Fantasy Buddy Reads discussion

Hi everyone!

This is the new space to find people to buddy read with and plan out your schedules.

Please note, a lot of people in the group plan their schedules months in advance, so if you don't find anyone who is interested in the book you are reading, try again for a different time :)

When you have found your buddy read group and chosen a date to read with others, fill out the info here:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FA...

*When filling out the name of books that are part of a series, use the format:
Title (Series name #_)

Also, make a separate request for each book in a series that you want to set up BRs for. Every book needs its own request.

Ooh, first one!

Guess I'll just repost here then:

Anyone fancy reading Legend by David Gemmell with me? I'd like to start it this week...

I know you were interested Monika, will just see if anyone else is...

The old thread was getting clunky... I don't think Goodreads can handle threads with 150+ pages very well... any time we rolled over into a new page, I'd be inundated with failed to load comment errors that threw me to the first page (usually that only happens when the comment no longer exists, but in these cases there ARE comments on the newest page)...

Anyway, I updated the instructions to the BR Request Form, so people should remember to input series & book # more often now :)

Checked my shelf Beena. No Legend on it, but I'll join as soon as I find it somewhere :)

Beena wrote: "Ooh, first one!

Guess I'll just repost here then:

Anyone fancy reading Legend by David Gemmell with me? I'd like to start it this week...

I know you were interested Monika, will ju..."

If you don't mind putting the date for the end of the week, I could join...

Beena wrote: "Ooh, first one!

Guess I'll just repost here then:

Anyone fancy reading Legend by David Gemmell with me? I'd like to start it this week...

I know you were interested Monika, will ju..."
Beena - I'm very interested. Gemmell is on my high on my list of authors I keep meaning to read, but have not.

Also I had put out a invite for Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City. No date in mind yet. I think Laura and Nirkatze were both interested. anyone else?

Rob wrote: "Also I had put out a invite for Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City. No date in mind yet. I think Laura and Nirkatze were both interested. anyone else?"

Just reiterating that that sounds fun... end of months are most free right now...

Great guys, I'll put a request in for 28th then, since Nirkatze requested end of the week. :)

Rob wrote: "Also I had put out a invite for Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City. No date in mind yet. I think Laura and Nirkatze were both interested. anyone else?"

I'll likely join in.

20th or 24th of Feb sound good then for Sixteen Ways?

Rob, sounds great!

Choko wrote: "Rob, sounds great!"

Ditto that!

Going to be reading this for an in person book club I'm in. Probably starting in the next couple weeks. Anyone interested in reading with me?

Let the Right One In

Elizabeth wrote: "Going to be reading this for an in person book club I'm in. Probably starting in the next couple weeks. Anyone interested in reading with me?

Let the Right One In"

Intrigued, but not sure I'll be able to squeeze it in... if you find someone else to make it official, I'll try to haunt... or maybe read in Vagabond?

On that note, I have two books I'm reading for in-person book clubs coming up too--

Before Friday, 2/3--The Bad Muslim Discount

Before Friday 2/10--The Swiss Family Robinson

Anyone interested in joining me?

Nirkatze wrote: "Elizabeth wrote: "Going to be reading this for an in person book club I'm in. Probably starting in the next couple weeks. Anyone interested in reading with me?

Let the Right One In"
..."

Try some blasphemy ;)

The book has 2 movies... a Swedish original and American adaptation with Chloe Moretz, I think...

I did a Google search, and there's a much newer TV series, too...

You interested in joining Iain?

No... I'm overbooked... I was joking that watching the movie/show was good enough for a "Buddy Read"... like people that do book reports by watching the movie...

Rob wrote: "20th or 24th of Feb sound good then for Sixteen Ways?"

Works for me!

You watch the movie, I'll read the book and we compare notes. See how much they got wrong. My bookclub will probably be watching the movie once we read. We did that for the last book that had an adaptation.

Elizabeth wrote: "You watch the movie, I'll read the book and we compare notes. See how much they got wrong. My bookclub will probably be watching the movie once we read. We did that for the last book that had an ad..."

What day is your in-person meeting, Elizabeth?

March 4th. we read the full book and talk about it then.

Elizabeth wrote: "March 4th. we read the full book and talk about it then."

Oh, that's plenty of time! I don't know how much time you need to read it, but I could fit it in the end of February...

want to say around the 18th? That would give me two weeks to read it for bookclub. I got the kindle version, may get the audio, not sure yet.

My bookclub meets about every 6 weeks. It's my turn to pick next and I'm thinking about picking a re-read. last two times it was my choice I just chose a book from my to-read list and they weren't that good.

Elizabeth wrote: "want to say around the 18th? That would give me two weeks to read it for bookclub. I got the kindle version, may get the audio, not sure yet."

18th is fine!

I get the feeling--I did the same thing for my local book club... this is the first year I've been in a book circle like this, where we all pick a book in turn... and I'm the only SF/F reader in the group... the book I picked last time (or rather, I had a stack of books I wanted to read, and I let them pick) was a okay, but not really representative of why I love the genre. I think I'm going to pick a few favorites I want to reread and submit those for options...

Yeah we all take tuns picking, most of us mostly read fantasy so there's a lot of that genre represented. Sometimes we give a couple options to pick from or sometimes it's just one book. I'll request the thread later, on app now. I really want to re-read Theft of Swords by Sullivan and thinking of picking that for mine.

Elizabeth wrote: "Yeah we all take tuns picking, most of us mostly read fantasy so there's a lot of that genre represented. Sometimes we give a couple options to pick from or sometimes it's just one book. I'll reque..."

Oooh nice! I just read that for the first time a little over a year ago and enjoyed it. I'm thinking of giving them Legends & Lattes, Children of Time, and The Sparrow to choose from, though I'll probably add more to the list...

@Everyone please remember to stick to the naming format for requesting BRs for books in a series. It's now also on the form to remind everyone while making the requests.

Title (Series name #_)

Thank you!

I've just acquired a box load of Sherrilyn Kenyon books, so if anyone would like to buddy read The Dark Hunter books (starting with Night Pleasures), the Chronicles of Nick (starting with Infinity) or The League (starting with Born of Night) please let me know.

Shaitarn wrote: "I've just acquired a box load of Sherrilyn Kenyon books, so if anyone would like to buddy read The Dark Hunter books (starting with Night Pleasures), the Chronicles of Nick (starting..."

I don't think I have it in me to re-read Sherrilyn Kenyon... I liked her alot, in my romance/PNR days, but over time I got tired of her... abandoned the series around Dragonbane...

I just popped in to warn you that 90% of Sherrilyn Kenyon's books are connected... The League is safe to read, unless she's gone and connected it to Dark-Hunters somehow, but Chronicles of Nick is definitely connected... I wouldn't read Chronicles of Nick until at least Acheron, and more likely not until between Bad Moon Rising & No Mercy, when the books started publishing...

The Chronicles of Nick follow Nick Gautier, a main side character in the early Dark Hunter books, that has some bad things happen to him... iirc, his original destiny is altered, and he's sent down a dark path that unlocks god powers... Chronicles of Nick is a future version of him going back in time to his childhood to try and change the future and stop him from causing the apocalypse... he's failed 4 times... the series Chronicles his 5th and final try... the series is littered with continuity errors... BUT... they're not truly continuity errors, because the timeline is being rewritten, and he's meeting characters sooner than he's supposed to, and changing the timeline... ripples of these changes are being felt in the main series, and some of the most powerful characters have commented on how memories don't match recorded events correctly, anymore... but the lynch pin events that "have to happen", haven't changed...

It's all very confusing... basically, stick to publication order across the many series... Dark Hunters has 3 overlapping sub-series: Were-Hunters, Dream-Hunters, and Hell Chasers... mostly just to indicate when the story includes shapeshifters, greek dream angels, or hell demons... Deadman's Cross is a prequel-ish trilogy about Ghost Pirates in the 1800s, I think... and Lords of Avalon really screws it all up... it's a King Arthur series Kenyon wrote under a pseudonym, then decided to tie into the Dark-Hunter series, using the Hellchaser dimension and dragons, around when I quit: Dragonbane

Yea... if you guys start reading it, I might lurk in the thread... and god forbid, after writing all that, I might even tag along for some of my favorites... it has a pretty amazing, at times, mythology... especially the first 13ish books up to Acheron...

Dark Hunters is one of those mega-series mythologies I can write a wall of text on... obviously... I've done it once before I think... not sure if it was here or another group...

Timelord Iain wrote: "Shaitarn wrote: "I've just acquired a box load of Sherrilyn Kenyon books, so if anyone would like to buddy read The Dark Hunter books (starting with Night Pleasures), the Chronicles ..."

I have the first 22 books in the Night-Hunter series; whether I read any more after that is debatable, depending on how good or bad I find them (I'll be honest and say I'm not expecting much).

Thanks for the tip, Iain. I expect any reading schedule would be Hunters/Nick/League. Unless someone wants to start the League books first...

Shaitarn wrote: "Timelord Iain wrote: "Shaitarn wrote: "I've just acquired a box load of Sherrilyn Kenyon books, so if anyone would like to buddy read The Dark Hunter books (starting with Night Pleasures..."

Fantasy Lover is the true start of the series, but not listed as part of the series, because it doesn't include any actual Dark Hunters... it's a Paranormal Romance about a woman given a joke birthday gift that happened to have a man trapped in it from Roman times... she was supposed to use him as a sex slave for a month (his curse)... but falls in love with him instead and breaks the curse (there's a fair bit of confusion, and they don't actually have sex for most of the book, which feeds into breaking the curse I think)... the character, Julian, pops up a bunch in the Dark Hunter series, as a professor of history/mythology (since he lived it, and has first-hand knowledge)... also, the friend that gave the gag gift is the MC of the 4th Dark-Hunter book, I think...

See... I told you I could talk about this series for days... I read it like a decade ago, and remember WAY too many details :D

I lost the first half of my message somewhere, somehow...

I asked if you had all the books listed in this link, in order, excluding the short stories available online somewhere, and Fantasy Lover, which you didn't include before and isn't technically part of Dark Hunters, but basically should be...

https://www.goodreads.com/series/4035...

I was curious if you had the full chronological listings, or were missing the entries not listed as Dark Hunter books, but only as Were-Hunter / Dream-Hunter books... they're pretty important to the larger mythology... I wonder what a mess the series looks like, if you skip some sub-series...

I am interested, Shaitarn! When?

After finishing Fairy Tale, I found that I was craving more Stephen King. And since I have a bunch of his more recent books unread/owned, I thought I would dive in....

Started Revival last night. If anyone is interested in joining me, let me know and I can ask for a thread...

If there's any interest in the following King books, let me know: (view spoiler)[

Joyland
The Colorado Kid
Later
Gwendy's Button Box
Gwendy's Magic Feather
Gwendy's Final Task
Elevation
Sleeping Beauties
Billy Summers
The Outsider
If It Bleeds
The Bazaar of Bad Dreams
(hide spoiler)]

Also, his next book will be published in September: Holly

Timelord Iain wrote: "I lost the first half of my message somewhere, somehow...

I asked if you had all the books listed in this link, in order, excluding the short stories available online somewhere, and Fantasy Lover,..."

@Iain: The only books I seem to be missing from the list you provided are the Lords of Avalon books, otherwise I have all the novels from Fantasy Lover to Styxx. I also have the Dark Bites anthology, so quite a few of the short stories. Are the Avalon books essential to the series or would I be able to read it without them?

@Choko: I have Nevernight starting on the 5th Feb, so do you mind if we wait until after then? Any time from, say, 10th Feb onwards would be fine. These look like fairly quick reads.

Shaitarn wrote: "Timelord Iain wrote: "I lost the first half of my message somewhere, somehow...

I asked if you had all the books listed in this link, in order, excluding the short stories available online somewhe..."

I didn't read the Avalon books... they became relevant out of nowhere, and it's basically a King Arthur retelling, I think, and most people know King Arthur, so I think it's safe to skip?...

Sounds like you have just about all the books I read :D

Styxx was the book I was looking forward to the most, after Acheron, and the one I liked the most after the series went downhill... it was clear a story about Styxx needed to happen, after the events of Acheron... that's Sherrilyn Kenyon's big thing, generally... somehow redeeming characters that seem irredeemable... because we don't know the whole story...

Shaitarn wrote: "Timelord Iain wrote: "I lost the first half of my message somewhere, somehow...

I asked if you had all the books listed in this link, in order, excluding the short stories available online somewhe..."

I think I'm going to join, until I can't stomach them anymore :D

You guys are the worst influences... schedule however you want, and I'll make it work... somehow...

I say around the 12-13th of February and Iain, let's make it a bookclub, since I don't foresee us making more than a couple of comments per book, so it would be a waste of thread folders... I have no idea how to go about requesting a Bookclub thread. Do you think you could do that for us, Iain?

Choko wrote: "I say around the 12-13th of February and Iain, let's make it a bookclub, since I don't foresee us making more than a couple of comments per book, so it would be a waste of thread folders... I have ..."

Maybe I'll get Yanique to do it, and get comfortable adding info to the Book Club spreadsheet tab ;)

Or... I'll set it up soon...

No idea what we're thinking as a schedule?... are we even thinking of a schedule, or just playing it by ear?... Read one and schedule the next?

Like you said, Choko, I don't imagine there being alot of comments for EVERY book... moreso later on, when we can comment on the building mythology, and how it connects together... maybe a few comments on the characters/romance in each book...

Timelord Iain wrote: "Choko wrote: "I say around the 12-13th of February and Iain, let's make it a bookclub, since I don't foresee us making more than a couple of comments per book, so it would be a waste of thread fold..."

How about we set 13th as the official start date? I think keeping it fairly flexible rather than having a rigid schedule is also a good idea. That way we can fit these around other reads fairly easily.

Hello everyone!
It is February and I wanted to let you know what BRs are beginning this month. If you're looking for a last-minute read to jump into, don't be shy!

Feb 1, 2023 The Unusual Suspects (The Sisters Grimm, #2) by Michael Buckley
Feb 1, 2023 The Guns of Avalon (The Chronicles of Amber #2) by Roger Zelazny
Feb 1, 2023 Illuminations by T. Kingfisher
Feb 1, 2023 Seasparrow (Graceling Realm #5) by Kristin Cashore
Feb 1, 2023 The Blade Itself (First Law #1) by Joe Abercrombie
Feb 1, 2023 Penric & Desdemona (Novella Series) by Lois McMaster Bujold
Feb 2, 2023 Hard Time (Time Police #2) by Jodi Taylor
Feb 4, 2023 The Pariah (Covenant of Steel #1) by Anthony Ryan
Feb 5, 2023 A Local Habitation (October Daye #2) by Seanan McGuire
Feb 5, 2023 Nevernight (Nevernight Chronicles #1) by Jay Kristoff
Feb 6, 2023 Seduction in Death (In Death #13) by JD Robb
Feb 7, 2023 The Exiles (Aaron Falk #3) by Jane Harper
Feb 7, 2023 Village in the Sky (Alex Benedict #9) by Jack McDevitt
Feb 8, 2023 Jennifer Morgue (Laundry Files #2) by Charles Stross
Feb 10, 2023 The Last Stand of Mary Good Crow (Crystal Calamity #1) by Rachel Aaron
Feb 13, 2023 Ghost Story (Dresden Files #13) by Jim Butcher
Feb 13, 2023 Before They Are Hanged (First Law #2) by Joe Abercrombie
Feb 15, 2023 One Good Dragon Deserves Another (Heartstrikers #2) by Rachel Aaron
Feb 15, 2023 The Great Hunt (Wheel of Time #2) by Robert Jordan
Feb 15, 2023 Percy Jackson & the Olympians 02 - The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan
Feb 18, 2023 Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist
Feb 20, 2023 Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City (The Siege, #1) by K.J. Parker
Feb 22, 2023 Howling Dark (Sun Eater #2) by Christopher Ruocchio

This is such a great list for February! Thank you so much, Yanique!!!

Iain and Shaitarn, the 13th sounds great and yeah, playing it by ear sounds perfect!

I've posted a few weeks ago in the old thread for a BR of Dragon and Thief, but cant find it anymore.
I thought Tammie wanted to read it also and I'm looking to pinpoint a reading date.
So, if anyone wants to join for the first book :)

Saar The Book owl wrote: "I've posted a few weeks ago in the old thread for a BR of Dragon and Thief, but cant find it anymore.
I thought Tammie wanted to read it also and I'm looking to pinpoint a reading dat..."

Yes I do want to read it. Can we start it in March? I think Nirkatze wants to read it too.

This is more of an announcement than a post seeking people to BR with to setup the thread...

What started as a comment by me, about my plans for 2024, has turned into yet another big Buddy Read...

This one is Discworld... I've wanted to read the series for a number of years, and it turns out I'm not the only one... it's quite the undertaking tho...

To that end, I/we want to do 2 books per month... even then, it's going to take most of 2 years to do all 41/42 books, and then there's a couple extras to tack on at the end:

The Color of Magic thru The Shepherd's Crown, then

The Folklore of Discworld
The Science of Discworld
The Globe
Darwin's Watch
Judgement Day

Also, A Blink of the Screen: Collected Shorter Fiction contains all Pratchett's short fiction, so we can include those in publication order, as well, in the monthly novel threads...

My plan was to just make 1 thread per month for the 2 books that month, and we can BR on the 1st and 15th or whatever works for everybody personally... with folklore the month after the end, and science the month (maybe 2 months) after that...

Just making all the BR requests is gonna take me all day (not today)... so this is just an early (way early) announcement... the BR will be going from January 2024 to October/November 2025...

Should be fun!