New Series Read? Back to having a Random Read? Give us your thoughts!

[Kirsten]

Me too! I wish they were on Kindle. I'd love to re-read them.

[Mickey]

All done with now, voting has already begun.
Poor C.J Cherryh is not on the ballot.

[mark, personal space invader]

Cherryh could be read under Women Authors or trilogies.

[Kirsten]

We're voting?

[mark, personal space invader]

a poll is open. currently a Culture read is in the lead, but only by a narrow margin.

[Alexa]

There are two polls, and you can only see one at the bottom of the home page, you need to click on "Polls" to see both of them.

[Maggie, space cruisin' for a bruisin']

yes Mickey-Cherryh would be included in the woman authors

[spikeINflorida]

I agree with Mickey & Mike. Corey's Expanse series is on my TR list as well as Campbell's Lost Fleet. I actually like the idea of random picks better. Mixing up sub genres is what I do. I'll read a military and then a classic followed by a distopian, then space opera, et cetera et cetera. And I really feel we should AVOID gender as a category of choice. Alternatively, we should simply pick books based on their quality of content.

[Scott]

I agree with Spike.

[Laz]

Well, variety is important, including a variety of themes and approaches. I think having one stand-alone book and one trilogy read each month would be a nice balance.

[spikeINflorida]

Most series..take..years..to..read.. I still haven't touched my 6 vol. Lost Fleet series because I'm currently reading Spinward Fringe series. Plus I'm gonna rip thru All You Kneed Is Kill... Edge of Tommorow movie release early June.! Oh and I gotta read the classic Stand On Zanzibar somewhere in between. Looking forward to other inputs about series and stand alones. Rock n read

[mark, personal space invader]

I love Stand on Zanzibar. one of my favorite books! although not for everyone due to its challenging style.

[Maggie, space cruisin' for a bruisin']

mark wrote: "I love Stand on Zanzibar. one of my favorite books! although not for everyone due to its challenging style."

I agree...my problem wasn't the style so much but how women were treated....I couldnt get past it for some reason....

I am thinking we should formulate the "women" idea s little better and do a runoff poll...I have to figure out the form though.

Any ideas?

[mark, personal space invader]

I'm of two minds about Stand's treatment of women. on the one side, Brunner is as critical of women as he is of men, and there are many sorts of women portrayed, both powerless and empowered, as there are with men. Brunner is pretty democratic in his critiques. however, I did find the lack of a POV chapter for one of the more interesting, independent women to be strange and off-putting; she was only viewed through the eyes of one of the men. that was annoying to me because she was perhaps the only female character who was portrayed in a positive and entirely sympathetic/empathetic light. all other women are pretty much disempowered and vaguely pathetic or powerful yet negatively portrayed.

I love that Brunner's novel is wide-sweeping in its various critiques but I did get the feeling that his progressive vision was a bit compromised (and dated) by the casual sexism of the time in which it was written, as well as his own disinterest in creating a female character that was dynamic rather than static - in contrast with what he was able to do with his two male leads, despite how critically they are viewed.

I agree about your idea. although I'm delighted that Banks' Culture series is the next series read, in particular because I suggested it... for the poll I actually voted for the Female Authors option. I would really, really like us to still do that, somehow. not just because it would be interesting to me but also because the poll was a close one and I think many members would be interested.

[mark, personal space invader]

as far as my own ideas on what that would look like... I dunno! perhaps have the monthly reads alternate between Female Author and Random or Themed Read? not sure. well, I'm totally open to suggestions, I just would like to see it happen in some way.

[LindaJ^]

I'm not sure I'll be reading the Culture series unless someone can convince me that those after Culture #1 are better. I finished it but cannot say I enjoyed it. At the end, I had little idea what the war was about and what Culture even was. I did not connect with any of the characters.

[Dan]

Don't know how convincing I can be. I haven't read the series. Do the ratings here on GoodReads mean anything to you? I for one have found them to be a good indicator of quality. Not infallible, but good.

The first in the Culture series, Consider Phlebas, got a rating of 3.83. This is phenomenally low for such an important series. I checked to see what the others were. #2 gets a 4.23, #3 a 4.17, #4 dips down to 3.82, but #5 is a 4.14, and so on.

My point is to say that the Culture series is a bit uneven, but seems to be comprised of mostly really good reads, just not the first one all that much. I can tell you, Culture is a critically important series in terms of science fiction history. Iain M. Banks was a founder of the New Space Opera, and this sub-genre is getting more important, not less, as time goes on. More and more award winning works are being written in it.

You can read sword and sorcery fantasy without ever reading Howard, high fantasy and never touch a Tolkien novel, but why would you want to deprive yourself of the pleasure? There is going to be a time soon, if we're not already there, where it's equally pointless to avoid Iain M. Banks.

I voted for the different woman author every month option. Shoot, it was my long-winded proposal originally, if I'm not mistaken. But if it doesn't carry the day and we decide to do Culture instead, I'm still on board. I will pick up my copy of Consider Phlebas for the fourth time, and then force myself to read it all the way through for once just so I can get to the good stuff starting with #2.

You're already there, Linda! You've done the hard part.

[Alexa]

I must say you're very convincing Dan! On the other hand, I read science fiction for fun, and now you're telling me I should read this because it's good for me! (Sort of :)) I wonder if we'll be starting with #1 again, or if we'll start with #2? (In which case I'll have to force myself to read #1 all by myself.) I'm guessing there will be a number of us needing to catch up with #1 first.

[mark, personal space invader]

I think we should start with #1 despite (I think) it being a past group read. it is seminal. although I may only think that because I actually loved it, unlike many other people.

#2 is awesome as well. after that, my reading of the series is erratic so I'm looking forward to reading (or rereading) them in order. I thought Excession was a lot of fun but overall rather flawed. I thought Look to Windward was unexpectedly moving.

[Dan]

Alexa wrote: "I wonder if we'll be starting with #1 again, or if we'll start with #2? (In which case I'll have to force myself to read #1 all by myself.) I'm guessing there will be a number of us needing to catch up with #1 first."

One of the beauties of this site, and why I use it to the exclusion of all the others out there like it, is that if you are "alone" reading #1 again, you're not really. A book that was selected previously for reading by our group has no expiration date here. Any one of us (no moderator needed, sorry Mark) can reopen the Consider Phlebas thread just by making a post to it. It's available all the time. You just have to look a bit harder for it if you're the first poster to it in a while.

And I think you're right about there being a number of us trying to do a quick catch up in order to join those starting right away with #2, assuming Culture carries the day. (Might it still not?) So, there should be other fellow recent posters to the topic Consider Phlebas. Best of all, we benefit from all the others who posted their observations in the older discussion! We don't have to start from scratch like they did. We can just continue the conversation from where they left off.

[Mike (the Paladin)]

True. People stumble over threads on books months or even years after the discussion was started.

[mark, personal space invader]

Any one of us (no moderator needed, sorry Mark) can reopen the Consider Phlebas

NO YOU WILL NOT READ CONSIDER PHLEBAS UNLESS I SPECIFICALLY TELL YOU TO. I SHALL DICTATE YOUR PERSONAL READING EXPERIENCE! OBEY ME!!

hilarious lolz aside, great point Dan. that gives me an idea - we can just move that conversation (if it exists - it does, right? I haven't checked) to a new Series Read folder so that all of the past comments become a part of a new discussion. love that.

now I just wonder if we should set aside the first month (July) for Consider Phlebas given that it has already been read. I would say yes but I'm amenable to what the group thinks.

as far as your poll question... the poll has closed, Culture won.

[Alexa]

But there has been some conversation on the poll comments about whether there will be a run-off poll. Given the amount of time that has elapsed I guess it's looking less likely though.

[mark, personal space invader]

oh! I didn't even notice that conversation.

although the list of nominations is quite short, the final two were not separated by all that much... so I think I will put up a run-off poll, which is normal business for us.

[mark, personal space invader]

it is super frustrating that I can only send out a poll invite to 1,000 members. how long do I have to wait until I send out a second invite to cover the rest of the group? ugh, hopefully I won't forget.

[Maggie, space cruisin' for a bruisin']

Mark-under members you have the option to send all members a email :)

and thanks for putting up the run-off. I was trying to think how to word it and really it just needed to be done with!

[mark, personal space invader]

I just got a message about the poll so I assume everyone did - thanks for taking care of it Maggie!

[LindaJ^]

Dan wrote: "Don't know how convincing I can be. I haven't read the series. Do the ratings here on GoodReads mean anything to you? I for one have found them to be a good indicator of quality. Not infallible, bu..."

It is true that reading with the group is better than reading alone, which is what I did with Consider Phelops. I will hunt for the thread and continue along with the series, if the group decides to read it!

BTW, what exactly is New Space Opera?

[spikeINflorida]

Linda, I definitely use the average point score and comments from GoodReads reader reviews to decide what SF books to put on my TR list. It's working well so far. It seems the Goodreads crowd is a little harder to please then Amazon readers. And that helps me too further refine my choices. I almost always agree with the reviews once I finish the book. Think of how much crap people wasted their time reading before the Internet!