Suggestions from Sword and Laser thread

[Serendi]

This all started with a post from Basil, Beautifully written F and SF - Seeking suggestions. I've collected and linked, I think mostly accurately; some things are repeated and some aren't, but what the hey... Authors and books are mixed in more or less as they first appeared, mostly.

Enjoy!

The Golem and the Jinni
In the Night Garden
1Q84
The Lies of Locke Lamora
Cloud Atlas
The Name of the Wind
The Road
Anything by Guy Gavriel Kay, starting with Tigana
Shoggoths in Bloom and other stories
Robin Hobb
Gene Wolfe
Tanith Lee
Jacqueline Carey
Little, Big
The Worm Ouroboros
Something Wicked This Way Comes
The Gormenghast trilogy, starting with Titus Groan
Most everything by Catherynne M. Valente, including The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making
Caitlín R. Kiernan
Shadow & Claw
China Miéville: Embassytown
David Mitchell
Hyperion
Ray Bradbury
The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny
Mark Lawrence and The Complete Broken Empire Trilogy: Prince of Thorns, King of Thorns, Emperor of Thorns and Red Queen's War
Anything by Ursula K. Le Guin, especially The Lathe of Heaven and The Left Hand of Darkness
Stations of the Tide by Michael Swanwick
Dawn by Octavia E. Butler
Against a Dark Background by Iain M. Banks
M. John Harrison's Light and The Pastel City
Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin
The Chess Garden by Brooks Hansen
Carol Berg's Lighthouse Duet, or her standalone Song of the Beast
Ellen Kushner, Thomas the Rhymer and Swordspoint
Barbara Hambly
Patricia McKillip
The Complete Lyonesse by Jack Vance
R. A. McAvoy's Tea with the Black Dragon
Robert Holdstock's Mythago Wood
Adding Le Guin's The Word for World is Forest and The Telling
Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer
Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalls
Life After Life
In the Forest of Forgetting
A Stranger in Olondria
The Buried Giant
Strange Bodies
The Yiddish Policemen's Union
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Hild
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
Tenth of December
Super Sad True Love Story
Gravity's Rainbow
The Word Exchange
The Enchanted
Samuel R. Delany
Rachel Swirsky
The Slynx
The Flame Alphabet
Nod
Dhalgren
Infinite Jest
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Erin Morgenstern
Ted Chiang
Neil Gaiman

[Bryan]

Nice! You're hardcore, Serendi. I both curse you and thank you.

[Serendi]

;-)

[Basil]

Awesome Serendi! Thanks!

Ok, so I created a poll to see which of these books we should start off discussing. I thought polls allowed for multiple selection, but that appears not to be the case (my Goodreads-Fu is not so good). So... I guess we'll just see which books get votes and which don't.

[Brendan]

Maybe try making it as a list? I think that gives you the ordered priority like you want.

[Basil]

Brendan wrote: "Maybe try making it as a list? I think that gives you the ordered priority like you want."

I thought of that. But lists are public, so people outside the group would affect the ranking. I actually already have a list going: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/8...

Do you guys want to just use the public list to decide what we should be discussing? It gives people outside the group a voice in our decision process, but that might not be a bad thing. Let me know.

[Basil]

Ok, since it looks like the vote is just getting split in the poll I created, what I'll do is create a yes/no poll for each of the books that gets a vote in the first poll. That's the way we'll be working in future anyway. And of course, if you wanted to vote for two or more books on the list, just create a yes/no poll for each of the books you couldn't place a vote for in the megapoll.

[[deleted user]]

Hi - thanks for asking the question that started all this Basil!

I just would like to chip in and say if the group hasn't read The Name of the Wind yet it would be a shame. I've read it, and the sequel, twice. They're addictive pieces of fiction - so rich and wonderful.

[John]

For the Yes/No polls, does clicking "no" indicate that you don't think the book's quality suits the group's theme, or simply that you're not personally interested in the book?

Maybe it's not a big distinction, I just wouldn't want anyone to think I'm being a troll by rejecting their suggestion :)

[Basil]

John wrote: "For the Yes/No polls, does clicking "no" indicate that you don't think the book's quality suits the group's theme, or simply that you're not personally interested in the book?

Maybe it's not a big..."

I responded to this in the Book Nominations thread. It raises an important question of pacing...