Techno-Thrillers discussion

Took the vacant moderator role. Activity has dwindled, but many thriller fans still in the group, still reading, ... just not sharing. Always struggling to find a good new book. Let's point each other to the good stuff.

  • Put Currently Reading book on page
  • Put Upcoming book on page
  • Purged comments over 10 years old
  • Purged expired short-term free book offers
  • Put a hyphen in the name
  • Made a hasty stab at a group photo graphic
  • Made a stab at a group masthead graphic

I recently joined this group, but haven't posted much since I've been on a civil war kick. Now I'm ready to jump back into novels for awhile.

Variety is the spice of life.
Find any good/bad books in Civil War?

I found Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant very interesting.

But, yeah, welcome and thank you, Steve! My to-read techno-thriller list has gotten thin.

Trying to organize things ...

I've been advocating a Book of the Month (BOTM) approach since I jumped in a moderator on a more/less dormant group ... that still had many members. I just suggested the first couple books for the first couple months ... unilaterally ... to get things rekindled, but of course one guy's opinion is of limited value.

So, I solicited nominees from members for upcoming months, got a few, and put out a poll for members to vote on the selection as a group. Even just 2 people has a lot more value than 1 person picking a book of the month.

I started adding a novella per month, in addition to a novel per month, ... because why not? I loved the Murderbot series, and wanted to share it. There is a different investment and a different feel with short stories and such. Thought it would be nice to share the savory nibbles too.

I started adding buddy reads, which is basically 2 or more people reading a book. That's falls short of a group consensus, but it's at least 2 or more people, and a vehicle to deviate from 1 book a month. I don't know about you, but I read more than that.

It has taken a while for me to figure it out, but this group was not really reading together and discussing anything, but just putting out recommendations. I started group discussions for each book of the month and buddy read book ... trying to instigate a trend. It catches on eventually ... or at least has in other groups.

I still had assumed that despite no discussion, past books were picked a month at a time on some consensus ... somehow, and it didn't really dawn on me till now that they didn't at all. It has largely been just people shelving their recommendations.

It looks like Frank founded this group on July 19th, 2013, and just shelved 29 books that day. I don't want to take that away ... the legacy of shelving your recommendations for the benefit of the group. Frank is still a member. So, I added a recommendations shelf to the bookshelf, and started shelving most of the legacy books there (anything with our read start/end dates specified, which were only there for maybe 2 books out of all of them. Then, I created a book-of-the-month shelf, and started putting the month group-read books there, so we can distinguish between one member's recommendations and "group selected" reads (i.e., based on the winning votes of 2 or more people, ... or the moderator's pick in case of ties or no members voting). You can all still put a book on the recommendations shelf, ... unless you are the author/publisher/marketing self-promoting your own book. Then, don't do it. It's the only rule right now.

That being said, several authors did shelve their own books. 9 of them. And, there are 1 or 2 that I'm not sure if that happened or not. I've shelved these under self-promoted. After having done this, I'm a little less excited about the pedigree of this group and what has been recommended. I may act to purge all self-promoted books from the book shelf, but I'd someone to second me on doing that. Alternatively ... or in addition ... I'd like to purge any recommendations on books that have less than 1,000 ratings. I feel like that would effectively purge self-promotion. There were a couple books with 100+ ratings, that still managed to be over 4.0, ... and maybe I shouldn't purge them. I'm not taking any action yet, ... and open to your thoughts. I do want to get rid of any low quality books. I think that would turn off would-be members from joining the group if they see to much self-promotion.

A year ago today, April 18, 2024, I posted:
Conn, sonar! Crazy Ivan! … New moderator!

Steve wrote: "Took the vacant moderator role. Activity has dwindled, but many thriller fans still in the group, still reading, ... just not sharing. Always struggling to find a good new book. Let's point each ot..."

I tried to reinvigorate the group with Book-of-the-Month, Buddy Read, Group Watch, Challenges, and a whole set of new Listopia book lists for techno-thrillers … and we started growing:
- 130 members on Apr 18, 2024
- 140 members on Jun 30, 2024
- 150 members on Aug 30, 2024
- 160 members on Nov 8, 2024
- 170 members on Dec 20, 2024
- 180 members on Jan 28, 2025
- 190 members on Feb 23, 2025
- 200 members on Apr 9, 2025

In 1 year, we went from 130 members to 200+ today!

We read some good books in the last year. Hope we find some more good stuff this year. Thanks everyone! Always appreciate your discussion, nominees, votes, ratings, and reviews. Feel free to invite your friends to join the group.