2015 Group Challenge Reading Calendar/Planning

[Michael]

Here is the calendar of "challenge reads" for 2015 that have group interest. It is posted here at the top of this thread for easy reference. If you are new to this thread, please see the explanation in the next post, and the discussion that follows!

Latest 2015 Schedule (updated as the year progresses)

(reader count), title, (page count), reading start date:
(9) The Handmaid's Tale - (311pp) - January 15
(11) Fuzzy Nation - (303pp) - February 15
(6) Red Mars - (572pp) - February 15
(10) Ready Player One - (374pp) - March 15
(5) The Martian Chronicles - (182pp) - March 15
(8) Neuromancer - (271pp) - April 15
(4) Zodiac - (308pp) - April 15
(5) Fahrenheit 451 - (227pp) - April 15
(6) The Dispossessed - (387pp) - May 15
(4) The Long Earth - (336pp) - May 15
(6) The City & the City - (312pp) - June 15
(5) Tigana - (676pp) - June 15
(7) Altered Carbon - (526pp) - July 15
(5) Promise of Blood - (545pp) - July 15
(?) Dune - (604pp) - July 15
(7) American Gods - (656pp) - August 15
(7) 1Q84 - (925pp) - September 15
(4) Dawn - (248pp) - September 15
(6) Old Man's War - (314pp) - October 15
(6) The Word for World is Forest - (189pp) - October 15
(4) World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War - (342pp) - November 15
(4) Warbreaker - (688pp) - November 15
(6) Foundation - (256pp) - December 15
(5) The Snow Queen - (448pp) - December 15

Discussion links:

The Handmaid's Tale
The Handmaid's Tale - First Impressions *no spoilers*
The Handmaid's Tale - Reading in Progress First Half - Spoilers
The Handmaid's Tale - Final Thoughts *Spoilers*

Fuzzy Nation
"Fuzzy Nation" First Impressions *No Spoilers*
"Fuzzy Nation" Final Thoughts *Spoilers*

Red Mars
Gut Reaction *no spoilers*
The Big Thread *only hidden spoilers*
All Finished *spoil away*

Ready Player One
Player One - Ready?(No Spoilers)
Spoilers Up Through Chapter 17
Game Over(Unmarked Spoilers)
Top Folder Containing Other Potential Topics

The Martian Chronicles
"The Martian Chronicles" discussion -- First Impressions (spoiler free)
The Martian Chronicles - Final Thoughts *spoilers*

Neuromancer
Neuromancer - First Thoughts **No Spoilers**
Neuromancer - Final Thoughts **Spoilers**
Neuromancer - I didn't get it (spoilers)

Zodiac
Zodiac - First Impressions *no spoilers*
Zodiac - Final Thoughts **Spoilers**

Fahrenheit 451
"Fahrenheit 451" First Impressions *no spoilers*
Fahrenheit 451 Final Thoughts (**SPOILERS ALLOWED**)

The Dispossessed
"Dispossessed" Obligatory First Impressions *no spoilers*
"Dispossessed" The Ending **Spoilers Allowed**

The Long Earth
"The Long Earth" First Impressions *No Spoilers*
"The Long Earth" Final Thoughts *Spoilers*

The City & the City
The City & The City - First Impressions *No Spoilers*
Mieville does Mystery. Whattaya think? *Possible Spoilers*
The City & The City - Final Thoughts *Spoilers*

Tigana
Tigana discussion -- First Impressions
Tigana discussion -- Sexuality *Possible Spoilers*
Tigana discussion -- Historical Fiction/Historical Fantasy *Spoilers*
Tigana discussion -- I hate love this book.... *Spoilers*

Altered Carbon
"Altered Carbon" Starts off with a bang! *no spoilers*
Altered Carbon Final thoughts
"Altered Carbon" Problems with the Story, Setting, Characters, etc? **Spoilers Allowed**

Promise of Blood
"Promise of Blood" First Impressions *No Spoilers*
"Promise of Blood" - Finished *Spoilers*
Bonus: I doubt the author is still watching this thread but you can look at the Q&A that happened back when the group read this one:
"Promise of Blood" - Q&A With Brian McClellan *Spoilers*

Dune
Dune - First Impressions *No Spoilers*
Dune - Finished (possible spoiler alert)

American Gods
"American Gods" First Impression *no spoilers*
"American Gods" Final Thoughts **Spoilers**

1Q84
"1Q84" First impressions *no spoilers*
"1Q84" Final thoughts *spoilers*

Dawn
"Dawn" First Impressions *No Spoilers*
"Dawn" Final Thoughts *Spoilers*

Old Man's War
First Impressions *No Spoilers*
Finished *Spoilers*

The Word for World is Forest
"Word for World..." Gut Reaction & Discussion Leader *no spoilers*
"Word for World..." Humanism *spoiler*

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
First Impressions(No Spoilers)
Goodbyes *nothing left to spoil, so spoil away*

Warbreaker
"Warbreaker" First Impressions *No Spoilers*
"Warbreaker" Final Thoughts *Spoilers*

Foundation
"Foundation" Gut Reaction & Discussion Leader *no spoilers*
"Foundation" Characters
"Foundation" Technology
"Foundation" Religion
"Foundation" Psychology & Psychohistory

The Snow Queen
"The Snow Queen" First Impressions *no spoilers*
"The Snow Queen" General Discussion *spoilers*

[Michael]

Hello! The purpose of this thread is to coordinate group reads from our group's bookshelf for the 2015 Group Reading Challenge.

The explanation of the challenge is here: SciFi and Fantasy Book Club Challenge 2015

The goal is to read books from the group's bookshelf, which is here: Bookshelf (You can also click "Bookshelf" over there on the top right of the screen menu)

When group members posted our lists of goals for last year's (2014) challenge, we realized we shared a lot of common interests in which books we wanted to read for the year, so we created a thread to coordinate reading those together. That thread is here: Coordinating reading books in groups.

Recently, it was determined that that thread is insanely long and hard to navigate, and it would make more sense to start a 2015 thread, and also it would be very helpful to have the 2015 Calendar in an easy to find place at the top of its own discussion topic. The upshot is that the discussion in the old thread is now being continued here, with a cool calendar at the top.

The calendar above took a lot of work to agree on (and a lot of work for me to type!), so before you try to make counterproposals, please be sure you are familiar with the backstory! (see comments #281 - #454 in the old thread). That said, it is an "unofficial" official timeline, and if people end up having conflicts as the year progresses, or new people join, or whatever, please feel free to make friendly amendments, or add new book proposals to the ongoing discussion here. We are a work in progress!

Carry on...

[Maggie]

okey dokey! I wanted to make sure and post so I get notices...

[Sarah]

Thank you Michael! It looks great and it's a relief to have something so easy to look at.

[M.L.]

Wow, thanks Michael! (Bags packed!) This is great and easy to find.

[Kim]

Well done Michael, keep up the excellent work.

[Roland]

Thanks very much.

[Michael]

You're welcome, everyone! Thanks for the wonderful "applause", it brought a smile to my face!

[Valerie]

Michael, you rock! Thank you.

[Sarah]

I should probably mention that I haven't gotten very far with Red Mars. I got to 21% and I just can't bring myself to pick it up again. I'm going to try switching to audiobook to see if that helps me.

[Maggie]

I had the same problem sarah-I am hoping it was just my mood at the time, but I couldn't get into it. Hopefully it will work later!

[Hank]

I am posting as well so I get updates. Will go over and jump in on a couple of the discussions.

[Edwin]

Michael, thanks for taking this on and fantastic work (as always).

So, I am now deep in to Ready Player One and digging it. I look forward to the discussions to come.

And FYI, my wife just finished Fuzzy Nation. She proclaimed this one of her favorite books, which is saying a lot as she normally is not a big Sci-Fi fan.

[Sarah]

It's a favorite of mine too.

That is definitely high praise coming from a non sci-fi fan. I would make everyone in the world read Fuzzy if I could.

[Richard]

Finding the way here was certainly easy. Thanks, Michael, for the directions.

UPDATE 3-16-2015 -- I am officially one book behind, not finished with Red Mars yet. Got bogged down in estate legal issues and income tax prep.

[Justine]

I'm completely new, and I think I've actually figured it out, so that should tell you it's pretty clear. :)

[Michael]

LOL, glad it is working for folks, and now it passes the newbie test!

[Valerie]

So, it feels like I've been waiting forever for my library hold of Red Mars to come in. Hallelujah! My wait is over. Not because the hold finally came though, but thanks to Audible.

For those of you who might be interested, Audible is having a Buy 3 for 2 Credits sale and they have some really good choices in Scifi and Fantasy.

I picked up:
Red Mars
The Speed of Dark
The Forever War

[Edwin]

Valerie wrote: "For those of you who might be interested, Audible is having a Buy 3 for 2 Credits sale and they have some really good choices in Scifi and Fantasy."

You are in no way helping me with my vow to not let my Audible "owned-and-to-be-read-collection" get as overloaded as my Kindle and regular book collections. Thanks a lot. :)

[Valerie]

LOL, I feel your pain. I am also trying to reduce this collection, but I have exempted my 12 annual credits from counting against me.

Now I just need to resist the Daily Deals from both Kindle and Audible. (So far, so good this year. I've yet to cave.)

[Steve]

Finished Red Mars, Fuzzy Nation and The Long Earth. I will log into Red Mars and Fuzzy and comment.

[Steve]

No comments on Red Mars?

[Sarah]

I only hit 21% and I couldn't get any farther. I keep trying to convince myself to pick it up and I keep finding other things to read... Was it any good? It was roughly written and I didn't like the characters. I'm working at Ready Player One right now.

[Steve]

I think Red Mars is the Moby Dick of Science Fiction for me...many claim to have read and liked it, less actual did read it, and only a few thought it was worth that huge chunk of their life. As a nerd, I felt obligated to get through the book. Books to me are like cue cards to Ron Burgundy, once I start I keep reading.

I enjoyed Ready Player One and Fuzzy a lot more. Maybe I am a plebe.

[Edwin]

Steve wrote: "I think Red Mars is the Moby Dick of Science Fiction for me..."

Hmm, I am glad I skipped it. Ready Player One and Fuzzy, however, I'm glad I didn't.

[Sarah]

I was so excited about Red Mars! I even got audible versions of the sequels and I was all ready to go. There are a few things I'm curious about but I just don't think I'm curious enough to keep reading. I think Valerie just started reading it. I should give it one more try at least.

[YouKneeK]

Sarah wrote: "I only hit 21% and I couldn't get any farther."

I’m not participating in the challenge, but I did read Red Mars last month. It’s been in my backlog for a while and I saw other people were reading it. I liked the first half quite a bit, but I started to lose interest in the second half. So who knows, maybe you’d be the opposite and you’d like the 2nd half better?

I agree that the characters aren’t very likeable. The story was also pretty slow and meandering but, at least in the beginning, I thought it was interesting. I really enjoyed reading about how the first 100 colonists built a life for themselves on Mars. When the story moved away from that, and things started to spiral out of control, I felt like it was too much too fast and I lost my investment in what was going on.

Throughout the book, what I found most interesting was the difference in perspectives depending on which character’s perspective we were reading from. I liked how each character saw themselves, and Mars, and other people differently. I thought it was very realistic. Each character had a unique perspective and you learned more each time the perspective changed and you saw things through a different set of eyes. I always looked forward to getting to a new section and seeing which character would be the focus of it, so that also helped move me through the book.

I had already bought the 2nd book before I had started getting bored with the 1st book, so I felt obligated to at least try to read it since I’d bought it. I finished it today and I liked it better than the 1st. Not by a huge amount, but I would give it 3.5 stars versus the 3 stars I gave the 1st book. It had some characters that were more likeable, and I thought the story was a little more focused and interesting. In the 1st book, there was an excessive amount of descriptions of various craters on Mars. In the 2nd book, it was lichen. But, in general, I enjoyed both books enough that I was able to plow through the parts that were less interesting to me. I plan to stop there, though. The 2nd book had a decent conclusion and I’m not enjoying the series enough to read another 800 pages. No doubt 400 of those pages will involve descriptions of lakes. :)

[Sarah]

Don't you like lakes? ;) That made me laugh. Okay, I'll give it one more try. I was on Nadia I think and I liked her much more than the first chick (Maya?). Thanks for the input.

[YouKneeK]

Ha, lakes are great, but I try to only think about the intricacies of one lake per week. I’m afraid Blue Mars might put me over that quota if it treats lakes the same way Green Mars treated lichen and Red Mars treated craters. :)

Nadia was definitely one of the more likeable characters in that book. Although, from what I remember, her section was the one that had the most crater descriptions. I can definitely understand how people could get stuck in that section and never make it any further.

[Sarah]

Okay, now my curiosity is working overtime. You totally have me laughing.

[Chris]

I read Red Mars some 15 years ago or more. I remember that I liked it, but can't remember much of the details except that they were on Mars, and there were craters.

I started Green Mars not too long after and didn't get very far. I don't even remember what I didn't care for.

[YouKneeK]

Chris wrote: "I read Red Mars some 15 years ago or more. I remember that I liked it, but can't remember much of the details except that they were on Mars, and there were craters."

It sounds like you remember the essentials. :)

Chris wrote: "I started Green Mars not too long after and didn't get very far. I don't even remember what I didn't care for."

I would suggest perhaps it was the lichen, but Green Mars didn’t really get into the intricacies of lichen until the third or fourth section of the book so you might not have made it that far.

[Valerie]

Sarah, I started it, but then a couple of library audio books came in, so it has been shelved for now, since I got it from Audible. I am hoping to pick it back up by the end of March.

[Sarah]

Okay, I'll try to do the same.

[David]

I really liked Red Mars when I read it some 10 years ago, amazing concept. As the trilogy went on I liked it less, but still hope to re-read them again on day.

[Sandi]

I liked Red Mars but I felt that not only were the characters holding themselves out as being better than the rest of us, but also the author was as well. And there was no frontier planet magic where the characters have to come together to survive and make a world. Instead, everything was prepackaged and given to them (and what government(s) are going to be sending up THAT much expensive material!) It just never felt realistic.

[Trike]

Steve wrote: "No comments on Red Mars?"

If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. 1 star.

[YouKneeK]

Sandi wrote: "Instead, everything was prepackaged and given to them (and what government(s) are going to be sending up THAT much expensive material!) It just never felt realistic."

The governments and businesses of an overpopulated planet that was running low on natural resources. Many of the people who went to Mars may have gone out of scientific curiosity, but the governments that sent them had different goals and they expected to get out of it more than they were put into it.

(view spoiler)[The goals of the governments and business organizations that invested in the trip versus the goals of the first people who went to Mars was a major source of conflict throughout at least the first two books. (hide spoiler)]

[Sandi]

Except they threw millions of tons of material and machinery up there before the first colonist landed. I can see a cumulative accrual of material as the initial colony is established and proves itself, I just do not see that much payload (many ships worth - multi billions of dollars in cost) being launched beforehand. I definitely recognized the conflict of motivation between the actors. It just seems that the situation hypothesized is radically different than the one we will face in actually establishing a Mars colony and the initial issues would be dramatically different (although I am afraid that the long term issues may be all too similar). As a person who lives in an oil-rich county in Texas, I still see oil companies going out and geologically mapping the land with low cost, low tech machines before driving and setting up their huge platforms. And if they can get away with a less expensive drilling platform, that is what they send out.

[Trike]

Was there 3D printing or nanotech in Red Mars? I forget.

If they could somehow make 3D printing work given the materials they find on the ground (namely sand), maybe a cost-efficient Mars colony could work.

[Edwin]

Just a humble suggestion, but maybe we should move the Red Mars discussions over to one of the discussion links that Michael so painstakingly listed up top.

[Valerie]

Thank you, Edwin. I was about to suggest the same.

[Michael]

Edwin wrote: "Just a humble suggestion, but maybe we should move the Red Mars discussions over to one of the discussion links that Michael so painstakingly listed up top."

Brilliant! This spontaneous discussion proves there might be some discussion points, even if it is mainly complaints!

And... for those of you reading this month's books, the technical starting date is today, and here are the books and the links for when you are ready to discuss (also listed in this topic's first post, of course):

Ready Player One
Player One - Ready?(No Spoilers)
Spoilers Up Through Chapter 17
Game Over(Unmarked Spoilers)
Top Folder Containing Other Potential Topics

The Martian Chronicles
"The Martian Chronicles" discussion -- First Impressions (spoiler free)
The Martian Chronicles - Final Thoughts *spoilers*

[Steve]

Hmm. Re-read RPO? It was so much fun. I just read it last year.

[Fabi NEEDS Email Notifications]

This is so easy to find and participate now. Thank you! I love group reads and discussions.

[Michael]

April update:

The books we started reading in March have discussions going on right now; if you have read the books join in if you haven't already! (see message 43 just three before this one...)

For April, we are supposedly reading 3 books!! We start reading on April 15 (tax day here in the U.S.!)

Although most people are only joining in one of the discussions, feel free to do as many as you want. I have updated the links in the main thread post, but will duplicate them here:

Neuromancer
Neuromancer - First Thoughts **No Spoilers**
Neuromancer - Final Thoughts **Spoilers**
Neuromancer - I didn't get it (spoilers)

Zodiac
Zodiac - First Impressions *no spoilers*
Zodiac - Final Thoughts **Spoilers**

Fahrenheit 451
"Fahrenheit 451" First Impressions *no spoilers*
Fahrenheit 451 Final Thoughts (**SPOILERS ALLOWED**)

Question, does anyone have a copy of Zodiac handy? What is the last section titled? I don't see any "final thoughts" threads on our group website, but there are threads for sections like "GEE" and "Lobster Project" that might indicate the end of the book. Just trying to figure out if I need to create a new final thoughts thread for Zodiac or not...

[Sarah]

I have the Kindle version. It has Chapters 1-37. Lobster project is not showing up in my search. GEE is GEE International and is also described as Group of Environmental Extremists. Hmm... I just found Project Lobster and it's a project throughout the book. Those two threads must be about specific aspects of the book rather than final thoughts.

[Michael]

Hmm, okay I may have to add a Final Thoughts then. Those older book discussions were not always as clear as recent ones...

[Sarah]

No they weren't. There's some crazy stuff on there.

[Felicia]

If I get my hands on Fahrenheit 451 during the next couple of days, I'll definitely join you guys on that one!