Weird Fiction discussion

Please nominate up to two books that you believe will make an excellent monthly group read for our weird fiction group. Poll to run mid-December.

I nominate Quixotic: Not Everyday Love Stories. There's so little love in the world these days. Wouldn't it be great to start off 2024 with a book designed on the theme of love, even if it is weird love?

My second nomination I have given deeper thought to. I like to make a really esoteric nomination of a book no one will have heard of. That's in message #2 above. Then I like to go really classical for the diehard (and shouldn't we all) long-time weird fiction serious reader. That's what this nomination is: The Book of Iod: Ten Cthulhu Stories

I will find something tomorrow :)

I've actually been eager to read Kraken by China Miéville, as I think it's gonna be a weird blast, so that's my nomination!

Nicolai Alexander wrote: "I've actually been eager to read Kraken by China Miéville, as I think it's gonna be a weird blast, so that's my nomination!"

I have not read any of her books yet, but I saw some in the same pile as House of Leaves and Cloud Atlas, and so I figured maybe it is also interesting and complex and I might like it.

Zina wrote: "Nicolai Alexander wrote: "I've actually been eager to read Kraken by China Miéville, as I think it's gonna be a weird blast, so that's my nomination!"

I have not read..."

That sounds great!

We have read his Perdido Street Station in this group a few years ago. Okay, I will add Kraken to the poll. I predict it will win. Big names usually pull in the recognition vote. We'll see.

Poll for January's group read is now open.

I did an experiment to test my hypothesis. When opening the poll, I posted just to this topic and the book we are currently reading topic that the poll was open. After five days, the vote total among the more frequently participating membership for two nominees, Kraken and The Book of Iod: Ten Cthulhu Stories stood tied at 2 votes apiece. I didn't want to finish the poll with a tie result. So I notified the entire membership in general (which thus includes infrequently participating readers) that the poll was open. As a result, Kraken today got five more votes while The Book of Iod got zero. This proves, I think, that most people vote on the basis of author name recognition alone without truly considering the relative merits of the nominees in question.

That's an interesting experiment. It's obviously not an exact scientific method, but you may be right. On the other hand, a completely unknown Norwegian author did win last time.

Nicolai Alexander wrote: "That's an interesting experiment. It's obviously not an exact scientific method, but you may be right. On the other hand, a completely unknown Norwegian author did win last time."

Good point. Perhaps it was because people did not recognize the names of any of the other author names then nominated either.

so I decided to attempt both books, it being holiday time, starting with the The Book of Iod. Read the first story, very cool.

Zina wrote: "so I decided to attempt both books, it being holiday time, starting with the The Book of Iod. Read the first story, very cool."

That's a great idea! Let's set The Book of Iod up as a buddy read then. You and I are the only ones to vote for it, so this may be a small buddy read. But I really wanted to read this book too.