SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

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Old, Closed Posts > IMPORTANT! Poll Results and Some Proposed Changes to Accomadate!

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message 1: by Nick, Founder (In Absentia) (new)

Nick (nickqueen) | 303 comments Mod
1. How should we select books?

Using a theme month criteria where each month has a theme (Monster stories, Hugo Award Winners, Invasion!, etc) and a slate of books matching the theme are voted on 18

The current system where we vote from a Master List and the books for each month are picked via random number generator 18

2. How many books should be read per month?

1 14
2 22

3. Should we have one month out of each year to pick a Goodreads author book to read and discuss?

Yes 24
No 12

So, 50/50 on the first proposal means a compromise as I see it. Here is, reading other suggestions and such, how I think we can solve the impasse in schedule form for the next year:

October

Sci Fi Theme Month
Fantasy Master List Pick

November

Fantasy Theme Month
Sci Fi Master List Pick

December

Sci Fi Theme Month
Fantasy Master List Pick

January

Fantasy Theme Month
Sci Fi Master List Pick

February

Sci Fi Theme Month
Fantasy Master List Pick

March

GoodReads Author Month
SciFi Fantasy Mix Match Pick (Pick 5 of each and vote from the mix)

April

Sci Fi Theme Month
Fantasy Master List Pick

May

Fantasy Theme Month
Sci Fi Master List Pick

June

Sci Fi Theme Month
Fantasy Master List Pick

July

Fantasy Theme Month
Sci Fi Master List Pick

August

Sci Fi Theme Month
Fantasy Master List Pick

September

Fantasy Theme Month
Sci Fi Master List Pick

October

Sci Fi Theme Month
Fantasy Master List Pick

November

Fantasy Theme Month
Sci Fi Master List Pick

December

Sci Fi Theme Month
Fantasy Master List Pick

Doing this will give everyone a chance to participate and I think will make it a lot more fun. In March I put the GoodReads Author Month and something that allows a chance for either Fantasy or SciFi to be picked to read. The only other way we could do this and allow a fair mix of Fantasy and SciFi is to allow 2 GR Author books, one scifi and one fantasy. There is good and bad for this, but I would be against it only because these tend to be newer and may be harder to find.

Your thoughts? Theme suggestions? Complaints?


message 2: by Kristjan (new)

Kristjan (booktroll) | 200 comments Over all I really like the proposal; however, I would like to see 2 GR authors as opposed to just 1 ... the authors should be around on GR to help with getting copies, so I don't see that as a negative (I am actually more concerned with quality).

Other ideas for themes would include Sci or Fantasy Award Nominees (previous year or a given decade perhaps for a larger list to vote on). Although I am not completely sure how to create the list, but a Classics theme would be fun as well.



message 3: by Brooke (new)

Brooke | 0 comments I think this is a great compromise; it retains what we're already doing but also allows for some changes to address concerns.

Theme suggestions - urban fantasy, books that have been turned into movies, Arthurian legends, female main characters, child main characters, books released in a certain year, scifi could be broken down into space travel/time travel/alien contact.


message 4: by Shannon (new)

Shannon  (shannoncb) Sounds good Nick.

I like Brooke's suggestions for themes, too.


message 5: by Sandi (new)

Sandi (sandikal) I like it. May I suggest that we only have one folder per book instead of a currently reading and finished reading folder? I think the board may get too cluttered if we continue to have two folders for each book. Besides, I'm working on my "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" questions and most of the ones that would go in the currently reading folder would work equally well in a general discussion folder for the book.


message 6: by Brooke (new)

Brooke | 0 comments Sandi,

The only problem with consolidating the two is that we have to worry about spoiling people who are discussing things when they are only halfway through the book (I'm so glad I was able to finish Ender's Game without knowing what was going to happen). With your questions for Androids, do you envision people discussing things as they read, or not until they finish? Maybe there are other ways we can indicate that certain discussions reveal important plot points.


message 7: by Sandi (new)

Sandi (sandikal) We can always put the word "spoilers" or "no spoilers" in the thread titles.


message 8: by Angie (new)

Angie | 342 comments I like Nick's idea for March. I get books from the library and that way if the author's book is not available I could still participate in a book that month.

I know what Sandi means about long threads. Too bad goodreads can't make them collapse then you could open them if you want. But I do like the separation of currently reading or reading. Or like you said.. you will have to put a warning at the beginning of a thread to make sure no one reads it if they are not done with the books or a certain number of chapters.


message 9: by Lara Amber (new)

Lara Amber (laraamber) | 664 comments The Classics group has one folder for the book, but separate threads for different parts of the book. So one knows what he or she is walking into when the thread is titled: "Chapter 1-15 discussion". The moderator probably has read the book before, so would have a good idea of where to place the breaks. We could also have threads about themes or other ideas that would mean you were done with the book "Theme A (Spoilers)" and "Theme B (Spoilers)".


message 10: by Leslie Ann (new)

Leslie Ann (leslieann) | 185 comments Nick's proposal is a good one. I also want to lobby for 2 GR authors per year. Brooke has made some terrific theme suggestions as well.

I like Lara's idea about having threads about themes or other ideas, and I also agree with posting spoiler alerts at the beginning of threads. I really hate blundering into a spoiler! If the threads are clearly labelled, then this shouldn't happen.

Overall, this system should make for lively and interesting discussions for all of us.


message 11: by John (new)

John | 2 comments I like Nick's proposal along with Brooke's theme suggestions. My feeling is that instead of doing 2 GR authors in one month we could have a GR fantasy one month and a GR Sci Fi the next month. Lara had a great idea for the discussion folders. I know that there are months for me that I have a lack of time to get through books as fast as everyone else and would like to walk into the appropriate thread.


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