Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion

It's time to start thinking about setting up our Group Reading Challenges for 2015.

(For those who haven't participated before, our Group Challenges let you set a reading goal for yourself to read a certain number of books that fit 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.)

Last year we had three year-long Challenges and a couple of shorter, 3-months Challenges. The full-year challenges were:

The 2014 SF&F Reading Challenge, to set yourself a goal to read X sci-fi/fantasy books in 2014.

The 2014 SF&F Explorer Challenge, to set yourself a goal to read X books by authors you hadn't read before.

The 2014 SF&F Awards Challenge, to set yourself a goal to read books which have won Awards.

We also had two 3-month Challenges:

The SF&F 2014 Historic Challenge, to set yourself a goal to read X older SF/F books written before 1950.

The SF&F Graphic Novel Challenge, to set yourself a goal to read X sci-fi/fantasy Graphic Novels.

You can see all our past & present SF&HF Group Challenges here. (Or click on "More Challenges..." below the Challenges section on the group home page.


Because you're setting a goal for yourself, you can set the terms for yourself, too. For example, reading Award-Winning books that you hadn't read before, or Exploring authors you haven't read before who aren't first-time authors, or reading Historic books from before 1900, or whatever restrictions you want to set for yourself.


Last year the annual Challenges were more popular than the 3-month Challenges, though I don't know whether that's because of the length, or the challenge topic, or just the fact that they didn't appear on the Group's homepage (Goodreads only shows 2 Group Challenges on the Group homepage.)


So, what do people think about new Group Challenges for our sci-fi and fantasy genre in 2015?

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. I'm also leaning towards new versions of the Explore and Awards challenges. Do people want to reprise the Historic and/or Graphic Novel challenges, and if so to make them full year this year, or should we shorten all the Challenges?

Please share your thoughts below!

As a new member of the group I quite like the three year long challenges of 2014.
As regards the Awards challenge it might be a good idea to create a list of those works which have won major awards over the years.
It could also be a good idea to create a challenge which focuses on short stories, novelettes and novellas - in many instances it has been through these shorter fiction forms that I have discovered authors both new and also from past eras.

I'm really open to trying any reading challenge. One that I've seen in other groups that makes a certain sort of sense is to challenge members to read a certain number of the book discussion titles for the coming year. This may give added incentive to participate in discussions?

I like a few challenges - dont feel the need to repeat the graphic novel challenge which I participated in or the History one (which I didnt) but fine for them to be there if others want them).

I like the idea of a challenge based around the 2015 discussion picks (might motivate people to read and join in a few more discussions including myself).

I tend to find when pushed to read more short fiction or introduce myself to more short fiction writers I am glad I did. I was thinking we could do a group challenge around short fiction although not 100% sure whether this would be best using the Goodreads challenge set up as short fiction is only intermittently listed there ( only if published seperately online or in digital formats is it supposed to have its own listing). Could be all participants list 3 short stories (one pre 2000, one 2000's and one from 2011 or more recent) freely available online.

David wrote: "It could also be a good idea to create a challenge which focuses on short stories, novelettes and novellas..."

I love short fiction myself (read 5-6 pulp magazines a month), and I'd love to figure out the mechanics of a short works challenge, but as Ben pointed out, Goodreads doesn't generally record individual short stories/novelette/novella, unless they have a stand-alone publication. So while, e.g., Elantris has a listing because it was published as a distinct book, and Burning Girls has a listing because it was published online (and someone cared enough to enter it in the Goodreads database), stories that only appear in Anthologies, Collections or the print/pay magazines (e.g. Asimov's, Analog, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Apex) don't show up individually. I'm open to suggestions of how we could manage it technically within Goodread's limitations.

Could we not choose an anthology and read one story per week. The Years Best Of are a good source for current sf and if previous years were chose. We could go back in time. There's always other anthologies which collect stories from across decades.

David wrote: "As regards the Awards challenge it might be a good idea to create a list of those works which have won major awards over the years...."

That would be a huge list and take a lot of effort to compile. For many major SF/F Award, Wikipedia has comprehensive lists of nominees and winners in all cetegories: The Hugo Awards (voted by fans thru WorldCon) and the Nebula Award (voted by professional authors through the SFWA.)

There are a lot of other of Science Fiction / Fantasy awards, some based on geographical criteria (the Aurora Award for Canadian SF/F, and the Ditmar awards for Australian SF/F); some for related sub-genre, such as the Stoker award for horror or the Eisner award for comics and graphic novels; some for combined criteria, such as the Arthur C Clarke award for British science fiction (not fantasy) or the British Fantasy Award; and some with unique selection criteria, such as the PK Dick award for best science fiction published first in paperback; or the Gemmel Award for writing Fantasy that most closely imitates David Gemmel, or the Tiptree award for exploring women's issues.

Several magazines have their own awards, such as Locus & Aurealis by polling their subscribers.

Then there are some distinctly regional awards, such as the Endeavor Award for SF/F written by authors in the Pacific Northwest (there are a scary number of SF/F authors in the Seattle-Richland-Portland triangle) or the newly inaugurated Manley Wade Wellman Award (for North Carolina SF/F authors?)

The cool thing about setting your own Challenge goal is you can pick and choose for yourself which awards you think should "count", as well as other criteria. (When you set up a challenge, you specify a unique bookshelf from your profile, and books only count towards that challenge if you choose to place it on the shelf. You can add a comment to your Challenge stating any special criteria you choose.)


One of the best sources of information is the Science Fiction Awards DataBase maintained by Locus Magazine.

David wrote: "Could we not choose an anthology and read one story per week. The Years Best Of are a good source for current sf and if previous years were chose. We could go back in time. There's always other anthologies which collect stories from across decades."

This is more a problem of mechanics than concept: There just isn't a mechanism on Goodreads to include individual stories in a Challenge. The Goodreads Group Challenge mechanism lets you set a goal in books, and then designate specific books on your personal "read" bookshelf as belonging to that challenge. Goodreads's definition of books can be fuzzy, including some material that's "published" online, but it does explicitly exclude individual short stories from an anthology or collection (unless those stories have also been published in a standalone venue, such as online.)

We could have a challenge dedicated to anthologies and collections, if folks think that's a Challenge they are interested in. But within the Goodreads Challenge mechanism I don't see a way to count off the individual stories you've read as progress to your Challenge goal.

We do have a monthly Short Story/Novella/Anthology book discussion which often goes through an anthology story by story. (E.g., this month's discussion of "Twelve Tomorrows".

Aleah wrote: "One that I've seen in other groups that makes a certain sort of sense is to challenge members to read a certain number of the book discussion titles..."

Ben wrote: "I like the idea of a challenge based around the 2015 discussion picks (might motivate people to read and join in a few more discussions including myself)."

This is certainly doable, and it sounds like a good idea to promote participation in our group discussions. I'll put it on the list.

I think with short stories there is the challenge that using the GR set up - if there is enough interest in this (4 people up for it) then it might be worth doing. Could always do offical picks as stories with a unique goodreads listing and some bonus stories that arent.

Will try to join in some of the challenges, whichever are selected, could do with extra prompters and challenges to make myself time for reading as I always enjoy it and value it when I make the time.

Ben wrote: "I like a few challenges - don't feel the need to repeat the graphic novel challenge which I participated in or the History one (which I didn't) but fine for them to be there if others want them)...."

Last year, I think I got the most value from the Graphic Novel Challenge. I hadn't really looked at GNs/comics much in recent times (when I listed my favorites, they were mostly from the 80's :). But asking the group for Graphic Novel recommendations gave me a couple of solid one-shots and a couple of series to follow.

Ben wrote: "I think with short stories there is the challenge that using the GR set up - if there is enough interest in this (4 people up for it) then it might be worth doing. Could always do official picks as stories with a unique goodreads listing and some bonus stories that aren't...."

Maybe it's too much holiday partying, but I'm not quite grokking what you're suggesting. A hybrid Challenge/Book Club for short stories where 4 or more people participate, selecting by mutual agreement a set of individual stories that are published separately (so they have a Goodreads "book" listing)?

G33, glad you enjoyed the GN Challenge. :D

As for me, I quite enjoyed the Explorer and Awards challenges and would like to do them again.
Concerning duration, my vote would be to do the same as this last year; both annual and quarterly.
I also like Aleah's idea of a book discussion challenge.

I did create a 2015 SF&F Short Story Challenge, but I haven't opened it to sign-ups yet, pending being able to explain what it is.

Shall I just say it's for short stories, novelettes & novella, and leave it as a problem for the participants to select those stories that are cataloged individually on Goodreads?

I think that works best G33z33r - I cannot think of an effective way that works within GR other than for it to include anything that GR identifies as a "book" that is also either a short story or a collection of short stories. I could maybe start a thread in which members participating in the challenge (and those who arent as well) could suggest stories for the challenge.