Past Introduction messages (Archive)

[Connor]

Hello! Thanks for joining the group! Hope we have some fun reads this summer. :)

[Kristen]

Hi, I'm Kristen. I haven't really read much sci fi, just some fantasy. But I'm always interested in finding new stuff to slap on my to read list :)

[Jonathan , Reader of the fantastic]

Welcome all new people and welcome back Connor. And it has been no problem to help run a group about something I'm passionate about. Anyone who is new and looking for reading suggestions check out the list of sci-fi and fantasy books we are compiling.

[Connor]

Hi Kristen! :)

Thanks Jonathan! I'm grateful for your willingness to help. It would be dead (like a couple of my other groups, lol).

[Marjorie]

Sakinah wrote: "Hello all! My name is Sakinah, an aspiring author. I prefer science fiction and fantasy genres, which is why I'm here.

Once I can save up a bit of cash I plan to purchase a Kindle or Nook so I can..."

If you're strapped for cash and want to read eBooks but all you have is a computer or a smartphone, you can get FREE apps for any kind of computer or smartphone from BOTH Amazon AND Nook. Check it out:

Amazon Kindle apps for all platforms
(Personally, I prefer the display/readability of Kindle apps and I love the Book Extras feature where the readers can annotate the book or highlight favorite lines/sections; helps build reader community!)

Nook apps also for all platforms
(While there's nothing wrong with the Nook apps and the EPUB format is FAR more available, I just don't find it as easy to read with their interface/tools or text display ability. I need to wear reading glasses but on Kindle apps I don't)

You do need to create an account in both cases--Kindle or Nook stores--but that's free, too. Oh and if you don't know where to find free eBooks, there are a LOT of great resources here on Goodreads. But that's for another discussion entirely ;) Just search "free eBooks" or "ebook giveaway" in the Goodreads search box.

Welcome to Goodreads and the group. (I'm pretty new to this group m'self)

-Friday
@phoenicianbooks

[Marjorie]

I just got my first author interview today - it's All about Friday on Friday (haha). Read more than you ever needed or wanted to know about me on Gathering Leaves Reviews (more about me than the book, I promise!)

Interview of Friday on Gathering Leaves

-Friday
@phoenicianbooks

[Connor]

Oh cool! congrats. :)

[Marjorie]

Connor wrote: "Oh cool! congrats. :)"

Thank you. I can't believe how much about myself I revealed *blush* but it was fun.

[Connor]

Well, you are an author now so it can't really be helped, lol.

[Marjorie]

Connor wrote: "Well, you are an author now so it can't really be helped, lol."

I also hadn't given an interview in over a year and now that the book's finally released, I had to do a little publicity catchup :) It's a good interview. I did spoiler a bit but it's been handy to reference the spoilers in the interview by linking to that page instead of having to give them all away in cleartext remarks.

-Friday

[Kerry]

Hi all,

I just joined this group. I have been trying to find a group that emphasizes sci-fi more than fantasy. I have been a part of a Goodreads fantasy group, but rarely recognize the books they are reading. Makes me wonder if I am in the right group, so I thought I would try out this group.

I discovered sci-fi when I first read Ray Bradbury's short story Dandelion Wine my freshman year of high school. Later I was introduced to Pier Anthony's work. Didn't care for his Xanth series, but loved his science fiction work.

Currently I am reading Gaiman's American Gods. I just downloaded Friday's new book Conditioned Response and am excited to get started on it. (Thank you Friday for the coupon for a free copy!)

I am looking forward to meeting more of you and reading the upcoming discussions.

[Stefan]

Just wanted to say a quick hello. I'm a pretty avid fantasy reader. I'm usually working on 4 or 5 books at a time and there is rarely a time when less than 2 of those are fantasy novels. I enjoy a wide spectrum of authors in the genre and some of my favorites include: J.R.R. Tolkien, Terry Brooks, George R.R. Martin, John Marco, Lloyd Alexander, J.K. Rowling, Cornelia Funke, and from his debut novel G.T. Denney.

One of my passions in life is reading. I minored in Enlish Literature in college and along with classes covering the classics (Beowulf, Canterbury Tales, The Faerie Queene, etc.) I also took classes like Fairy Tale & Fantasy and Science Fiction. I truly enjoy discussing and reviewing literature of all types. I'm looking forward to joining in on the fantastic conversations here and hope to get to know you guys better.

[Jonathan , Reader of the fantastic]

Hey Stefan nice to see you here. And thanks for the friend invite as well!

[Marjorie]

Kerry wrote: "I just joined this group. I have been trying to find a group that emphasizes sci-fi more than fantasy."

Kerry, I confess I don't read all the threads so I only noticed this one because Jonathan replied to Stefan and "freshened" it. Sorry and...hello :)

I'm a member of the SciFi Aficionados group and they're pretty much exclusively focused on SciFi, more of the hardSF than the borderline stuff. You might enjoy joining them.

I'm also a member of Apocalypse Whenever, which I joined more for the fun of it than the zombies. I don't enjoy zombies at all and don't get most of those jokes but the Moderator of that group, Gertie, is hilarious and keeps the group light and fun. You might enjoy joining just for the social aspect.

There are a lot of fantasy-genre focused groups, I have to agree and like you, I don't recognize (or read) half the books they're talking about so I don't feel I can participate in discussions. This group, though, seems to be a nice core of about a dozen people who are quite friendly and chatty so just join a conversation whenever there's something you do know and the SF book talk will come eventually ;)

Currently I am reading Gaiman's American Gods. I just downloaded Friday's new book Conditioned Response and am excited to get started on it. (Thank you Friday for the coupon for a free copy!)

You're welcome for the free copy and I'm excited to hear your impressions on it :) How did you like American Gods? I still can't get through it. I think it's just too much "fantasy" for my "scifi" mind. It's that difference in the level of "suspension of disbelief" between fantasy genre and SF that makes me lean towards the SF side. I prefer to imagine "What if..." with firm anchors in reality than to just let go of all physical laws and imagining "whatever" I can make up. I guess I'm just a "law-abiding" reader *haha*

Welcome to the group from a fellow SciFi'er :)

-Friday
@phoenicianbooks

[Kerry]

Marjorie wrote: "Kerry wrote: "I just joined this group. I have been trying to find a group that emphasizes sci-fi more than fantasy."

Kerry, I confess I don't read all the threads so I only noticed this one becau..."

Thanks for the recommended groups! I had been a member of the Fantasy Book Group for over 2 years, but usually lurk since I rarely recognize the books. I thought my preferred genre was fantasy, but now know that that's not what I am reading. You will probably see me show up on the two groups you recommended. I find myself reading hardcore scifi or books about dystopian societies. I am not stalking, I promise! :)

I am about 70 percent done with American Gods. (. . .I must finish this book, I must finish this book.) I still don't like it. The characters leave me unmoved. They are too difficult to like, let alone care about. But, I am also reading this book for a local summer book club and, in fact, I am leading the discussion!

I had to pause on Conditioned Response due to the previous reading commitments, but I can't wait to get back to it. I love your writing style. I also appreciate your activity in the various group discussion threads. It has been nice getting to know you this way. Thanks for sharing!

[Marjorie]

Kerry wrote: "I had to pause on Conditioned Response due to the previous reading commitments, but I can't wait to get back to it. I love your writing style. I also appreciate your activity in the various group discussion threads. It has been nice getting to know you this way. Thanks for sharing! "

It's absolutely not a problem and in fact, I think I'd prefer you wait and get American Gods completely out of your system first (is there such a thing as a sherbet cooler for cleansing the brain pallet in between books?) Yeah, I'm being snarky.

It just occurred to me to ask if you're at all interested in Space Opera and/or Romantic SF (aka SF Romance or SFR). I'm in another group that is very busy and I don't recognize probably 70% of the titles or authors because although I like SFR when I have tried it, I've only tried 2 or 3 and them, only because they were Baen Books authors (Lois McMaster Bujold, Catherine Asaro etc.) The SF Romance Group is a good one to get exposure to that subgenre of SF (or subgenre of romance depending on where you put the emphasis).

I would love to have you stalk me but only on Goodreads :) I've had an online stalker and it was not fun. Go to my profile and join ALL my groups if you'd like--seriously.

I do that when I connect with a fellow Author here that I know from somewhere else and they tell me they've found "some good groups." I go and scavenge off their lists :) *ahem* It's called networking not stalking! LOL

Just a word of caution: I also write Romantic Suspense and lean towards the very edgy stuff sexually so I'm in a couple of erotica type groups plus one gay fiction writer's posse (Mark Alders writes Science Fiction like you wouldn't believe but it's all gay romance subgenre so if gay romance turns you off, avoid like the plague--his sex scenes make mine look TAME. His SciFi imagination though..wow, wish I could get him to write a straight SciFi. He'd blow the mainstream SciFi away!! Mark is an Aussie, like our Moderator, Jonathan...there must be something in the water down there *haha*)

-Friday
@phoenicianbooks
p.s. I had previously nominated Catherine Asaro's Skolian Empire book Primary Inversion (Book 1 of the series) and it's on this month's poll for Secondary Read - go vote for it or just add it to your TBR shelf to check out. Asaro has a good epic feel in that space opera series so you might enjoy it)

[Stephen]

Marjorie wrote: "I see the age 10 and up bit and since my book has explicit sex, expletives, adult and sexual situations as well as some graphic violence, I'm not of the opinion this is appropriate reading for 10-15 year olds. I think 12-18 is the age when most of us started in on this kind of reading and in 2012, most kids are inured to the language, sex and violence but.... TBH, my language and violence isn't the issue as much as the sex. I write extremely steamy and explicit sex. It's very much relevant to character and plot development (one plot point hinges on it as a psychological manipulation of a third party) but... I dunno."

        Gee, I didn't find it that explicit.  Am I jaded, or are you more modest than you knew?

[Mysti]

Hiya peeps! I'm Mysti, wife, full-time mom of three (four if you count my hubby), and a writer. Thought it was about time I joined a fantasy group on here since I write fantasy romance.

I fell in love with LOTR via a little 45 record and read-along book when I was little. Years later, Orlando Bloom portraying Legolas (ok, the whole film trilogy) inspired me to write about elves in my own fantasy world.

And since I do bi-monthly book reviews for SQ Magazine (an online spec-fic mag), it's good to see what's new and hot out there in the spec fic world.

How's everyone's summer going?

**NOTE: Sorry, not taking review requests as I'm swamped this summer.

[Stephen]

Marjorie wrote: "How did you like American Gods? I still can't get through it. I think it's just too much "fantasy" for my "scifi" mind."

        Gee, just because the Norse God Odin is one of the main characters, you go and put a label on it ...

[Jonathan , Reader of the fantastic]

Oh of course there's something in the water and the sun in Australia. We're mostly living proof that criminality is not genetic.

Hello there Mysti and welcome to the group.

[Mysti]

Thanks, Jonathan! :)

[Marjorie]

Marjorie wrote: "I see the age 10 and up bit and since my book has explicit sex, expletives, adult and sexual situations as well as some graphic violence, I'm not of the opinion this is appropriate..."

To which Stephen replied "Gee, I didn't find it that explicit. Am I jaded, or are you more modest than you knew?"

Yeah, I think you're jaded. I mean, you didn't find anything in the 3d section of
Ghost particularly graphic or explicit, did you? Brutal but only in your imagination. Some people were appalled, remember? And I thought I did a similar level...but really, Stephen a 10 year old reading that stuff? I dunno...I think I put enough sex, violence and language in there to warrant a warning at least.

@Mysti you made it! :) You're still in time to join the group read of Conditioned Response if you wanted...I think there are at least 3 people currently reading and one (Kerry) has set it aside to finish other stuff and come back when she can really savor it undistracted so someone will be reading it for more than another week here. The discussion thread is here: http://bit.ly/SFHF-CondResp

I shall NOT explain the Plan though, no matter how nicely you ask....not until Book 4 is out (haha)

-Friday
@phoenicianbooks

[Connor]

Hi Mysti! Thanks for joining! :)

[Stephen]

Marjorie wrote: "Marjorie wrote: "I see the age 10 and up bit and since my book has explicit sex, expletives, adult and sexual situations as well as some graphic violence, I'm not of the opinion this is appropriate..."

To which Stephen replied "Gee, I didn't find it that explicit.  Am I jaded, or are you more modest than you knew?" 

Yeah, I think you're jaded.  I mean, you didn't find anything in the 3d section of Ghost particularly graphic or explicit, did you?  Brutal but only in your imagination.  Some people were appalled, remember?  And I thought I did a similar level."

        I guess you're right.  It just takes more than you did in Condition Response to bother, shock or appall me nowadays.  In fact, even the other Conditioned Response probably wouldn't bother shock, or appall me.  Instead, it just sounds uninteresting.

[Marjorie]

There are a lot of other books called Conditioned Response but yeah, I got a kick out of the fact that the first one to pop up on Goodreads and most of the sales sites is a domination sex advice book. The third one usually is a horse-training guide.

I sure did pick a bad title for this book, huh? Not. I'm still happy with the title but this does nicely illustrate why Authors need to select their titles carefully, not just for meaning in the context of their book's story but for the exact reason that undesired content may pop up when your readers do a search for your given title. I'm sticking with mine ;)

-Friday
@phoenicianbooks

[Marjorie]

Stephen wrote: "links to Condition[sic] Response"

I just noticed this, Stephen. You're linking using an HTML "a" tag. Did you know that Goodreads offers internal links to books and authors here? You see that "add book/author" link above the comment box? Click it and you can search for and then insert an internal reference to a book or an author. You can also toggle the option at the bottom of the dialog box to insert a text link or a cover image. Warning, Cover images inserted will automatically have a new line before them to make room for the image among the text. You can do it like this though, just put one immediately after the other:



When you see the book show up, under the "add" button is also a link to see "other editions" so you can choose the exact cover image you want :) Goodreads has a lot of very nice internal tools, don't they?

[Michael]

Welcome Jaq and Mysti! Glad to see you aboard.

[Marjorie]

Hi, Jaq! welcome aboard. Be sure to check the polls out. We're voting on the July reads right now. The Secondary one this time will be from "close second but not picked" selections from previous months.

[Connor]

To tell you the truth... I've only read one of the books we were reading in the group and it was like, a year ago at this time of year, lol.

[Stephen]

Marjorie wrote: "Stephen wrote: "links to Condition[sic] Response"

I just noticed this, Stephen. You're linking using an HTML "a" tag. Did you know that Goodreads offers internal links to books and authors here? Y..."

        No, I hadn't noticed that.  Thanks.

        On the subject of titles: Well, maybe some of the people looking for the other books titles Conditioned Response will end up buying yours.  Though for real sales effectiveness, you shoulda gone with The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

[Jonathan , Reader of the fantastic]

I would have thought Lord of the... or A Tale of Two... would have worked better. Apparently apart from The Lord of the Rings and A Tale of Two Cities are the most popular fictional books of all time bought. So you could have tried cashing in on the popularity.

[Marjorie]

Jonathan, for some reason, all I can think of when I start "Lord of the..." is "Lord of the Dance!" and I LOL at that so ...thanks, but no.

I do not want to "cash in" on anyone else's title and Stephen was definitely being facetious. I can tell that much. I prefer my titles to be unique or at least more relevant to my story than to any other book which might use the same title. I definitely have a more relevant title than a BDSM instruction manual - that is BDSM dominance is not about conditioning. ;-) As a Domme, I can assure you there is no conditioning. There is do or don't do--and suffer for it *muahaha* Yikes, I don't even like Star Wars and I'm paraphrasing Yoda! Talk about a well-branded product!

-Friday
@phoenicianbooks

[Jonathan , Reader of the fantastic]

Well I was being a little facetious myself. I don't think many people want to cash in on other stories but rather want to tell their own good stories.

[Jonathan , Reader of the fantastic]

Filmmaking hey? What type of films or can't you say?

[Jonathan , Reader of the fantastic]

Ahh interesting. Thanks for that.

[Mysti]

Marjorie wrote: "Marjorie wrote: "I see the age 10 and up bit and since my book has explicit sex, expletives, adult and sexual situations as well as some graphic violence, I'm not of the opinion this is appropriate..."

I won't make it for the July read. Just too many on my list at the moment, but wish you lots of luck with it.

Thanks for the warm welcomes, everyone!

[Marjorie]

Jaq wrote: "The one's I'm editing now are both Comedy Horror B-movies. http://www.goblinfilmsltd.com

Old Blood is a vampire film, Graveyard Shift is a Zomedy."

haha, what the heck is a "zomedy" Jaq? A comedy with zombies?

[Christian]

Hi everyone, My name is Christian and fantasy esp. of the "Heroic" variety is my favorite genre of books. Hope to meet and discuss stuff with you guys soon. See ya!

[Marjorie]

Christian wrote: "Hi everyone, My name is Christian and fantasy esp. of the "Heroic" variety is my favorite genre of books. Hope to meet and discuss stuff with you guys soon. See ya!"

Hi Christian, welcome to the group (I'm kind of new myself but I'll welcome you anyway). This is definitely the place for heroic fantasy reading; this group reads a LOT of fantasy and they seem to do it at a truly heroic pace! (haha) Be sure to check out the polls and vote for the July group read you want to do. It's a democratic system here, majority rules.

-Friday
@phoenicianbooks

[Gary]

Hi,

I'm interested on getting some ideas for some good fantasy series/books. I'm getting ready to start "Gardens of the moon".

Some of my recent favorites have been: the sword of shadows series, the blade itself, the dragon bone chair and the clockwork vampire series ( really enjoyed that one). of course Tolkien, but I find that a lot of epic series like that are too long winded and lose steam like the wheel of time series...I lost interest after the 4th or 5th book. I also nearly didn't finish the dragon bone chair but I plunged on and it finished strong (the series)

Any thoughts based on those?

[Stephen]

Riddle-Master: The Complete Trilogy, by Patricia McKillup, the Furies of Calderon series by Jim Butcher.

[Gary]

Thank you so much for the suggestions! I will be checking those out soon.

[Christian]

Gary wrote: "Hi,

I'm interested on getting some ideas for some good fantasy series/books. I'm getting ready to start "Gardens of the moon".

Some of my recent favorites have been: the sword of shadows series..."

Give THE RIYRIA REVELATIONS series a try or even Adventurer's Wanted: Slathbog's Gold.. I really enjoyed reading both

[Jonathan , Reader of the fantastic]

Gary wrote: "Hi,

I'm interested on getting some ideas for some good fantasy series/books. I'm getting ready to start "Gardens of the moon".

Some of my recent favorites have been: the sword of shadows series..."

We may be reading the first Mistborn novel for next month if it wins. either way I recommend the entire trilogy to you.

[Bev]

Hi all ( already spoken to some of you on other groups)
my name is Bev from the UK. I am 42 and currently a SAHM with 3 kids.
I am a voracious reader and have been reading fantasy for decades and I have a pretty good collection too.
I love DTB but also use my kindle too. Look forward to chatting and swapping ideas.

[Jonathan , Reader of the fantastic]

Hey there Bev hopefully you can join in on some of our threads as we start to get them all worked out better.

[Bev]

Will do :)

[Joel]

I'm Joel, and I have always loved fantastic literature of all sorts. Some of my favorite authors include Poe, Tolkien, Kafka, Bradbury, and Ellison. I look forward to reading (and sometimes being involved in) the discussions on this forum.

[Bev]

Hi Joel I am a newbie too. :)

[Joel]

Hi, Bev, welcome.