Announcing the Tag for October

[Anita]

Wow, that was a neck and neck race between scifi-fantasy and social issues. But in the end, we will be reading

scifi-fantasy

Please share your reading plans and recommendations below.

Remember, for the regular monthly reads, the book can be shelved as "scifi-fantasy" on Goodreads, or be a book that is not yet shelved that way but you feel should be.

One way to find books to read for this tag is to please visit:

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

We encourage people to link to additional lists below if they find them.

Happy Reading!!!

[Theresa]

Color me surprised!

Fortunately, I always have at least 1 sci-fi fantasy book on tap each month due to my IRL Feminerdy Book Club. October's read is A Natural History of Dragons, and November is The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi. Plus I have 1 scifi lined up to read to fill one of the 5 remaining prompts in PS - Space Tourism. I should manage 2 of them in October.

[Theresa]

If anyone is interested in SCIFI-Fantasy that fits indigenous for October Flurries, I can recommend:

Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse - in fact entire trilogy as I was so captivated by this one that I read the entire trilogy in a long weekend - not something I typically do as I like some distance between series reads. It's set in a pre-columbian world with references to Aztec, Mayan, Incan and more cultures and myths. Led to a very lively discussion a couple months ago when Feminerdy read it.

Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller - this was a young author that I read and liked several years ago. What I particularly liked was the indigenous aspects he incorporated. It had a few weaknesses but still impressive for a debut.

[Theresa]

A couple more possible Sci Fi Fantasy reads that might also fit October Flurries with an indigenous theme, all from my Feminerdy reading:

Embassytown - not a quick read at all but so good. Involves intereacting with an Indigenous population on a planet in the outer limits of a solar system -- where of course indigenous equals alien.

The City We Became - first in a duology from NK Jemisen and it definitely has an indigenous thread or two in the plot, particularly dealing with the borough of The Bronx.

[Algernon (Darth Anyan)]

I think we need to be clear that it can be either science-fiction or fantasy, because there is a particular subgenre in speculative fiction that blurs the line between the two and/or includes both, like the Commonwealth Saga by Peter F Hamilton, Dune by Frank Herbert or many of Roger Zelazny and Jack Vance books.

For me, the first three are already chosen:

Roger Zelazny - Madwand
Jo Walton - Tooth and Claw
Jack Vance - Ecce and Old Earth

... and I would like to recommend an old favorite: Brian Aldiss - Helliconia Spring

[Joanne]

WOW! I am gob-slapped with the choice. I, the fantasy reader, voted for the other two!

[Joanne]

Theresa wrote: "Color me surprised!

Fortunately, I always have at least 1 sci-fi fantasy book on tap each month due to my IRL Feminerdy Book Club. October's read is A Natural History of Dragons, ..."

I have read both Theresa and the November choice is so much better!

[Jen K]

Joanne wrote: "WOW! I am gob-slapped with the choice. I, the fantasy reader, voted for the other two!"

Same here! Happily surprised though. I can easily catch up on some want to reads next month and witches may still count. :)

[Amy]

You're Kidding!!! I just moved (temporarily) to Aspen, and brought 15 books with me, and ten of them were witch related! Which also works for Fall Flurries.... But I am shocked. Yet often I am.

About this very quick immediate change in venue, I had actually found myself in my parents home - and with NO Internet. A quick stop at a cafe has me quickly checking in. Sending love and blessings to all, and I can get back on line, I will write in later. Thank you for all the love, I do feel it. And I am with each and all of you too.

For those of you who celebrate, tonight is the start of the Jewish New Year. It marks a time of joy, and the spirit of creation. Consider it the energetic anniversary of the Big Bang and the Birthday of the world. Therefore, it is a time of self-reflection, where we strive to accentuate our highest selves and ideals, and eschew the negative traits that hold us back. So my prayer for all of us, even above and beyond health, joy, connection, and of course peace, it is to have each of us be re-making ourselves and the world towards the highest transformational state possible, And as we say, May this be G-d's will - and ours. Happy New Year to all.

[Joanne]

Happy New Year to you and yours, Amy. I hope all is well

[Booknblues]

Happy New Year, Amy! Positive thoughts and vibes going your way!

[Robin P]

I'm surprised too. We just had speculative fiction 2 months ago. There is still a wide range available, and witches could fit under fantasy.

Thank you, Amy, and Happy New Year!

[Booknblues]

I don't really read much Scifi-Fantasy so at first I wasn't delighted, but decided I was thinking about it the wrong way and decided to look at want to read books on several of my shelves:

Witches
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
The Witch’s Lens
Nettle & Bone

Fantasy
Legends & Lattes
The Wild Robot

Dystopia
Appleseed
A Song for a New Day
Sky Full of Elephants
All the Water in the World

Science Fiction
The Anomaly
Sea of Tranquility

So I do have plenty of books to choose from.

[Theresa]

Nettle & Bone, Legends & Lattes are delightful - my Feminerdy read and loved them. Both authors have other books as well.

For the record, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West was one of the nastiest, meanest books I've ever read and I have found that true of another Maguire book I made the mistake of reading. The libretto for the musical is far superior. If you are expecting the mood and message of the musical when you read this book, you won't get it.

[Karin]

Colour me happy! This is what I voted for as my first choice :) Social issues was my second choice.

I'm also rather surprised, but pleased I'm not in the minority here.

[Jen]

Oh wow, I was sure witches was going to take this one!

Not mad at this choice though, fall is a fun time for some sci-fi/fantasy

[Shelly]

A few suggestions:

Perfect for the holiday formerly known as Columbus Day:
Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus
Both of these will work for indigenous people and social issues as well.
The Word for World Is Forest
Dune

A classic and still relevant
Fahrenheit 451

Soft Sci-fi -- more about the characters than the storyline
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet
All Systems Red 1st Murderbot book

Hard sci-fi--complex and very demanding but amazing
The Fifth Season this is first in the Broken Earth trilogy

A unique and thought provoking collection of sci fi short stories
Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea

I am probably going with Starter Villain which will work for one of my Play Harder prompts

[LibraryCin]

Awwww, I wanted witches to win. Sci-fi was my last choice.

[LibraryCin]

Amy wrote: "You're Kidding!!! I just moved (temporarily) to Aspen, and brought 15 books with me, and ten of them were witch related! Which also works for Fall Flurries.... But I am shocked. Yet often I am...."

I, too, was hoping for witches, Amy!
And Happy New Year!

[NancyJ]

LibraryCin wrote: "Awwww, I wanted witches to win. Sci-fi was my last choice."

Cindy, many witches books also fit sci-fi fantasy. I suspect that’s why this tag won. You might have sci-fi-fantasy books without realizing it.

[Robin P]

Shelly wrote: "A few suggestions:

Perfect for the holiday formerly known as Columbus Day:
Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus
Both of these will work for indigenous people and social i..."

Starter Villain and others by John Scalzi are delightful.

I am currently listening to the series that starts with Quarter Share. They take place in space but they are "cozy" in that there are no battles, no aliens, no disasters, not even any really nasty characters. The hero is orphaned and basically finds a new family on the ship as well as a gift for buying and selling.

[Joanne]

Some recommendations"

Anything by Ursula K. Le Guin

Howl’s Moving Castle

His Majesty's Dragon series

Legends & Lattes serues

Anne McCaffrey series Pern

The Library at Mount Char

[Book Concierge]

There is also the tag Sci-Fi-Fantasy

[Flo]

I have so many books that fit this category, so this will be an easy month for me to read for!


Recommendations for others include (in no particular order):

- A Master of Djinn
- Ninth House
- Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
- Any of T. Kingfisher's fantasy books (especially Nettle & Bone or A Sorceress Comes to Call)
- Either of Emily Tesh's books (Some Desperate Glory or The Incandescent)
- The Shades of Magic series by V.E. Schwab (beginning with A Darker Shade of Magic)
- The Emily Wilde series by Heather Fawcett (beginning with Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries)
- The Murderbot series by Martha Wells (beginning with All Systems Red)
- The Scholomance series by Naomi Novik (beginning with A Deadly Education)
- The Cainsville series by Kelley Armstrong (beginning with Omens).

[Theresa]

I've read and enjoyed the majority of those books and authors mentioned above. A couple others that we read in my IRL Feminerdy Book Club that everyone enjoyed immensely that fit:

The Goblin Emperor - touch of steampunk set in Elfland big political background

The Spare Man - adaptation of The Thin Man set in outer space

Iron Widow - east asian inspired

The Mimicking of Known Successes - detective - reminiscent of a female Sherlock Holmes and Watson - dystopian set in outer space

Even Though I Knew the End - alternative history adaptation of faustian legend and murder mystery

Gideon the Ninth - scifi with necromancers - ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ - this is a wild ride unlike anything I've ever read - first in series but IMO the best of 3 published so far.

The Album of Dr. Moreau - sci fi meets boy band in a murder mystery detective story - genetic engineering is the science - wish author would turn this into a series featuring the detective

Authors:
Andy Weir
T.J. Klune
Lois McMaster Bujold - the Vorkosigan saga

Scalzi has been mentioned already but I want to push for Lock In which is a detective story set in a near future dystopian world after a pandemic - and written before ours. It also, like Murderbot, does not give the narrator Chris a gender - deliberately - and there are audio versions available read by a man or a woman. Unlike Murderbot, this is not to create a lack of gender but that gender is not revealed at all. Scalzi's wife is convinced Chris is a woman. Adds an interesting dimension.

[Robin P]

A lot of different kinds of books can fit here (similar to Speculative Fiction)

Time Travel & Time Loops
Alternate History
Postapocalyptic
Cozy Fantasy
Epic Fantasy
Space Opera
Classics like The Hobbit, Foundation, etc.
Paranormal (this could include witches, for those who planned for it)
Humorous Sci-Fi like some of the John Scalzi books mentioned
Many YA books
Romantasy/romantic fantasy

[LibraryCin]

NancyJ wrote: "LibraryCin wrote: "Awwww, I wanted witches to win. Sci-fi was my last choice."

Cindy, many witches books also fit sci-fi fantasy. I suspect that’s why this tag won. You might have sci-fi-fantasy b..."

Thanks, Nancy. I'm sure I have plenty; I just tend to prefer narrower tags the vast majority of the time. (Unlike most, I know!)

[Anita]

Book Concierge wrote: "There is also the tag Sci-Fi-Fantasy"

Lol, I was just about to point this out. And there's a genre called Science Fiction Fantasy here on Goodreads.

I think I am going to read Several People Are Typing because I can't find anything of a reasonable length on my shelf.

Someday, I swear I will try Game of Thrones. But not today.

[Flo]

Someday, I swear I will try Game of Thrones. But not today.

It honestly took me three tries to get through the first book and I only ended up finishing it because I was on a cruise with my parents and had no other books to read/no internet access at the time lol. I think I got through two or three chapters of the second book before giving up.

[Joy D]

Anita, I didn't care much for Game of Thrones, and I'm not sure it is the type of book that would appeal to you, so don't worry about putting it off a bit longer.

[SouthWestZippy]

Great! I can read The Way of Kings. It is 1007 pages and has been on my TBR list for a while. It will be my last book(fourth) for the Going Long 2025 - Reading Fat Books challenge.

[Theresa]

Joy D wrote: "Anita, I didn't care much for Game of Thrones, and I'm not sure it is the type of book that would appeal to you, so don't worry about putting it off a bit longer."

I love Game of Thrones and think it brilliant - and it also crosses genres, appeals to many outside the world of fantasy as GRRM is inspired by history as much if not more so than fantasy. In fact that's one of the aspects I love so much about it compared to other fantasy series.

But it is absolutely not for everyone. My sisters and I read a lot of the same books. One of my sisters loved it - and she's not a fantasy reader - and the other wouldn't touch it with a barge pole. My brother doesn't read books. So even within families, it's not for everyone, LOL.

Saying that, I don't think it is a book for you from your reading. You can just keep putting it off.

[Theresa]

I think I already suggested The Goblin Emperor for the tag. I want to suggest it particularly to those who are not readers of Scifi-fantasy. It's a very straightforward coming of age story set in Elfland against a politically charged background, with what I call light world building and touches of steampunk, with elements of mystery and thriller. The narrator is the 4th, nearly forgotten son of the Emperor, raised in isolation far from court. The book opens when a courier arrives at the isolated castle where he has lived since he was 8, and Maia finds he's now, at 18 and completely untrained, the emperor because the emperor's crashed with him and all his heirs. There are no survivors. Within the first pages, the stage is set and off trots Maia to the nest of vipers and political intrigue that is the court and his family. Then entire story is told from Maia's POV and the internal monologues - doubts, uncertainties and even teenage worries - make him so appealing. It's also a standalone - not part of an actual series -- other than author went on to write more in that world.

[Karin]

Okay, some 5 star reads for me on my personal scifi-fantasy shelf:


Genesis by Bernard Beckett
The Martian
Earth Girl by Janet Edwards and the rest of that trilogy
Telepath by Janet Edwards
William Shakespeare's Star Wars: Verily, A New Hope on audio plus the other two from that first three, also on audio

four stars:
too many to list them all, and some are already suggested, so I'll name only a few:

The Bobiverse books if you want humour as well! Starting with We Are Legion (We Are Bob) but I gave all four of them four stars
The Resisters by Gish Jen
How to Mars by David Ebenbach
To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet
Armada by Ernest Cline\
Lock In


Here's my shelf and if you sort it by ratings you can see more--some are lesser known in the general reading population but well worth reading. https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...

[Robin P]

I have a shelf for sci-fi but I'm sure I've read more than is on there. Also some of them turned out to be only 2-star reads.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...

I also have one I call magical worlds
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...

Some of my favorites
The series by Lois McMaster Bujold starting with The Warrior's Apprentice. Miles is a wonderful flawed hero with brains and charm to make up for his physical limitations.

The Martian and Project Hail Mary

Alternate history -
the series beginning with Farthing, where England has signed a pact with Hitler
The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Cahokia Jazz

Alternate history with a bit of fantasy and wonderful writing
anything by Guy Gavriel Kay

Time travel - anything by Connie Willis

Humor a la Princess Bride - Tress of the Emerald Sea

[Karin]

Robin P wrote: "I have a shelf for sci-fi but I'm sure I've read more than is on there. Also some of them turned out to be only 2-star reads.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list......"

Yes, I've read more scifi than is on my shelf because I can't remember most of the titles I read when I was a teen and I read a great deal of scifi back then!