2019 Time Traveler Challenge

[Gabi]

:D - I gave up on that point entirely, unless I stumble over a book like Butler's "Kindred", which is definitely from the POV of a slaved people.

[Sarah]

Allison wrote: "I probably wouldn't count either, unless the research in Wolf in the Whale was stellar and the feeling was one of working in a world made hostile by other cultures.

The second one doesn't sound ri..."

Thanks Allison!

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

It may be better if I just call it "author not from..." and list those nations...

[Gabi]

Allison wrote: "It may be better if I just call it "author not from..." and list those nations..."

Oh … if it is about the author's nationality and not the POV of the novel, Butler doesn't count either … ^^'

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Gabi wrote: "Allison wrote: "It may be better if I just call it "author not from..." and list those nations..."

Oh … if it is about the author's nationality and not the POV of the novel, Butler doesn't count e..."

That's why I made it more open-ended! But it seems to be causing a ton of confusion. I think Butler and Le Guin and China Mountain Zhang are all phenomenal and offer opposing viewpoints to the majority. But I can't really make a "bright line test" where I can look at something and decide whether it counts without any additional info when I frame it that way. I'm okay leaving it more to your discretion, too!

[Sarah]

What about: novel pertaining to colonization from non-colonial view point or author nationality is not a colonial power?

I know that’s phrased terribly... lol. That was sort of the gist I was getting of what you intended the prompt for?

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Sarah wrote: "What about: novel pertaining to colonization from non-colonial view point or author nationality is not a colonial power?

I know that’s phrased terribly... lol. That was sort of the gist I was gett..."

Yes! That's basically the gist of it :)

[Trike]

A new wrinkle in time: https://www.newsweek.com/time-reverse... Don’t connect your ereaders to that quantum computer. You’ll unread it.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Oh wow!

[Eleanor]

Allison wrote: "I probably wouldn't count either, unless the research in Wolf in the Whale was stellar and the feeling was one of working in a world made hostile by other cultures.

The second one doesn't sound ri..."

I am jumping in the middle of this and have only read the comments in this current thread. But we should be careful how we parse and assign the right to POVs. My brother-in-law had a very interesting heritage, but his passport said Germany. His father was definitely from a colonial culture, Netherlands. His mother was Black and from Tanzania. He was born and raised in Germany by a foster family. I wonder what POV would have been acceptable for him? (Sadly, he died unexpectedly in late 2017 but was a gifted musician and composer and had a wonderful multicultural perspective on life and literature and his own share of struggles with being marginalized.)

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Eleanor wrote: "Allison wrote: "I probably wouldn't count either, unless the research in Wolf in the Whale was stellar and the feeling was one of working in a world made hostile by other cultures.

The second one ..."

So sorry for your loss, Eleanor! But a touching example of why I didn't want to go the route of promoting authors from specific countries. I can think of dozens of examples of books that I think are wonderfully complex and demonstrate the effects of being a minority in a majority culture that wouldn't count then, and that would be a shame.

[Kaa]

I recently finished both The Sword of Rhiannon (1949) and Rocannon's World (1966). These had some interesting parallels. Superficially, they are both written by women and both have a sci-fi/space setting but are primarily fantasy stories. In terms of bigger story elements, though, they also both lean pretty heavily into the Lone (male) Hero trope, focusing on protagonists who are out of place in their current environment and end up on a quest to save this new place along with some god-like powers.

[CBRetriever]

-5 points if the author is a woman

what do I do with an author like J.Y. Yang who identifies as non-binary and queer. 0 points? 5 points? 2.5 points?

Their book The Black Tides of Heaven was excellent

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Take 5 points!

And I agree, their novella was really wonderful!

[CBRetriever]

thankee

[Jess]

I'm joining this halfway through the year so I'll backdate what I've done so far

110 points

1. Circe by Madeline Miller (2010s, woman, group read) 20 points
2. Shadow of the Fox by Julie Kagawa (2010s, woman, POC) 11 points
3. The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle (2010s, group read) 6 points
4. A Twist in Time by Julie McElwain (2010s, woman) 6 points
5. Reckless by Cornelia Funke (2010s, woman) 6 points
6. By the Light of the Moon by Dean Koontz (2000s) 10 points
6. Caught in Time by Julie McElwain (2010s, woman) 6 points
7. Blackass by A. Igoni Barrett (2010s, POC, non colonial, owned before 2019) 16 points
8. Enchantment by Orson Scott Card (1990s) 10 points
9. The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie (2000s, POC, non colonial) 11 points
10. The Passage by Justin Cronin (2010s) 1 point
11. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (2000s, owned before 2019) 6 points
12. The Hunger by Alma Katsu (2010s) 1 point

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Awesome! I think it's cool to see where most of our reading is, era-wise, too.

[Sarah]

Allison I'm defaulting to your judgement here- Lord of the Flies - can I count it for this one? It's a classic but also speculative/dystopian?

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

It's been a long time since I've read it. Is there anything that's changed in the world? Something other than a plane falling onto a deserted island? If not, I'd likely not include it myself, but I can see the argument and wouldn't cry foul if it was included.

[Lost Planet Airman]

At two points in the book, a major high-tech war is implied -- it is what strands the boys in the first place, and an aviator's parachute arrives on the mountain. I'm not sure if that is enough to give it the speculative fiction twist, either, though...

[CBRetriever]

it's more of an Allegory like Animal Farm

[Sarah]

Thanks for your input everyone! I’ll leave it off.

[Anna]

I didn't even notice that I accidentally completed my personal challenge of reading something from 13 decades. Some of these are children's books, and there's a short story, but I'm still proud of myself! I've read more than one book from some decades, but I've only listed one here.

✔ 1897 - The Invisible Man
✔ 1905 - Sultana's Dream (short)
✔ 1915 - Herland
✔ 1928 - Orlando
✔ 1934 - Mary Poppins
✔ 1946 - Muumipeikko ja pyrstötähti (Comet in Moominland)
✔ 1952 - The Borrowers
✔ 1961 - Catseye
✔ 1978 - Dreamsnake
✔ 1984 - Kalpa Imperial: The Greatest Empire That Never Was
✔ 1998 - Brown Girl in the Ring
✔ 2003 - Trading in Danger
✔ 2018 - Medusa Uploaded

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

wow! congrats!

[Beige]

Anna wrote: "I didn't even notice that I accidentally completed my personal challenge of reading something from 13 decades. Some of these are children's books, and there's a short story, but I'm still proud of ..."

Oh, what a cool challenge! I've been making a big list of women writers of SciFi/Spec fiction that I'll use for this next year. You've read quite a few of the titles that I would choose :)

[Anna]

Beige, good luck with the project! You'll get more great ideas from others as they post what they've been reading.

[CBRetriever]

Anna wrote: "I didn't even notice that I accidentally completed my personal challenge of reading something from 13 decades. Some of these are children's books, and there's a short story, but I'm still proud of ..."

ooo, goes off to check mine for that statistic. If you want to expand your list, try these books

Gulliver's Travels for the 1720 or the 1730
Frankenstein for the 1810s
The Wolf-Leader for the 1850s
Jules Verne has a bunch he wrote in the 1860s
George MacDonald has two fantasies, one from the 1870s and one from the 1880s

I'm going to look at your 1900-1940s books and see about adding them to my list except for Orlando which I read two years ago

[Anna]

I've read Frankenstein and a bunch of Verne when I was a kid. I was trying to find a woman author for every decade, but I gave up once I hit 1900.

Sultana's Dream was pretty interesting. I read it online, it's very short. I just googled it and found it very easily. Herland annoyed me. Poppins was weirdly different from the idea I had in my head. Who knew Mary Poppins was so (view spoiler)[ vain?! (hide spoiler)] I was going to read The Little White Horse for the 40s, but I listened to a Moomin audio last night when I couldn't sleep, and then when I went to log it on GR noticed it was written in the 40s. It's a reread from my childhood, so I might still try to read the cute horse book.

[CBRetriever]

The Blazing World by Margaret Cavendish from 1666 might work, but it's only 94 pages but this version claims to be 228 pages: The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing World is supposedly the first science fiction book by a woman

ps: that's not 1866, but 1666

[Anna]

That certainly looks interesting! Added to my TBR.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

I'm not tallying yet, but so far I've read:

2010s - 14 books
2000s - 5 books
1990s - 5 books
1980s - 3 books
1970s - 3 books
1960s - 2 books
1950s - OMG NONE.
1940s - 1 book
1930s - PANIC
1920s - soon
1910s - lol keep going
1900s - working on it
1890s - 1 book
---
530s - 1 book (Beowulf)

[CBRetriever]

This are my totals so far:

1720 - 1
1730 - 1
1810 - 1
1850 - 1
1860 - 3
1870 - 1
1880 - 1
1950 - 1
1960 - 5
1970 - 10 (lot of Andre Norton books)
1980 - 5
1990 - 13 (Harry Potter books)
2000 - 6 (Jim Butcher Harry Dresden books)
2010 - 25

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

That's awesome, Chessie! It seems like your anthology/collection idea is paying off?

[CBRetriever]

I still have to hit the The Lord Dunsany Compendium which covers 1905-1922 and will add three daces to my list. It's a mere $0.99 in Kindle format.

The blurb says: "10 complete literary works by Lord Dunsany, considered by many as the precursor of Tolkien"

[Suzanne]

SciFi and Fantasy Book Club
2019 Time Traveler Challenge
Duration: 6/21/2019 - 12/31/2019

Progress: 135

Welcome, Time Agent!

We're looking for information. Your mission, should you choose to accept, is to read books from different decades of speculative fiction and bring back a wealth of knowledge for God and country. Here's what wealth looks like:

-10 points for the first book read written in a decade you've not read this year.

-1 point for subsequent books read from that/those decade(s).

-5 points if the author is a woman

-5 points if the author is of color

-5 points if the author is known or (posthumously) widely believed to be LGBTQIA

-5 points if the book was written from a viewpoint not belonging to a colonial power

-5 points if it's a book you owned before 2019

-5 points for reading as part of a buddy or group read

Points are cumulative (ex. an Asian American woman authored book from a decade you've already read this year could be 11 points)

If you'd like to sign up officially to track your reads, you may do so here!

Good luck!

A few clarifications:

-Must be a book. Novellas count, short stories or singular poems do not. I am not putting a page length, but it has to constitute a book.

-Can read the same authors, but you will only get points for them once per decade. Ex. If you read Octavia Butler's Kindred (1979), Wild Seed (1980) and Dawn (1987), only 2 of those would get points.

-Decades generally run from 0-9.

-Colonial powers refer to where the author is from and are those nations that were considered colonial powers during the height of colonialism. See this post for more information.

1. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas - ***** - 6/21/2019 - 512 Pages = +5 Women Author, +5 POV, +5 Author of Color
2. Circe by Madeline Miller - ***** - 6/25/2019 - 393 Pages = +5 Women Author, +5 POV
3. Marrying Winterborne by Lisa Kleypas - ***** - 6/28/2019 - 416 Pages = +5 Women Author
4. Nuts by Alice Clayton - ***** - 6/28/2019 - 308 Pages = +5 Women Author
5. When You Dare by Lori Foster - *** - 7/7/2019 - 448 Pages = +5 Women Author
6. Stillhouse Lake by Rachel Caine - ***** - 7/8/2019 - 286 Pages = +5 Women Author
7. Changing the Game by Jaci Burton - **** - 7/10/2019 - 299 Pages = +5 Women Author
8. The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman - ***** - 7/17/2019 - 329 Pages = +5 Women Author
9. Lady Isabella's Scandalous Marriage by Jennifer Ashley - **** - 7/18/2019 - 316 Pages = +5 Women Author
10. Christmas at the Cupcake Café by Jenny Colgan - ***** - 7/29/2019 - 351 Pages = +5 Women Author
11. Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire - ***** - 7/30/2019 - 346 Pages = +5 Women Author
12. Year One by Nora Roberts - ***** - 8/6/2019 - 419 Pages = +5 Women Author
13. Night Pleasures by Sherrilyn Kenyon - ***** - 8/9/2019 - 309 Pages = +5 Women Author
14. When a Scot Ties the Knot by Tessa Dare - ***** - 8/12/2019 - 376 Pages = +5 Women Author
15. Jacob by Jacquelyn Frank - *** - 8/31/2019 - 376 Pages = +5 Women Author
16. Slouch Witch by Helen Harper - ***** - 9/2/2019 - 342 Pages = +5 Women Author
17. Cloche and Dagger by Jenn McKinlay - ***** - 9/6/2019 - 281 Pages = +5 Women Author
18. Lothaire by Kresley Cole - ***** - 9/17/2019 - 468 Pages = +5 Women Author
19. The Defiant Hero by Suzanne Brockmann - ***** - 9/19/2019 - 390 Pages = +5 Women Author
20. A Princess in Theory by Alyssa Cole - ***** - 9/23/2019 - 360 Pages = +5 Women Author
21. One Fell Sweep by Ilona Andrews - ***** - 9/25/2019 - 340 Pages = +5 Women Author
22. Better Homes and Hauntings by Molly Harper - ***** - 9/28/2019 - 318 Pages = +5 Women
23. Losing Control by Nina Croft - *** - 10/1/2019 - 250 Pages = +5 Women
24. Unearthly by Cynthia Hand - **** - 10/2/2019 - 435 Pages = +5 Women
25.

[CBRetriever]

I'm going to say that the Dunsany book is not that good so far, the first two books reminded me of the Zarathustra one that i had such difficulty getting through, so i skipped them.

[Anthony]

Here is my update:

Jade City — 35
10 — 2010-2019
5 — woman
5 — POC
5 — non-colonial power
5 — owned pre-2019
5 — official group read

Catseye — 30
10 — 1960-1969
5 — woman
5 — non-colonial power
5 — owned pre-2019
5 — official group read

The Lions of Al-Rassan — 17.5
10 — 1990-1999
2.5 — some of the narrative was from POV of non-colonial power, some wasn’t.
5 — owned pre-2019

The Lathe of Heaven — 25
10 — 1970-1979
5 — woman
5 — owned pre-2019
5 — official group reread

How Long ‘til Black Future Month? — 35
10 — 2010-2019
5 — woman
5 — POC
5 — non-colonial power
5 — owned pre-2019
5 — buddy read

The Rook — 11
1 — 2010-2019
5 — owned pre-2019
5 — buddy read

A Canticle for Leibowitz — 20
10 — 1950-1959
5 — owned pre-2019
5 — group read

The Red Threads of Fortune — 26
1 — 2010-2019
5 — non-binary
5 — POC
5 — LGBTQIA
5 — non-colonial power
5 — owned pre-2019

Persepolis — 30
10 — 2000-2009
5 — woman
5 — POC
5 — non-colonial power
5 — owned pre-2019

Witchmark — 21
1 — 2011-2019
5 — woman
5 — POC
5 — owned pre-2019
5 — group read

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Nice!! You're really racking up the points there!

[Anthony]

Indeeeeed. I like games!

[Jemppu]

Impressive! I haven't paid attention to any of these, but this is getting me curious.

[KIM]

So if I reread a fantasy series with 32 books first one published in 1999 with only one read in 2019 how does that figure up. I think I need a reference to understand. Thanks

[KIM]

Sorry forgot to add US female author 51 years old.

[CBRetriever]

I count the books individually as far as Decade, but for the rest of the points, I could them only once. But that's me. I'm only splitting the decades because in the older book collections they might fall into several Decades. The Harry Potter Collection in Kindle format covers both the 1990s and 2000s.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

That would be 10 points for the one published in 1999, 10 points for 1 published between 2000 and 2009, 10 points for 1 published between 2010 and 2019, 1 point for each other book and 5 points for each for being a woman, assuming this is a speculative fiction novel series!

[KIM]

Used the calculator and I think I’ve got this. Christine Feehan Dark Series 32 books from 1999 through 2019.
Decades 3 x 10= 30
Woman Author 32 x 5= 160
Preowned 2019 31 x 5=155 total of 345 when I finish re-reading?

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

That sounds right!

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Oh, plus 29 points because you get 1 point for each book outside of the 3 for each separate decade.

[CBRetriever]

I'm bringing this over here instead of the thread to discuss the book(s) in The Once and Future King

I had thought you told us we could count individual books within a collection or compilation or omnibus? They were originally published as separate books:

The Sword in the Stone = 357 pages in paperback
The Queen of Air and Darkness = 677 pages in hardcover
The Ill-Made Knight = 291 pages in hardcover
The Candle in the Wind = 208 in paperback

The Kindle Version of The Once and Future King definitely includes 4 separate books as near as I can tell. I've read The Sword in the Stone but I've never read the other three. Plus it's a lot cheaper than purchasing the 4 books separately. In the last TBR contest I had counted the compilations/omnibus/complete works books as one book but you'd mentioned that i could count them separately.

How does that differ from reading one book The Wolf-Leader from Works of Alexandre Dumas
or
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Journey to the Center of the Earth and From the Earth to the Moon and Round the Moon from Delphi Complete Works of Jules Verne (Illustrated) 47 novels in English.

I wasn't planning on reading the entire Verne and Dumas books in order to get points for the one book by Dumas and the four by Verne. Please let me know your decision. I can easily go back and remove the points. I have a lot of 2-3 book Kindle sets that are one file. I don't mind whichever way you decide. This is my thread of the book listings and my points

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

[Gabi]

Question reg the above mentioned series by the same author. I seem to remember that somebody somewhere said, that the same author can only be counted once per decade ... Did I remember that incorrectly?

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

CBR: It's different because Once and Future King isn't a collection. TH White took 5 of his books, re-edited them down to 4, renamed a few of them, even, and republished it as a new, single book. I've been using the term omnibus because for some reason, the audiobook is them reading the original manuscripts of the 5 books. So, it's not that it's 5 of his books in one if you're reading OaFK, it's that it was recreated and re-introduced as one single book afterwards, and that's the one the group is reading.

Gabi: OMG! You're so right! I'm sorry I confused that for KIM! This is what I get for multitasking.