Help us pick subgenres/themes for next year!

[Cheryl]

Nyx wrote: "i got another one! books with an adult cast, or as i like to call them, developed frontal lobe ensemble"

Oh gosh yes.

[cass ♡]

I would like to +1 ghost stories!
Also, I think anything with botany/herbology/plants/gardening as well.

[Ryan, Your favourite moderators favourite moderator]

I thought about doing an 'Adapted to the Screen' theme but figured they had enough publicity already. If it gets enough support I guess I'll have to make it a reality.

Credit to Allison and Anna that so many of the suggested themes have already been done in the last few years.

[Mareike]

This is probably a very niche theme, but what about SF/speculative poetry?

[DivaDiane]

I will definitely +1 SpecPo!

[Anna]

(I like the term SpecPo!)

[Mareike]

DivaDiane wrote: "I will definitely +1 SpecPo!"

I knew you would be down for this, Diane! High-five!

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

not a snarky question, this is a question from ignorance. are there many collections of specpo longer than 170 pages?

[Mareike]

That’s a very good question, Allison. I looked at the Science Fiction Poetry Association’s list for books published in 2022 and 2021 and most of those were below 170 pages.

There are SF/SpecPo works that are longer, even novel-length (e.g. The Sign of the Dragon or Angels of Hell: Poetic Tales of the Apocalypse vol. 1: 2021 One Poem A Day, The Book of Lust & More), but I guess it would take a little more searching to find enough for a poll than it might for many other possible themes.

[Beth]

SpecPo would be a hard sell for the group as a whole, I suspect.

[Chris]

For some themes that may be difficult to accommodate, we could have a relaxed rules month that would allow poetry, short story collections, etc. That way, these could compete for our votes without giving the group a mandate.

[Anna]

I would also like to remind everyone of our friendly neighborhood buddy reads! :) We even have a thread/folder for short fiction buddy reads, which I imagine would be a good home for poetry, too.

Buddy Read Recruitment
Short Fiction Buddy Reads

[Mareike]

Beth wrote: "SpecPo would be a hard sell for the group as a whole, I suspect."

That’s my gut feeling, too. But I figured tossing it in the ring can’t hurt.

@Anna: very good point! I was thinking that Diane and I can just team up to read some stuff if/when there’s little enthusiasm for SpecPo from the larger group.

[DivaDiane]

No, most poetry collections are much less than 170 pages. Anthologies are a little different (multiple authors vs. collections=single author) and often longer. The most recent Rhysling Anthologies have been over 170. That said, I think a poetry collection over 170 pages would be a hard slog for anyone and it would make discussion really difficult.

I regularly read SpecPo (I’m involved in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA) and would gladly Buddy read anything with anyone, but it would be an interesting experiment to do SpecPo anthology prompt just to see what we get and if conversation can be generated. I don’t want to run afoul of group rules, though. I’m not an author or poet, but I do volunteer for the SFPA.

[Anna]

(I'm planning on reading some poetry next week, I'll post in the short fic BR to see if anyone wants to join me :) I'm not sure if it's speculative though!)

[Mareike]

Anna wrote: "(I'm planning on reading some poetry next week, I'll post in the short fic BR to see if anyone wants to join me :) I'm not sure if it's speculative though!)"

I’m down for poetry, speculative or not.

[CBRetriever]

Mareike wrote: "Anna wrote: "(I'm planning on reading some poetry next week, I'll post in the short fic BR to see if anyone wants to join me :) I'm not sure if it's speculative though!)"

I’m down for poetry, spec..."

not me, American schools do a very, very good job of getting their students to have a permanent dislike of poetry. I can listen to it, but reading it...nope.

[Mareike]

German schools don’t do much better, I’m afraid. Most people here don’t enjoy reading poetry either and it definitely has to do with how it is taught.

[CBRetriever]

Mareike wrote: "German schools don’t do much better, I’m afraid. Most people here don’t enjoy reading poetry either and it definitely has to do with how it is taught."

yep, if they just let us read and enjoy it, all would be well, but instead we have to analyze the under lying them, discover if there are parental issues, what is the author trying to sway and write essays that are often longer than the poem we're reading. Someone made a rather succinct quote that said something like anyone who reads anything into my books is deluded

[Mareike]

Don’t get me started on why I think “authorial intent” readings of poems (and most texts) aren’t the best way to read texts. I don’t want to drag this thread too far off topic.
I do think it makes sense to teach people literary devices and stuff, but the high school “there is only one right way to read this poem” kind of teaching is just…..not ideal.


Another theme I’d find interesting are generation ships. (If this has already been suggested, I’d like to +1 it.)

[Dj]

Ellen wrote: "Some good ideas. I like:
Short story collections
Translated works
Ban on authors after 3 times on the shelf:
I'm more likely to read them without help from the group. I like being introduced to a..."

I kind of agree with the ban on authors that have shown up on the list three times but only for a certain time frame. I don't see any real need to ban someone for the life of the group because they write in such a way that it resonates with members of the group. So I would suggest a minimum ban of two years or a little more to be determined by the Mod.

[Anna]

We already have a 24 month period when an author can't be nominated :)

edit: lol 24, not 48! XD

[Dj]

Mareike wrote: "Beth wrote: "SpecPo would be a hard sell for the group as a whole, I suspect."

That’s my gut feeling, too. But I figured tossing it in the ring can’t hurt.

@Anna: very good point! I was thinking ..."

It might not have hurt if you hadn't tossed it onto my foot. LOL
I am not sure about SpecPo but I would be willing to give it a chance. I mostly get my Poetry in musical form.

[Anthony]

48? I thought it was 24.

[Anna]

Yeah I just fixed it :D

[Anna]

I'm used to multiplying everything by two, because we have two books per month :P

[Anna]

Anna wrote: "I'm used to multiplying everything by two, because we have two books per month :P"

What I actually mean is that I'm used to dealing with 48 spreadsheet rows, and I didn't convert to human before posting :)

[Anna]

So authors can be nominated again once 48 spreadsheet rows have passed since they were last added to the shelf, or two years if that's how you prefer to put it.

[Dj]

Anna wrote: "So authors can be nominated again once 48 spreadsheet rows have passed since they were last added to the shelf, or two years if that's how you prefer to put it."

Seems resonable.

[Nike]

Hi, I'm s new member in this group. I'd love someone to explain to me what "Literary sci - fi" is. Thanks

I'm very interested in reading sci-fi and fantasy from Africa and Asia I guess that means I shall write 1 + here since someone suggested this?

I would also like to suggest sci-fi and fantasy from the five Nordic countries (Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland).

Another prompt could be a book with a black cover. (Sci-Fi & Fant)

And my third prompt-suggestion could be to read a book in a series that you've once started to read but yet haven't finished the whole series or as an alternative to start to read the first book in a series. (Sci-Fi)

[Anna]

Nike wrote: "I'd love someone to explain to me what "Literary sci - fi" is."

This is not an official definition, but what I call literary scifi is literary fiction that has a speculative premise, usually a near future climate change type scenario or other dystopian setting, or maybe AI/clones, etc. So there is a scifi element, but it's not the focus.

Nike wrote: "a book in a series that you've once started to read but yet haven't finished the whole series"

This would be hard, because we're looking for books to add to the group shelf, and we've stopped doing sequels, because the discussions for those aren't very lively. Many people will finish the series on their own after they read the first book in the series with the group, so by the time a sequel gets added to the group shelf, we will have people who

a) haven't read the first one and don't want to read two books
b) have already read the sequel/series
c) are going to read the book

meaning that there will be less people reading than in a typical month.

[Nike]

Anna wrote: "Nike wrote: "I'd love someone to explain to me what "Literary sci - fi" is."

This is not an official definition, but what I call literary scifi is literary fiction that has a speculative premise, ..."

Aha, ok - I wasn't aware of the need for adding the books to your shelf, I thought it was a challenge common in other groups. I'm sorry, I haven't learned the typical habits for this group yet.

Thank you for explaining Literary Sci-Fi. 🙂

[Anna]

Oh I see! OK, so we're looking for themes to use for nominations, that's when members of the group nominate books, and the most popular ones (based on seconds) go into the poll, and one of them becomes the next book we all read together in this group! :)

There are two polls open right now (here: https://www.goodreads.com/poll/list/1...), and the next nominations will start on September 16th.

[Bobby]

Would like to get some space related sci fy if any of you have recommendations that would be good for me. Just finished the Expanse books and they were pretty fun.

I'm not a big fan of books translated into English but that wouldn't stop me from reading any that are suggested. I just feel weird reading a translator's version of the original. I wonder what subtleties are missing. But there are a lot of great books like this so I guess it is inevitable that we read some. Recent example is the Witcher books by Andrzej Sapkowski. Great to read the source material behind the games and videos but it felt a little off to me reading it translated into English.

[Nike]

Aha, I misunderstood since it said 2023. Then I thought it was suggestions for a 12-month-challenge or a 52-week-challenge.

[CBRetriever]

Nike wrote: "And my third prompt-suggestion could be to read a book in a series that you've once started to read but yet haven't finished the whole series or as an alternative to start to read the first book in a series. (Sci-Fi)"

First books in a series qualify, sequels don't. However, there's usually someone who runs a series contest on this forum:

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

it's the same challenge in both places. I take part in both to give me the impetus to finish series I've started

[Anna]

Bobby, if you want recommendations, please start a thread in the Recommendations folder:

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

[Anthony]

Serious question for the mods: I’ve seen a fair amount of seconding of the idea of reading a short story collection as a group read. Is there a possibility of making it an exception in a particular month? I’m thinking of some very prominent and celebrated writers who specialize in short stories, who would be great to have on the shelf. Some of them wrote no novels, even.

[Anna]

Serious answer: We've almost done it every year since 2019, and right now we're almost ready to decide if we want to do it next year :)

That said, we have all these short fiction related things in the group, and only a small handful of people ever participate in them. We've taken that to mean that even if a few vocal people want more short fic, the majority is not interested.

So, be it short fiction or any other theme, make sure to let us know in this thread and second everything that sounds interesting! We're listening :)

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Anna wrote: "Serious answer: We've almost done it every year since 2019, and right now we're almost ready to decide if we want to do it next year :)

That said, we have all these short fiction related things in..."

Yeah, to add, we're not OPPOSED to short fic, it's always been a balance of who actually wants it and how the heck we do it with the GR interface.

[CBRetriever]

mightn't a book of short stories by one author be doable? I can see the difficulty with multiple authors.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

CBRetriever wrote: "mightn't a book of short stories by one author be doable? I can see the difficulty with multiple authors."

We've said this before, but actually no, that's not the issue. The issue is that we don't have spoiler tags. So our options are limited as to how we try to make sure everyone can discuss all the stories without getting spoiled about later ones, without waiting til the very end, when most of us will not have as much to say about the stories we read longer ago in time. Having a different thread for each story would be a mess, having a spoiler free thread and a spoilerific one doesn't make sense because you'll have different ideas about each story but the fact that you made it to a new story, or skipped a story is actually considered too spoilery for the intention of the first impressions thread.

We've been over this literally dozens of times with each other, and I think we have an idea on how to proceed (so please, no need for more ideas, we've literally got charts) but what it comes down to is finding a time and place to know that no matter what we do, we will hear primarily complaints about the format. Given that this job is (while loved by the three of us!) quite thankless at times just trying to find something the majority wants to read and will enjoy reading, setting up a scenario that will cause a month of headaches, post deletions, hurt feelings and vocal opposition/second guessing our thought process is highly unappealing, frankly.

We're willing to try it, but, and I'm being perfectly honest with you, I dread the amount of work it will almost invariably make for us. So, since it hasn't garnered much affection before, we've been happy to sideline it. But I think it's time for you to prove us wrong! Time to show that folks can work together to use this wonky system that none of us would have coded if we'd been in charge as best we are able and continue loving genre fic no matter the format!

That is, if enough folks are interested.

[Anthony]

Ooohhhh I hadn’t even considered the spoiler situation. Yikes, that does make sense. 😬😬😬I don’t pretend to know how to solve that conundrum, and I certainly didn’t intend to make more (thankless) work/drudgery for you guys!

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

No, I know! And we don't want people to stop saying they want things just because Goodreads is terrible! You all rock, and deserve nice things and the mods are nearly feral in our collective zeal to make this group do the best it can to support the love of genre and sharing thoughts about it. (see, I've done a run-on! That's how rabid I am!) It's just we're also human* and boy howdy does the tried and true seem easier most days. Plus, we had kind of held out hope that maybe the new book pages would result in some new functionality? lol, I know, delusional and hopeful are sometimes too closely related.

Anyways, that's just where we are, and what we've got to figure out at some point.

*edit to add I'm using this term loosely, and not referring to only homo sapiens, but all beings deserving of personhood

[Anna]

Allison wrote: "Plus, we had kind of held out hope that maybe the new book pages would result in some new functionality?"

I resent the implication that *I* thought the new page would make anything better! <_<

I demand a public apology or it's pistols at dawn!

[Jemppu]

[Anna]

lol XD

[Anna]

(Jemppu is my second!)

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

amazing XD (I like how the Finns stay ready to defend each other like this. Well done)

okay, okay, I had delusions SO STRONG I invented co-mods who do not exist, because Ryan and Anna are both too smart and worldly to believe in the goodness of Amazon, and we all agreed that maybe if we (the imaginary mods and I) waited long enough this whole spoiler thing would be resolved.

But it was not AND I REPEAT *NOT* Anna.

pleaseputtheknifedown

[Anna]

I accept your apology! ^_^

Also you rock! <3