SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

For those of you who have read multiple books on the group bookshelf, what books blew you away? Which books were work to get through?

Please remember that while it's okay to have differing opinions, we don't want to attack people's taste.

Here are mine:

Lowlights:
1. Pushing Ice - gave up on this one before I got very far.
2. Hounded - Atticus annoyed me. DNFed.
3. Wizard's First Rule - wish I had DNFed.

Best of:
1. Storm Front - read many years ago, but this is my jam.
2. Deathless
3. The Fifth Season - Loooooved this whole series!
4.The Night Circus - never read anything like this before.
5.Too Like the Lightning - this was also unique, and I would not have read it without the group.

There are others that I loved, like the Hobbit and Wizard of Earthsea, but I'm focusing on the ones that are a little less commonly adored. I'd say that I think we have a decent track record so far, for my taste at least!

The Good:
The Night Circus - This was just so lovely to read
Uprooted - This book made me love Naomi Novik and I have since read a good chunk of her Temeraire series, which I will be finishing.

The Bad:
Arcadia - It picked up at the end, but it was a real slog for me at the beginning.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - I have kicked rocks that were less dense

The Confusing:
Too Like the Lightning - Definitely the most thought provoking. Even after reading Seven Surrenders I'm still not sure how I feel about it.

Thanks for a great topic, Allison!

Great idea to pick the ones that aren't as well known! These aren't my overall top five from the group bookshelf, but I picked five I liked for different reasons, and they all have under 10k ratings.

The Word for World is Forest - my favorite adult UKLG
Memory of Water - beautiful atmosphere
Grass - intriguing ecology
Six Wakes - interesting scifi mystery
Zoo City - loved until about 75%, ending went downhill

Loved

The Thousand Names
The Wise Man's Fear
The Name of the Wind
The Martian
Red Country



OK but don't recommend

Redshirts
The Black Prism - prefer his warded man series
The Princess Bride

Hmm how many should I put here. I've rated 5 books one star, and 13 books two stars.

One star books:
Weaveworld
Red Mars
Little, Big
1Q84
Doctor Who: The Coming of the Terraphiles

One star for me means the book was so bad I didn't want to finish it. Two stars means I at least finished it, and then wondered why I bothered.

On the other side I've given 58 books five stars, however a lot of those I read before they were group picks. I think my favourite books I read because they were group picks are probably:
The Terror
The Player of Games
The Speed of Dark
Gun, With Occasional Music
To Say Nothing of the Dog
The Lions of Al-Rassan
and Consider Phlebas

Five Star Reads (and not even all of them)
• The Fifth Season
• Under Heaven
• The Golem and the Jinni
• The Name of the Wind
• The Blade Itself

Two Star Reads
• Little, Big
• Too Like the Lightning

Better than I expected:
Dawn -Unexpectedly good and creepy
Hyperion - Amazing!!
The Fifth Season - Amazing!!
The Ocean at the End of the Lane - so good!!
Children of Time - Amazing!!
The Golem and the Jinni - so good!!

Expectations Not Met:
Red Rising - did not like
Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch- disappointed
Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang - plodding and silly
Rendezvous with Rama - seriously dated and disappointing
Lock In - Meh

Name of the Wind should definitely be on my list, too. Stunning book.

Monica, I'm still sad that Children of Time can't possibly have the spiders removed :(

Allison wrote: "Here are mine:

Lowlights:
1. Pushing Ice - gave up on this one before I got very far.
2. Hounded - Atticus annoyed me. DNFed.
3. Wizard's First Rule - wis..."

After I got done with the Wizard's First Rule I thought of the Emperor's line in Amadeus.

'Too Many Notes.'

(Because it's Friday and I am done, and I liked how Monica phrased hers.)

Here is a list so far of things with multiple votes!

Better than expected:
The Name of the Wind - 3
The Fifth Season - 3
The Night Circus - 2

Did not meet expectations:
Little, Big - 2

I will go Kim's route and list the books I almost certainly would not have read if it weren't for the group.

Loved!
Midnight Riot
Storm Front - the series not this book
Broken Monsters
Prince of Thorns
33 total 5 star books from the shelf

Some disappointments
Gardens of the Moon
Little, Big
The Passage
Only 19 DNF,1 or 2 star books for me

If you're keeping a list then here are the more popular ones I would recommend:

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet
The Fifth Season
The Handmaid's Tale
Kindred

And these are the books I was disappointed by:

The Stars My Destination
All the Birds in the Sky
Red Rising
The Bear and the Nightingale

Anna wrote: "If you're keeping a list then here are the more popular ones I would recommend:

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet
The Fifth Season
[book:The Handmaid's Tale|384..."

I know, I sort of changed rules midflight. And I might change them back, we'll see how the rest of the afternoon goes. Your dislike of Bear and Nightingale has me shook! I'm trying to finish that now.

It's not necessarily a dislike, just a disappoinment :)

Anna wrote: "It's not necessarily a dislike, just a disappoinment :)"

Fair enough :)

Allison wrote: "Name of the Wind should definitely be on my list, too. Stunning book.

Monica, I'm still sad that Children of Time can't possibly have the spiders removed :("

By about 3 chapters in, I stopped thinking of them as spiders and thought of them as an evolving alien civilization.

Also too, my list should include The Martian because of my gushing love of that whole reading experience!! But my "better than expected" list was already getting too long...and I haven't read all that many on our bookshelves. Maybe 60 total. We do pick some great ones!!

I read some of these prior to club, but here are my hi/lo-lights:

Loved:
The Eye of the World
The Stand
The Name of the Wind
Ready Player One
Watchmen
The Night Circus
The Fellowship of the Ring
Ender's Game
Slaughterhouse Five
Snow Crash
The Fifth Season
A Wizard of Earthsea
A Game of Thrones

Disappointed:
Lions of Al-Rassan
The Stars My Destination
Armada (funny given RP1 on loved list)
Red Mars
Zodiac (funny given Snow Crash)

Of the 85 group books I’ve read, below are some of the standouts, either good or bad. If you were to go look at my ratings for some of them, they might seem contradictory, but I guess most of us know what it’s like to rate a book based on your initial impression and then find you remember it differently over time. This apparently happens to me a lot. :)

Lesser-known books (I think?) which were memorable for me in a good way:
* The Briar King. I loved this whole series. It’s a nice, lesser-known epic fantasy series that grows in depth and complexity as it progresses.

* Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. I only rated it 3 stars, but I was completely engrossed by it while I read it, and it’s stuck with me since.

* The Dragon's Path. This one might not qualify as lesser-known? I loved the whole series.

* In the Night Garden. Is this well-known? It seems like it ought to be, but I’ve hardly ever seen it mentioned anywhere. I loved the nested story format.

* John Dies at the End. Fun, juvenile humor with some surprising depth and just a teensy bit of creepiness. This book should be avoided by people who hate anything which might be described as crazy, vulgar, gross, or juvenile.

Even though it’s well-known, I have to mention The Sparrow because I was so pleasantly surprised by it, and I never would have read it if it hadn’t been on the group shelf.

There are a lot of well-known books that I also greatly enjoyed, but it’s too hard to figure out where to draw the line because there are so many of them. The well-known books are already on lots of lists anyway, so they’re more likely to be on people’s radar already. On the other hand, it’s also hard to figure out where to draw the line between “lesser-known” and “well-known”!

Books I didn’t like (whether well-known or not):
* The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales. Sooooo much repetition. I read it slowly over about six months and it was still too repetitive. Did I mention it was repetitive? Also, it repeated itself a lot.

* Regarding Ducks and Universes. Fun premise, bad execution.

* Stranger in a Strange Land. Too much mysticism and too many monologues in the second half.

* Weaveworld. I will forever remember this as "the menstruum book". Too many uses of the word menstruum, general cheesiness, and tedium.

* Wild Seed. I was disappointed by this after the Xenogenesis trilogy by the same author, which I loved but didn’t list above because I consider it well-known.

Christopher wrote: "Armada (funny given RP1 on loved list)"

I think Armada ended up on a lot of peoples disappointed list.

YouKneeK wrote: "Of the 85 group books I’ve read, below are some of the standouts, either good or bad. If you were to go look at my ratings for some of them, they might seem contradictory, but I guess most of us kn..."

You crack me up.

Better than expected:
The Name of the Wind - 4
The Fifth Season - 5
The Night Circus - 3

Did not meet expectations:
Little, Big - 3
Red Mars - 2
Red Rising - 2

Favorites
Arcadia
The City & the City
Ancillary Justice
The Eyre Affair

I've read all of those multiple times.

Loved
Gun, With Occasional Music
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Broken Monsters

Unexpected Lov
The Black Prism
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
The Warrior's Apprentice

Wanted to engage in aggressive arson after reading
I Am Legend
Stranger in a Strange Land

A dog was raped so this gets its own hate category
Altered Carbon

Sarah Anne wrote: "
Favorites

Arcadia
The City & the City
Ancillary Justice
The Eyre Affair

I've read all of those multiple times.


Loved

[book:Gun..."

LOL at your categories. Except for the poor dog.

Kim wrote: "Christopher wrote: "Armada (funny given RP1 on loved list)"

I think Armada ended up on a lot of peoples disappointed list."

I haven't finished that, but compared to Ready Player One it is a bit of a let down. Still Well Written, just not the same punch.

Sarah Anne wrote: "A dog was raped so this gets its own hate category
Altered Carbon "

This seems like something that most people would hate. So, I went to go look at the book expecting to see a low number of ratings with a low star score. I was really surprised to see over 40k ratings at 4.1. If that's part of this book, what were the redeeming factors that made people rate it so highly!?

Most people somehow miss it! It's a scene with a badly injured and suffering dog and they go around the corner and see a guy cleaning his penis off. Somehow people aren't putting the two scenes together.

Also, some people probably don't care.

Kristin B. wrote: "Sarah Anne wrote: "A dog was raped so this gets its own hate category
Altered Carbon "

This seems like something that most people would hate. So, I went to go look at the book expecting to see a ..."

I am super squicked by rape and I had to really think hard to recall this part of the story. I'd read it as general abuse, which is NOT GOOD but it made me able to skate past it, I guess?

...It's really a fascinating book if you like sci fi detective thrillers, and can stomach it now thinking about the poor dog.

I've talked to SO many people who didn't notice. People who would normally be bothered. It's like it's because it's two different scenes people aren't making the connection, even though they're back to back.

Sarah Anne wrote: "I've talked to SO many people who didn't notice. People who would normally be bothered. It's like it's because it's two different scenes people aren't making the connection, even though they're bac..."

Yeah, that must have been it. I got "area where people abuse dogs" and to compound how gross this part of town is, "dude who is up to something perverted." My mind did not compute.

Some of my favorites:

The Stars My Destination
The Library at Mount Char
City of Stairs
Midnight Riot
The City & the City

Some disappointments:

The Bear and the Nightingale
Hounded
The Rook
A Canticle for Leibowitz

YouKneeK wrote: "I guess most of us know what it’s like to rate a book based on your initial impression and then find you remember it differently over time. This apparently happens to me a lot. :) "

To paraphrase the saying, when we reread (or remember) a book, it becomes different. Not because the book has changed but because we have.

I'm adding The Girl with All the Gifts which I definitely would not have read outside of this group and War for the Oaks as some of my best reading from the group shelf.

I've not read nearly enough with the group this year, but of the ones I did read along the way, all of them were at least 3 star, so that's pretty cool!

Some pleasant surprises I wouldn't have picked up without the group:
- The Golem and the Jinni
- Starship Troopers
- Redshirts
- Rivers of London

Some disappointments:
- Cloud Atlas
- Nexus
- The Night Circus
- Foundation

Another year has passed! What were the books that you liked more than anticipated? Which let you down?

If you can't remember what we read this year, here's the 2018 list:


China Mountain Zhang
Jade City
Rosewater
The Song of Achilles
Babel-17
The Traitor Baru Cormorant
The Calculating Stars
The Poppy War
Parable of the Sower
The Changeling
Sea of Rust
The Farthest Shore
Ancillary Mercy
Into the Drowning Deep
The Underground Railroad
Nimona
Lord of Light
Among Others
The Power
The Invisible Library
Artemis
Winter Tide
Ninefox Gambit
Touch

If you want to update your overall list, too, please tell us about other books off the shelf as you see fit!

Yes, obviously you can talk about the older stuff too! :D I just started thinking about the 2018 choices myself, and wanted to see it listed, so I thought maybe others might find it useful, too.

I still need to read Jade City, so I'll be back after that.

Of the 24 reads reads for 2018...

I had previously read 4:
Ninefox Gambit (in 2017), Lord of Light (in 1999!), Nimona (in 2015), Underground Railroad (in 2016)

I finished 7: Touch, Winter Tide, The Invisible Library, Among Others, Sea of Rust, Changeling, Babel-17

I started but didn’t finish 4:
Artemis, The Power, The Poppy War, The Song of Achilles

I’m currently reading 3:
China Mountain Zhang, Rosewater, Jade City

Of the 11 I’ve finished, Among Others, Ninefox Gambit, and Lord of Light were the ones I’d rate 5 stars.

The biggest disappointments would be Winter Tide (too boring, not a Cthulhu mythos fan), The Changeling (too violent, not into horror), Babel-17 (not enough plot), and the 4 I didn’t finish (although I may come back to them to see if they end better)

Christopher wrote: "Of the 11 I’ve finished, Among Others, Ninefox Gambit, and Lord of Light were the ones I’d rate 5 stars..."

These were three of my favorite as well!

I will have read 29-30 books off the group shelf this year, and I had a sort of up and down year, so I'll focus on the ones that surprised me.

Pleasant surprises were:

The Dispossessed - it's a dense, complicated book about politics. I was afraid it'd be too dry for me, but it was an absolute masterpiece.

Among Others - it's so light on plot but it just captivated me.

Lord of Light - I was not expecting the book to be like this. I went in dreading a classic tropey thing that wouldn't age well and instead found a fantastical blend of really fun sci fi and mythology.

Babel-17 - This one seemed like it would be so wild, sort of like a PKD book, which don't usually work with me. But it was so thoughtful and spoke directly to my inner language nerd.

Ninefox Gambit - I picked this one! This was my first ever mod pick and I thought I was gonna puke I was so nervous. But I loved it! It rattled around my head and by the time I could get a hand on it, I was in love.

Didn't live up to my expectations:

The Traitor Baru Cormorant
The Invisible Library
The Tombs of Atuan
The Eye of the World

And I didn't finish Sea of Rust or Winter Tide, they were just not meant for me.

I've said my piece on the disappointing ones in my reviews. Can't win 'em all!

Also I read two novels in 2018 for the first time from prior year’s club selections that I would give 5 stars: Children of Time and The Curse of Chalion.

Niño s was one that I read only b/c of the group and I enjoyed it!

🙄N.I.M.O.N.A

Rachel wrote: "Nimona was one that I read only b/c of the group and I enjoyed it!"

Yay! I'm always happy when people love Nimona! <3

Rachel's autocorrects are most definitely among this year's group highlights!

Anna wrote: "Rachel's autocorrects are most definitely among this year's group highlights!"

Definitely! I must admit, even if I'm not following the topic I always click on Rachel's comments to see if there is another cute autocorrection.

Rachel's comments are always worth reading and when we're blessed with a comment with an autocorrect, it's just the cherry on top.

Awww you guys 🤗😂

I think I read all the wrong group books this year... :(

I only had one five star read for the group picks in 2018:
The Calculating Stars

There were still a few I enjoyed though (4 stars):
Into the Drowning Deep
The Poppy War
Nimona
The Power

Older book club picks (read this year- also 4 star reads):
A Game of Thrones - this one was a surprise because I'm the only person on the planet who doesn't lurv the show, but I did enjoy the book. Hoping to get through the others in the future.
Annihilation
Ancillary Justice
The Three-Body Problem
Arcadia
The Golem and the Jinni
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Storm Front

I only read three of the selections this year (or tried to):

Jade City: if this hadn't been a BR with one of my GR pals, it would likely have been a DNF before the halfway point. It made a huge turnaround to become one of my favorites this year.

Parable of the Sower: although not as harrowing as expected, it was a discomfiting story with some extrapolations that are sadly believable, i.e. that a U.S. with a lack of food wouldn't be lacking in guns. I intend to read the second book next year.

Winter Tide: a somber/slow book and a reading slump were not a good mix, and this ended up being a DNF. I'm willing to give this one another try sometime.