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Tildes Book Club - Nominations thread
This is the third nominations thread for Tildes book club.
If you think you might be interested to read with us, please name between one and five books you find intriguing and think others might enjoy. We will later have a voting thread so that each nomination gets an equal shot to win votes with no early nomination advantage. After we finish discussing Kindred this month and the City We Became at the end of November, we will move on to read the new titles.
Please feel free to nominate both fiction and nonfiction and consider nominating a diverse selection of books and authors. Books should be 600 pages or shorter. The first books in series are fair game for nominations if they tell a complete story.
@boxerdogsdance, thanks for setting this up. I kept an eye on my page numbers this time :)
The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson -- I haven't actually read it, but it looks good. I wanted to nominate The Years of Rice and Salt, but that one is over the page limit.
Carbide Tipped Pens - a hard SF anthology edited by Ben Bova and Eric Choi.
Witch King - Martha Wells - Locus best Fantasy, nominated for Hugo and Nebula. Fantasy world building that's different from the usual stock, and an enjoyable story.
The Pariah - Anthony Ryan - first of a series of three fantasy novels revolving around a character who reinvents himself through a series of life changing brushes with destiny. Note the paperback is 608 pages, but the hardback is 576, so I'm nominating the hardback :)
The Merciful Crow - Margaret Own - YA fantasy, innovative magical system, really interesting protagonist, enjoyable story. First of two, but stands alone as far as I can remember.
The Years of Rice and Salt is phenomenal - I have a battered, dog-eared copy somewhere - but selfishly I have read The Ministry for the Future so I'd support that...
I'm pretty sure that the 600 page limit can be fuzzy/ approximate by mutual consent, but thanks for finding the numbers.
I am being a little cheeky about it. (Hopefully not too much so). I mainly tried not to blow the limit away with a thousand pager this time.
Witch King was going to be one of my suggestions too! It's been on my TBR list for a while.
Witch King was absolutely terrible and I know maybe one person total who read it and enjoyed it (and many, many, many people who thought it was terrible).
My theory is that it was an early novel that got rejected and now she's famous enough to publish it with very few revisions.
Witch King is making me seriously rethink if I want to read anything by Martha Wells other than Murderbot ever again.
Witch King is evidence to me that people who nominate for Hugos, by and large don't actually read the books they are nominating.
Witch King has cost me nearly any interest in reading Hugo picks ever again.
I cannot sufficiently express the extent to which i DO NOT recommend reading this book, and instead keeping it in TBR purgatory for the rest of your life
Ministry for the Future I've seen around though, kinda interested in that one
I liked the Ministry for the Future quite a bit. It's preachy but that's the point.
Oh geeze, the reason I added it was because I enjoy the Muderbot series so much. If it's so different, I may have to heed your advice and just let it wallow on the TBR pile.
yep so I've heard a lot of her other novels (Raksura, Cloud Roads) are really good, and one of those would be a great suggestion I think for people wanting to get into more Wells than just Murderbot. But just not Witch King lol. I read WK for the same reason as you are saying, despite having seen tons of negative reviews, and wow I wish I'd listened
I liked Murderbot and the Raksura series so I'll cosign that.
I didn't love it personally but I'm interested to discuss it. (I like her other work I just felt like I was slogging)
I'm really interested in reading Hyperion by Dan Simmons. A lot of people have recommended it to me, and also, I found out that it's heavily inspired by Canterbury Tales, and now I'm even more interested in it! Other than that, I don't know much about it. I've read both Ilium and Olympos as part of another book club (also by Simmons) and the consensus was that they had a lot of cool ideas and also a few weird/bad ones and that genre trends have changed significantly since the early 2000s. So, I think reading books from 20+ years ago often makes for interesting book club discussions!
I'll totally second Hyperion, partially because I've read it and I won't have to read it again to participate in the book club and I feel guilty about not finishing some of the books in time.
But mostly because it's a book that I would very, very much like to hear/read about the opinions of other Tildes readers.
Hyperion is high up on my reading list, so I'd definitely be down for this one. 500 pages seems like a reasonable amount, if a little on the larger side. And though it has sequels, I believe it can mostly stand alone? Or perhaps it's best as a duology, with the Endymion books being separate.
Simmons says that Ilium and Olympos MUST be read together and that's really just not true, Ilium can stand on its own. So I'd be hesitant to believe anyone saying you have to read both
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Could I be added to the ping list for the future, please? I'm interested in this after getting back into reading this summer!
Absolutely!
Please can I be removed from the list?
Absolutely!
I nominate Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon, (A personal favorite, science fiction featuring an older working class woman who gets fed up with her life. She makes changes and adventure finds her.)
My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry by Backman, (An imaginative child and her socially rebellious grandmother interact with family, friends and natures in a fascinating beautiful story with a tinge of fantasy)
Lions of Al Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay, (Three main characters from different cultures interact in a fantasy inspired by Spain. A doctor and two warriors navigate politics and war in a beautiful novel.)
Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong, (A chinese man is exiled to Mongolia in this novel inspired by a true story. Low key adventure and ecological story)
The Thief by Megan Turner A dungeon crawling heist adventure.
I really enjoyed The Thief and sequels. They were pretty upbeat, which was what I needed at the time.
The Thief looks really interesting but the words "dungeon crawling" sounds a bit chilling. Goodreads doesn't have horror in any of the book's listed genres though. Can I assume it isn't scary?
I don't remember horror but definitely suspense.
Fwiw Dungeon Crawl is more of a Dungeons and Dragons sort of phrase, implying a quest that takes someone into a dungeon with puzzles and traps and monsters (or people) to fight. More sword and sorcery/adventure than inherently creepy or horror as a rule.
Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I believe this was nominated in a previous thread, but I'd like to throw it back in the ring for consideration. It's a recent novel published in 2021, a Hugo nominee, and just 201 pages. Content is a mix of scifi and fantasy with pretty positive reviews. Seems like it could be a good fit.
Way Station by Clifford D. Simak, another short novel at short at just 210 pages. Written in 1963, it won the Hugo and many other awards. I don't know much about it! It could be interesting to read some early-era scifi, though.
Diaspora by Greg Egan, a hard scifi novel from 1997. A little longer at 443 pages, it plays with transhumanism and other futuristic ideas. Despite being a little older now, it seems less pulpy than its compatriots.
I'm into any of these three suggestions. I read Diaspora recently and think it has some good discussion potential. I love the 200ish pages of the first two as well. If I were to chose one of the three, I'd probably go Way Station for my vote, as I like exploring some of the older scifi.
It seems I’m not good at reading books according to someone else’s schedule, so I’m not really book club material and haven’t been participating. But I will nominate Polostan by Neal Stephenson, because I just finished it and it’s pretty good.
The setting is 1930’s US and Soviet Union history. The main character is the daughter of Communist revolutionaries and has a rather unusual life story. As is often the case in Stephenson’s books, this is for plot reasons - certain skills are needed for the action. Chekhov’s gun definitely applies here, or in this case Chekhov’s machine gun.
Reasons against: it’s part 1 of a trilogy and the rest isn’t out yet. Content warning: murder, torture, crazy revolutionaries, Communist propaganda.
I think Absolution by Jeff Vandermeer just came out. The last book in a Trilogy (Tetralogy, now) wouldn't be a good choice, but what about Annihilation?
I've enjoyed the previous picks of the book club I've read so here are a few of my suggestions:
Maus - I haven't read this yet and a recent post here on tildes reminded me of it.
Aniara - Read this in my teens and would like to read it again. Not entirely sure if the translation to English is any good though. Fairly short IIRC.
Story of Your Life and Others - Collection of short stories by the same author. One of which the movie Arrival is based on.
Odessey - Mostly to nudge myself to get around to reading it.
To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis (lighthearted science fiction)
I’ve read a few other books by Willis and loved them all. Been meaning to get around to this one for a long time now. It’s part of a shared universe with some of her other books, but it can be read as a standalone.
American Teenager: How Eight Trans Kids are Surviving Hate and Finding Joy in a Turbulent Age by Nico Lang (emotional LGBT nonfiction)
I hesitated to recommend this one because a lot of people here aren’t in the US, but I think it’s a valuable read regardless and could generate good discussion. Here’s how I recently recommended it:
It’s going to be a bit over a week until I am reunited with my bookshelf and can give proper page counts. Not sure how long this thread will remain open, but my quick list without my book collection physically present (hopefully getting the authors’ names correct):
Finally, a question. Should we stick to nominations with a single narrative, or are anthologies welcome (provided they fit the page count)?
I'm generally in favor of fewer restrictions on what to nominate, but if people feel strongly we could vote about anthologies.
I'll be able to check my bookshelf for page count next Saturday (not tomorrow) evening. Pretty much anything by Italo Calvino is a winner, even the book I haven't read yet. Might swap out Winter's Night for The Complete Cosmicomics if the page count fits. When does this thread close?
Do you want me to check Goodreads for page count for you?
I was thinking Monday or Tuesday for the voting thread but there isn't a reason to hurry other than getting it out of the way.
That’d be appreciated, thanks
If on a Winters Night a Traveler 260 pp.
The Raw Shark Texts 427 pp.
The fifty year sword 288 pp.
Both Raw Shark and—especially—Sword have formatting tricks that make the story contents much shorter than the page count indicates. Perhaps imagine a 55 page cut for Shark and at least 65% reduction for Sword.
Cool. But we are good up to 600 and maybe a little bit more for a really popular book.
Thanks for being careful.
Hmmm, having a tough time deciding what to nominate.
Never let me go (Kazuo Ishiguro) - Haven't read it, but it's on my holds list and seems to be highly regarded.
I'm curious what people think about short stories / collections. I recently read Stories of your life (and others) (Ted Chiang) and think either the one short story or whole collection has potential for good discussion.
Edit - gonna toss copperhead demon (barbara kingsolver) into the nomination ring, too. It's on my radar to read, and I've enjoyed her writing in the past.
Bump. Nominations will close end of day us Pacific time Monday
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride - historical fiction
A House with Good Bones by T. Kingfisher - horror
The Help by Kathryn Stockett - historical fiction
The Only One Left by Riley Sager - thriller
North Woods by Daniel Mason.
It's a historical fiction set in New England in a single house, and tells the story of the house and the people in and around it over several centuries. It's received a lot of praise and has a lot of great reviews.
Is there a reference list of past books? And can you add me to your ping list for the club?
Here’s a few I’ve been interested in, have not read before.
What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher
Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
Permutation City by Greg Egan
and a final suggestion, one I have read before:
Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
If you click the tag tildes book club on this post, every related post should appear.
So far, the books have included roadside Picnic by Strugatsky, this is how you lose the time war, ocean at the end of the lane, small Gods, Project Hail Mary, the dispossessed, Piranesi, Cloud Atlas.
Happy to add your name. Welcome!
What Moves the Dead is so good!