SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

If you got to choose, which five books would be in your dream mod poll? One scifi poll, one fantasy poll. No repeats (group shelf), no short fiction, no graphic novels, no sequels, minimum length 170 pages, no other restrictions. Go! 😊

Yeah I know, super easy question. Also please note that it’s not the same as your top5 favorite books! These are books you think the group would like, or you think they’d spark interesting discussion.

(No, it’s not what you think, I’m just curious!)

The easiest way to see if something is already on the group shelf is by searching the mod account's shelves. Other ways to search here.

Fantasy:

Jhereg by Steven Brust
Trader by Charles de Lint - this is a standalone book
Sword-Dancer by Jennifer Roberson
A Plague of Giants by Kevin Hearne
Dragonsbane by Barbara Hambly

Science Fiction:

Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany
Emergence by David R. Palmer
Rats, Bats & Vats by Dave Freer = hilarious


Still need to find some SciFi to add

I love both of those!

CBRetriever wrote: "Fantasy:

Jhereg by Steven Brust
Trader by Charles de Lint - this is a standalone book
Sword-Dancer by

Did you edit this post, or am I losing my marbles?! I had thought that Jhereg and Sword-Dancer were the only two you had mentioned. Those are the two I was professing my love for 😻

Where's Youkneek?!? Probably waiting on Ernest hand and foot. I didn't tell goodreads to italicize my reply. I know I didn't, because I don't know how to italicize!

LOL Michelle, Ernest just meowed at me to get in here and answer you ASAP!

When you click reply, it inserts italic syntax to italicize what you quote. And when the last part of the thing GR quotes happens to be a link, it screws up its own HTML. This is another example of how reliable Goodreads is. ;)

If you edit it and delete everything after the non-linked “by” after Sword-Dancer, it will probably clear up the issue.

Edit to clarify: by "delete everything" I meant "delete everything up until the end of the quote". Don't delete your own post. :)

Michelle wrote: "Did you edit this post, or am I losing my marbles?! I had thought that [book:Jhereg and Sword-Dancer were the only two you had mentioned. Those are the two I was professing my love for"

No, I hadn't hit enter until I had 5 books listed. You'd see a "last edited" after my name if that was the case.

I'm trying to come up with books by authors that we should have on our group shelf but don't for some reason. I'm having trouble with the SciFi part of the lists as I haven't run across that many recently that either aren't on our list and, if the author is, it's been too recent.

YouKneeK wrote: "LOL Michelle, Ernest just meowed at me to get in here and answer you ASAP!


He's a good boy!

Then I am losing my marbles ;). And I am having that trouble myself, which is why I haven't volunteered any titles

you also need to not hit enter after the quoted bit, but to place your cursor in the line below the quoted material. Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing other people's lists

In case my clumsy attempt to describe what to delete didn’t make any sense, here’s a picture. You would delete the part highlighted in blue so the quoted part doesn’t end with a link.

https://i.imgur.com/SKZ098T.png
(view spoiler)[ (hide spoiler)]

YouKneeK wrote: "In case my clumsy attempt to describe what to delete didn’t make any sense, here’s a picture. You would delete the part highlighted in blue so the quoted part doesn’t end with a link.

https://i.im..."

Aha! I felt really stupid for not understanding before. I'll give it another whirl.

Eureka! What in the world would I do without you?

Haha, I should have just posted a pic from the start so I would make sense! Glad you got it!

I saw 13 new posts and was like ”Wow so many people have posted lists!” but of course it was just Ernest walking across the keyboard 😸

Anna wrote: "I saw 13 new posts and was like ”Wow so many people have posted lists!” but of course it was just Ernest walking across the keyboard 😸"

🐱

I don't believe Carol Berg is on our shelf, so Flesh and Spirit, or Janny Wurts' The Curse of the Mistwraith for Fantasy. Still working on SciFi.

For SciFi, CJ Cherryh's The Faded Sun Trilogy, (I haven't seen these books as individuals, only within the trilogy), Kay Kenyon's Bright of the Sky, or Chris Wooding's Retribution Falls.

These are also some of the titles I'd prefer to read in group. I'm avoiding books already in the group shelf.

Sci-fi:

Ancestral Night by Elizabeth Bear
Anathem by Neal Stephenson
Edges by Linda Nagata
To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini
Salvation by Peter F. Hamilton

Fantasy:

The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
Kingdoms at War by Lindsay Buroker
Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse
Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett
Bacchanal by Veronica Henry

Science Fiction:



Terminal Alliance by Jim C. Hines


Fantasy:



The Many-Coloured Land (and all the others) by Julian May But this could also be in science fiction
The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
TBA

Leonie, some of those are already on the shelf :) And I really should finally get to Illuminae!

Anna wrote: "Leonie, some of those are already on the shelf :) And I really should finally get to Illuminae!"

🤦🏽‍♀️ I really should have checked the shelf properly. Sorry!

And yes, you really should! If you're an audiobook person, I can't recommend the audiobooks highly enough.

I remember you recced them to me years ago! They’re on my list, I actually thought about it last week, even looked at the audiobooks! 😄

And I have now done what I should have the first time, and checked the bookshelf properly. Sigh...clearly I didn't read the post properly.

Haha don’t worry, it’s not so serious 😄 I’ve gotten excited about a book before and thought the group should read it, only to realize it’s already on the shelf!

Bacchanal looks interesting, and it's narrated by Robin Miles, so it went straight to my TBR!

The easiest way to see if something is already on the group shelf is by searching the mod account's shelves. The bookshelf search in group isn't very good.

Anna wrote: "The easiest way to see if something is already on the group shelf is by searching the mod account's shelves. The bookshelf search in group isn't very good."

A direct link, to the shelves sorted alpha by title, as that's the way I'll look and it might help someone else: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...

I just directly search on the search bar at top left side of shelve. If a book is in shelve, it shows there. This way it's quite easy for me.

added a few more on my lists

I added bookshelf search to the GR help thread, so anything people want to add on that topic, please do so there, so others can see it in the future!

If we could second things, I would second
+1 Ancestral Night
+1 Retribution Falls
+1 The Curse of the Mistwraith (or To Ride Hell's Chasm because it's a standalone?)
+1 Salvation

My own additions:

Fantasy:
- The City of Brass
- The Unspoken Name
- Daggerspell
- The Bone Ships
- The Unbroken

Science Fiction:
- City of Diamond
- War of the Maps
- The Last Watch
- Velocity Weapon won the poll for next month so yay!!
- The New Space Opera disqualified: anthology

YA (just in case we ever have a YA category mod poll):
- An Ember in the Ashes
- Six Crimson Cranes (this was so lovely, I want to share it)
- Fireborne
- Illuminae
- Navigating the Stars

If we do a YA poll, we'll ask Hank to populate it :P

I'll just say this once more, because this isn't a real nomination, just for fun, but mods do follow the same rules as everyone else during nominations! So no anthologies/collections or any short fiction of any kind would ever be in a mod poll! Unless of course we decided to do a short fic themed month, but that would be an exception. All the relevant rules are listed in the first post of this thread, unless I forgot something, do let me know and I'll add it. Allison and I also don't use authors or books that have been in polls in the past 24 months, but let's leave that restriction out, because it rules out a lot of great stuff. So basically novels (standalone or first in series) that aren't already on the shelf!

I still see books that are already on the shelf, I don't care, again this is for fun, but it might be cool to "vote" in everyone's poll, and that'll be harder if there are lots of books that are already on the shelf.

Oh nice! I only just saw this thread now cause of the not notifying of the notifications.

Fantasy:

- Or What You Will by Jo Walton
- Empire in Black and Gold by Adrian Tchaikovsky (I can not live without mentioning him once ...)
- Carpentaria by Alexis Wright (though not sure where it belongs. Its magical realism kind of Murakami)
- Birds of Paradise by Oliver K. Langmead
- A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki (same as for Carpentaria)



Science Fiction

- The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson
- We Are Satellites by Sarah Pinsker
- Unholy Land by Lavie Tidhar
- The Dazzle of Day by Molly Gloss
- Passage by Connie Willis

Resists the joke of posting The Quantum Magician five times

A poll of the books that I regularly try to get on the shelf because I think they'd be good to talk about on VBC would be

The Steerswoman's Road
The Quantum Magician
Empire of the Ants
Usurper of the Sun
The Stories of Ibis

But coming up with a different five would take an evening of thought.

A fantasy poll is beyond me. Most of the fantasy novels that I've loved only came to my attention through this group (The Mere Wife, Sword of Kaigen, The Golem and The Djinn, Uprooted/Spinning Silver). The Fantasy novels I come across through my library all play in the same three sandboxes and don't do anything in the genre that I want to talk positively about with others.

Having given it considerable thought, I've decided that the only titles that I can name for a dream poll are books I've already read, which is more a desire to share my loves with the group than any poll I'd actually dream of.

I meant to babble a bit about what I was thinking when I started this. There are so many reasons to use a book in a mod poll, and to choose which books go together. Strategy!

You could use five books you've absolutely loved, that way whichever wins, you'll be happy. Or will you? What about the overwhelming sadness for the other four, they won't get to be in another poll, ever! Not unless someone nominates them for a theme.

You could use one great book and four sucky ones, hoping people recognize the great one, and thus guarantee you've pretty much dictated which book wins. But what if you guessed wrong, and people are super excited about a turd of a book, and then you'll have to pretend to be happy the group is reading it?! (I've never done this btw, the temptation is real, but the risk is too high :D)

The same is true if one of your books is very hyped. It doesn't really matter which books you put in a poll with the new Sanderson, so they're pretty much wasted on that poll. Unless you put up five very hyped books, hoping they'll balance each other out. But are there five hyped books that aren't already on the shelf and you're excited about?

I guess you could also choose five books that you want to discuss, even if you didn't like them very much? Misery does love company.

And of course, you could select five books you haven't read (I often did* this), hoping that you'll finally get to at least one of them when it wins.

* It feels weird using the past tense, but it's accurate for the moment :)

Nice babble!


I thought of the 4 dud option and rejected it knowing that it would almost certainly result in my preference losing.

Yeah, considering how rare it is for me to predict which book wins a poll, I wouldn't want to take the risk.

Despite the fact that I'm currently threatening a killing spree if my book written by a white male author doesn't make it on to the next poll, I'm mostly concerned with getting the groups bookshelf to represent a broader range of what's out there in the genre. I'm perfectly okay with you putting up mod selected polls of five somewhat obscure and wholly unknown SFF stories.

Yeah but this is about what YOU want to put in a poll! I remember being like a kid in a candy store when I did my first mod poll :D

Perhaps:

• Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
• Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi
• Or What You Will by Jo Walton
• Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
(• My Real Children by Jo Walton why not...)

• The Human Son by Adrian J. Walker
• Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
• Cyteen by C.J. Cherryh
• The Expert System's Brother by Adrian Tchaikovsky
• The Man Who Ended the World by Jason Gurley

Anna wrote: "I meant to babble a bit about what I was thinking when I started this. There are so many reasons to use a book in a mod poll, and to choose which books go together. Strategy!

You could use five bo..."

I would always put five new and vivid books in poll. So, whichever of them get elected, I get to read something new without having to see much of negative reviews 😅

And yeah, I would prefer the book with most gorgeous cover if enough review is not there.

Hmm, I didn't think to specify this in the first post, but I don't think we could have two books from one author in a poll. I've certainly wanted to do just that, but alas, no :( It's fine if you want to leave it though, just saying in case anyone wants to play by the Real Rules :D

(Also Expert System wouldn't be allowed, since it's a novella.)

OK since it came up, my dream mod poll, the one I don't think I'll ever be allowed to use in real life, is a fantasy poll with five books by Zen Cho :)

Yup... the other Walton was rather an 'alternative' anyway, as I couldn't think of anything else for now.

Meh about Expert System, but that does rather explain why it hasn't shown up in the group (which I was wondering about).

Or What You Will is better than My Real Children? :o I really need to get on that!

Anna wrote: "Or What You Will is better than My Real Children? :o I really need to get on that!"

For concept and possible ensuing conversation! Since this was 'not your favorite necessarily' poll <:D

I did find My Real Children the more moving and lingering one of the two.

OK yeah I forgot what I said :P But it must be pretty good since both you and Gabi chose it!

Anna wrote: "OK yeah I forgot what I said :P But it must be pretty good since both you and Gabi chose it!"

It has a cool meta of the meta concept - which always gets me (I'm so easily caught ;D)