Our two Group Challenges last year were the "SciFi & Fantasy 2013 Challenge", which is simply to set a goal to read a number of science fiction and fantasy books by year-end; and the SciFi & Fantasy 2013 Gold Challenge, which is to set a goal to read a number of Award-Winning sci-fi and fantasy books by year-end.)

  SciFi & Fantasy 2013 Reading Challenge  

Congratulations to our members who joined the SF&F Reading Challenge to read sci-fi and fantasy books and reached their personal goal:

A.L.
Andreas
Barrett
Bryan
Deb
Deeptanshu
G33Z3R
Hannu
Hillary
Julie
Marcus
Matina
Melissa
Roger
Tuolivia
Xdyj

A few other members came really close to making their goals, and they deserve congratulations, too, for stretching themselves.

Overall, our 38 participants read 659 SF&F books as part of the challenge.

    SciFi & Fantasy 2013 Gold Challenge  

Congratulations to our members who reached their personal goal in our SF&F Gold Challenge to read award-winning sci-fi and fantasy.

Adrian
Andreas
Barrett
Deb
Ethan
G33Z3R
Hannu
Matina
Susan

Overall, our 30 participants read 206 award-winning sci-fi and fantasy books.

Okay, the votes are in, the people have spoken (along with the elves, dwarves, aliens, AIs and other assorted sapients who have joined our group.) Looks like checking out new authors is our most popular choice. And... I'm going off the rails... I've decided, what the heck, we can do them all! Caucus-race! (wait, what does that make me?)

Join one or join them all!

The Basics
For those who haven't participated before, our Group Challenges provide a goal you can set for yourself to read a certain number of books, according to the criteria of that Challenge. It's a SF&F-oriented complement to the Goodreads annual Reading Challenge. Because each Challenge lets you set your own goal for the number of books you want to read, it's a form of self motivation, not a competition.

To join a Group Challenge, enter the number of books you want to read and enter the name of a shelf on your personal bookshelf where you'll put the qualifying books. (Unlike the Goodreads Reading Challenge, only books you add to the designated bookshelf will count towards your Group Challenge. You need to mark the book as "read", place the book on that challenge bookshelf, and set the "date read" of the book within the Challenge's period for it to count toward your goal. You should use a different bookshelf for each Challenge you accept, e.g. "sff-2014-reading-challenge" & "sff-2014-explorer-challenge")


Our New Challenges:



The SF&F 2014 Reading Challenge

Set yourself a goal to read Science Fiction & Fantasy books in 2014. (This is a full-year challenge for 2014.)




The SF&F 2014 Explorer Challenge

Set yourself a goal to read books by Authors you haven't read before. Stretch your comfort zone, discover new favorites. (This is a full-year challenge for 2014.)




The SF&F 2014 Awards Challenge

Set yourself a goal to read books which have won Awards, such as the Hugo, Nebula, Clarke, Campbell, BSFA, Aurora, Aurealis, Locus, PK Dick, Gemmell or World Fantasy Award. (This is a full-year challenge for 2014.)




The SF&F 2014 Historic Challenge

Set yourself a goal to read old, pre-1950 SF&F. From Mary Shelley, Jules Vern & Edgar Rice Burroughs to George Orwell or EE "Doc" Smith, explore the dusty origins of our modern Science Fiction & Fantasy.

This is a 3-month mini-Challenge, through March 31. 2014. (After that, we'll have a second 3-month mini-Challenge dedicated to Graphic Novels starting April 1, 2014 - and that's no foolin'.) After that... the crystal ball is cloudy.

Frequently Asked Questions about our Group Challenge (FAQ)


1. I only see 2 challenges on the Group Homepage.

Yup, that's all Goodreads displays. You can see all our Group Challenges by clicking here (or by clicking the header "Challenges" on the group homepage, or by clicking on the links in my previous message to one of the specific current challenges.)

I listed the most popular Group Challenge from our recent polls on the homepage. See, elections do have consequences :)



2. I already read some books this year.

No problem, just add any books you've already read to the shelf you named for that Challenge.


3. That isn't exactly the Challenge I want.

Since each Challenge is a tool for you to motivate and track your reading, feel free to apply any codicils you like. Once you sign up for a Challenge, go to the challenge and leave a comment on your entry explaining what you are doing. For example, if you want to use the "Awards Challenge" to only read books that have won the Hugo Award, or if you want to use the "Historic Challenge" but read books prior to 1900, or if you want your "Explorer Challenge" to be limited to authors of the 21st century, or any other variation, just mention that in a comment on your challenge so we'll all know what you're up to! It's a tool for self-motivation, so stretch yourself however you wish.


4. Can a book count for more than one Challenge?

Yes. Just put it on more than one of your Challenge shelves.


Other questions, just ask below...

:D