SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion
SciFi and Fantasy Book Challenge
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SciFi and Fantasy Book Club Challenge 2015
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Sarah
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Apr 16, 2015 08:17PM
Thanks Hank!
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Edwin, I have actually read a good chunk of what is on the list already. some multiple times. I have come up with a small list of what is left though. just enough to fill my challenge this year.
I actually managed to finish The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury and I ended up giving it two stars, which is managed to finish in my standards. That's also six out of twelve books finished for the challenge.I'm still not sure whether or not I like Bradbury's works that much based on one book read and finished and one tried to read but abandoned, but atleast I can now put the disappointment of Fahrenheit 451 behind me and move on, though maybe not reading more of his works.
Maarit wrote: "I actually managed to finish The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury and I ended up giving it two stars, which is managed to finish in my standards. That's also six out of twelve books..."Sounds like you definitely gave him a chance, no reason to put yourself through more suffering!
Flash Beagle wrote: "The last one I read on my list was Childhood's End. It left me so shell-shocked I had to read nonfiction for 2 days. What a book, what a vision! With last ..."FB, I finally got to this one. It was a remarkable book and I'm very glad I read it. What a mind that man had!
As for my challenge, I'm at 16/60 and I think I'll finish Zodiac tomorrow. The Left Hand of Darkness is next up on my list. I'm trying so hard to catch up so I don't see that little nagging comment that I'm _ books behind.
Sarah wrote: "Flash Beagle wrote: "The last one I read on my list was Childhood's End. It left me so shell-shocked I had to read nonfiction for 2 days. What a book, what a vision! With last ..."..."
FB, I finally got to this one. It was a remarkable book and I'm very glad I read it. What a mind that man had!
I'm glad you enjoyed it! He wrote like he was channeling.
I haven't finished any more on my list but with this month's group read The Quantum Thief I'll be at 10. (With a goal of 12, I should make it!:P My arrow keeps asking me to increase.)
That's a good way to explain the writing. It was absolutely phenomenal and I've never read anything quite like it.Great job on the goal!
I loved Childhood's End as well. My favorite Clarke ever!I am not doing so good so far! I am just about done with Zodiac though (which I love, love, love), and about to start The DIspossessed
I'm just past halfway with Zodiac. I really need to get to Left Hand of Darkness so that I'm ready for The Dispossessed. I did read White Cat today and I didn't like it. I suppose they can't all be wonderful.
I just finished White Cat recently too and thought the same thing. There were some good parts but I really couldn't get into the characters.I might have to track down a copy of Zodiac if it got a love, love, love :)
That idiotic, convoluted con at the end of White Cat was a joke.Reading Neuromancer and Zodiac back to back was really not a good idea for me. I like Zodiac but I'm having to take it in smaller pieces than normal. I'm surprised that it was written in 1988 because it's still very fresh. I'm looking forward to discussing it with Maggie.
I'm a bit late to the party, I finally managed to set up this year challenge. I'm planning to read 16 books, with 8 already read:The Martian
Fuzzy Nation
The Forever War
Station Eleven
The City & the City
The Caves of Steel
Childhood's End
Blood Song
I've read a few other sci-fi and fantasy books this year, but they are not in the bookshelves list.
I have a question: although I can see my widget on the challenge page (https://www.goodreads.com/challenges/...) I can't see other people status in the community list below it, for example Sarah's, did I do something wrong?
i don't have my computer in front of me but i thought there was something maybe just below the widget? Something to click on. I've never found a way to organize them or look for a specific person. Rather unhelpful without my computer.
@Sarah, to be honest I didn't like it, here is my brief review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show....I know many people loved it though, are you planning to read it?
I am. It doesn't look like something i would normally go for but I've heard great things about it. At least it's short!
Sure is, I hope you'll like it Sarah, happy reading!
I've just finished 6 this month to bring my total to 27 of my projected 30. 21. Flowers for Algernon(****)
22. Gardens of the Moon(***)
23. Neuromancer (****)
24. Fahrenheit 451 (*****)
25. Blood Song (****)
27. Deathless (****)
Sarah, I will be very curious to see what you have to say about Zodiac.
After I finish Elantris (not a group read), I plan to start on The Quantum Thief and The Eye of the World, which will be a reread from a long, long time ago. I just got a load of books from Thriftbooks and Half Price Books so I am a happy camper/reader.
Don't you love Thriftbooks? I use and abuse them and they give me great suggestions so I can use and abuse them some more :)
Kiwi wrote: "I have a question: although I can see my widget on the challenge page (https://www.goodreads.com/challenges/...) I can't see other people status in the community list below it, for example Sarah's, did I do something wrong? ..."I just looked at this on my computer and I thought it used to be where the "more challenges" link is. But now that doesn't take you to the others. I'm baffled. Hopefully someone else knows.
Sarah wrote: "Kiwi wrote: "I have a question: although I can see my widget on the challenge page (https://www.goodreads.com/challenges/...) I can't see other people status in the community list below it, for exa..."You can see some, though, right? That page has always had a bug, as far as I know, which is that is just shows you the first 50 people, and not all of the people participating (212 in this case). I haven't figured a way around it yet, would love to know if there is one!
When I looked it only showed the challenge I'm doing this year and the one I did last year. Nothing else.
Oh! You click on the title 'Read all the books 2'! Thanks Michael.
I appreciate the help. It has friend's challenges at the top. :)
Michael wrote: "You can see some, though, right? That page has always had a bug, as far as I know, which is that is just shows you the first 50 people, and not all of the people participating (212 in this case). I haven't figured a way around it yet, would love to know if there is one! ..."Yes Michael, like you said, I can see some but not all participants, I was just been curious how other people were progressing with the challenge, thanks for your reply :-)
I'm getting ready to (finally) read The Left Hand of Darkness and I managed to read books 1-3 of the Hainish Cycle. For those who are curious:#1 - Rocannon's World 2 stars
#2 - Planet of Exile 4 stars
#3 - City of Illusions 4 stars
2 & 3 were absolutely worth reading. I thoroughly enjoyed them. 1 had me bored to tears. The only value to 1 is that it describes the ansible clearly. 2 & 3 do tie together to a fairly significant degree. I'm glad I read both. Left Hand, here I come!
Last year I signed up for a 20 book challenge and met it without any problem. This year I'm aiming for 30 books, and to up the challenge I'm limiting myself to NEW (to me) books. I've gotten into a real run the last couple years of spending a lot of my reading time revisiting old favorites, so I want to enjoy more new books this year. The last time I checked, I was pretty much h on target to hit 30 book, so I just need to keep up the pace!
I am actuall behind! I think so many of our BotM reads last year were things I wanted to read, that I thought it would be easy to meet it again, and so far I have only joined in on City of Stairs. Hopefully something more up my alley will come up!
I've read 10 of the 12 books I planned to read:Ready Player One (***)
Consider Phlebas (**)
Assassin's Apprentice (***)
Tigana (****)
Station Eleven (*****)
Neuromancer (**)
Soulless (**)
The Martian (***)
Flowers for Algernon (****)
Zoo City (****)
Next up is Alif the Unseen and then maybe The Quantum Thief.
Finished Station Eleven. Correct book but I didn't care much about the characters and I wasn't really interested. I was probably expecting a book more focused on survival or a tense one. I felt like it was more a book about thinking about the choices in life or the lack of.Finished Ready player One. Fun book but not really well-written. I am not sure if a not-gamer without fond memories of the 80s or things from the 80s will like it.
Mistakenly read Blood of Elves by Andrzej Sapkowski because I thought it was the first book, it turns out it is the 3rd one but the first one of a continuous story. The two first are books made of short stories. I will probably drop the first of my TBR since I didn't like the 3rd one.
So far 9 out of 15.
So far I've finished 8 out 12 books in my challenge, so I might have to yet again increase my goal a bit more.So far I've read these books:
Magian väri (The Colour of Magic) by Terry Pratchett (***)
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman (**)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (***)
Hyviä enteitä: Noita Agnes Nutterin hienot ja oikeat ennustukset (Good Omens) by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman (****)
Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson (****)
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury (**)
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin (****)
The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin (***)
I'm currently reading and am over halfway through Lapsuuden loppu (Childhood's End) by Arthur C. Clarke. Next I will start Unohdetut jumalat (American Gods) by Neil Gaiman.
Maarit wrote: "So far I've finished 8 out 12 books in my challenge, so I might have to yet again increase my goal a bit more."Good job on the challenge! I'm curious, are the ones with Finnish titles the only ones translated to that language? Or do you prefer to read some in Finnish and some in English?
Michael wrote: "Good job on the challenge! I'm curious, are the ones with Finnish titles the only ones translated to that language? Or do you prefer to read some in Finnish and some in English? "Well out of those eight books read the only one that is not (yet) translated in Finnish is Mistborn: The Final Empire and the translation of The Martian Chronicles is from 1950's so I think it's not widely avaiable anymore.
I tend to read the edition of the book I can most easily get my hands to. Out of those eight books read, five we have in our home bookshelf (though Hitchhiker I ended up borrowing) and are in English. The Finnish ones we don't own in any language and I've borrowed them from the library, because they were most easily avaiable in there and only in Finnish. The Martian Chronicles and Hitchhiker I also borrowed, latter mostly because the pocket book version was easier to read than the huge omnibus edition we own and they happened to have English editions in the library. So I read in both languages, but I prefer the English edition, if one is avaiable for me easily meaning we own the copy of the book ourselves or it happens to be avaible in the library in English. Otherwise I just borrow it in Finnish and read it anyways.
Clarifying the we, my boyfriend has a collection of 800+ books of mostly fantasy, a bit of scifi and a bit of other stuff collected mostly before we met and out of those maybe around 85% or so are written in English. That is mostly where I get my fantasy books, but on occasion (like for this challenge) I need to use the library to get some of the books I want to read simply because we don't own a copy and probably won't get one either (we are running out of space for books and need to think carefully what to buy and what not to buy). Also I borrow all my challenge scifi books from the library, because we don't own them that much.
I hope this clarified some things, though the message is quite long, sorry for that :D.
Thanks for all the detailed info! Coming from an English-speaking country, sometimes I wonder what it's like for others in countries where English is not the primary language, especially for this club because so many of our books are from the U.S. or Great Britain.I know what you mean about having
Non-sequitur: Is that a bunny? I love bunnies! That was not always your profile picture was it?
Michael: That's our pet bunny named Oskari (he's an old fellow, turning six years in June and that foto is a bit old). I've had that foto as my avatar since January 2014, so it's been there well over a year now. Though it's not my original avatar, no, I remember having something like "Keep calm and read more" sort of thing there before it.
That's odd. I've seen a Maarit that had a blue/black background of some kind.
Funny, I guess I just never noticed it was a bunny before! Very cute.
Finished another couple of books: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and The Lies of Locke Lamora, so 10 out of 16 for me
Once I finish 'A Calculated Life' I will be at 25 out of 50.
I'm at 20 of 60 and that counter STILL keeps telling me I'm two behind schedule. I look forward to finishing Cat's Cradle today and seeing that damn thing say I'm only one behind.
SciFi and Fantasy Book Club
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