Meet-Ups Schedule

Here's the schedule for the Dublin meet-ups. Meet-ups are at 6:30pm on Wednesdays at Accents Coffee and Tea Lounge.

As I have said before, you do not have to read every book! If you've read that week's book, you can come to just that week's meet-up. If you live outside of Dublin, or if the IRL meetups don't suit your schedule, please do join in the discussion on the forum anyway!

You'll notice I've put a genre in brackets before each book. These genre streams will be maintained both to ensure a variety in what we read, and facilitate those who'd like to go to a monthly meet-up e.g. by attending just the Third Week Every Month meet-up, you can turn the SF&F Book Chat into the Fantasy Book Chat.

The "So Bad It's Good" stream will only be used when there's a 5th Wednesday in the Month. There will be one in August 2011, and the next won't be until November 2011. That is probably a very good thing :-D

03Aug11: (SF) Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
10Aug11: (Current Awards Lists) Zoo City by Lauren Beukes
17Aug11: (Fantasy) Elantris by Brandon Sanderson
24Aug11: (Cross-Genre) Of Blood And Honey by Stina Leicht
31Aug11: (So Bad It's Good) When the Wind Blows by James Patterson
07Sep11: (SF) Fallen Dragon by Peter F. Hamilton
14Sep11: (Current Awards Lists) Testament of Jessie Lamb by Jane Rogers
21Sep11: (Fantasy) Dracula by Bram Stoker
28Sep11: (Cross-Genre) Infernal Devices by K.W. Jeter
05Oct11: (SF) Expedition To Earth by Arthur C. Clarke (This collection is out of print, but all of the stories are available as part of The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke )
12Oct11: (Current Awards Lists) Redemption In Indigo by Karen Lord
19Oct11: (Fantasy) Nation by Terry Pratchett
26Oct11: (Cross-Genre) World War Z by Max Brooks
02Nov11: (SF) Moxyland by Lauren Beukes
09Nov11: (Current Awards Lists) The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers beneath the Queen’s Window by Rachel Swirsky
16Nov11: (Fantasy) Orlando by Virginia Woolf
23Nov11: (Cross-Genre) Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link
30Nov11: (So Bad It's Good) Dolphin Island by Arthur C. Clarke
07Dec11: The week everyone was injured...
14Dec11: (SF) Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
21Dec11: 28Dec11, 04Jan12, 11Jan12: The Month-long Book Chat Christmas Party!
18Jan12: (Fantasy) The Dark Is Rising Sequence by Susan Cooper
25Jan12: (Cross-Genre) Analog Jan/Feb 2012
01Feb12: (SF) Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
08Feb12: (Current Awards Lists) Embassytown by China Miéville
15Feb12: (Fantasy) The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers
22Feb12: (Cross-Genre) Across The Universe by Beth Revis
29Feb12: (Kiddy Fiction) Jack And The Beanstalk in English Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs
07Mar12: (SF) Night Walk by Bob Shaw
14Mar12: (Current Awards Lists) Among Others by Jo Walton
21Mar12: (Fantasy) Beauty by Robin McKinley
28Mar12: (Cross-Genre) The Mist by Stephen King (This novella is available stand-alone or as part of Skeleton Crew )
04Apr12: (SF) Uncharted Territory by Connie Willis
11Apr12: (Current Awards Lists) Nebula Award 2012 Short Story Nominees
18Apr12: (Fantasy) The Fate Of The Children of Lir in Gods And Fighting Men by Lady Gregory
25Apr12: (Cross-Genre) Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

Triffids has been on my to-read list for years but I wasn't a member in time!

Attending my first meet up tomorrow though, looking forward to it :)

>2

Well, if you do get around to reading Triffids, the thread is always open.

*is geographically challenged so trying to encourage people to post here, rather than just going to meetups*

This was starting to fall down the page ranking so .... BUMP!

Thanks for the bump. Is there any way to 'sticky' this?

>5

Nope, but I would maybe suggest that @Hatgirl adds the new books/dates as separate posts, rather than just editing the first post each time.

>6 I want to keep the first post as a clear, simple list of books we have/will read. But I will add a new post about the new books to the end of the thread as well from now on.

Right, as you can see, I did it! I managed to find a book written by a woman for each category. It was HARD, but I did it! For the statistically-minded, 8 out of the 17 books read are by women authors, making 47%. Now we just have to maintain the rough 50:50 ratio *grumble* I hate having to put my money where mouth is...

I did have to make some compromises, though. Moxyland is supposed to be great, but it does mean we are reading a second book by Lauren Beukes thus reducing the diversity in what we read. This isn't awards list season, so I've dipped into The World Fantasy Award's novella list for a work that is free online (it was also Hugo nominated!). Orlando is more an In Your Face Allegory than a true fantasy novel, but it is a)short and b)influenced Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Magic for Beginners is a collection of short stories, which I hope works out!

I haven't decided on the Extra Fifth Week Carol Gets To Torture People book, but I am thinking hard. Heh heh heh....

>7

Right, I have updated the wikipage here with the latest books and threads. (I also changed the formatting slightly to make it clearer).

Fantasy titles (or at least what you claim as fantasy :-p) should apparently be one-worded. Current Award author-picks seem to be female.

Now you just have to figure out a female written bad book and we're at 50-50...

>7 "Current Award author-picks seem to be female."
Because that's the brief 6 months where their books are in print *sigh*

>7 "Now you just have to figure out a female written bad book and we're at 50-50..."
*considers Laurell K Hamilton's Star Trek TNG novel. Decides she just wants to torture people, not actually make their brains explode*

Lkh st:tng"......... Brain explodes

Silly question here.... You do realise that Kelly Link's book is short stories? If you're looking for a novel by another female author, Charlotte suggested Sunshine by Robin McKinley, in fact she said any Robin McKinley would be great (but not for the 'so bad it's good' category).

Gotta run, see you tomorrow (when I've finished the last 60 pages)!

Kate

>11 Yes, I know Magic For Beginners is a collection of short stories. The clue was in post 7, when I wrote "Magic for Beginners is a collection of short stories..." ;-)

Can I suggest that instead of one message with all books, we also create a message with each months books? So people can find it easily?

Finally picked the So Bad It's Good book for this quarter - Dolphin Island by Arthur C. Clarke! A young boy runs away from his horrible family to live on a tropical island with a scientist who can talk to dolphins. It is awesome. And short. And I can loan people paper copies if they want.

The SF book for December is Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, which is in the Public Domain i.e. the ebook is free. Again, I have a paper copy I can loan people.

As an FYI: the epub ebook of Magic for Beginners is available from Weightless Books here

As most people won't have a chance to read in the run up to Christmas, we are instead having a month-long Christmas party i.e. we will still meet up in Accents at 6:30pm on Weds and we'll just chatter about general nerdy things instead of a specific book.

We'll start Book Chatting again on Jan 18th. We'll be chatting about a Very Short Series, The Dark Is Rising Sequence by Susan Cooper. The following week we'll be reading one of the main SF&F magazines, Analog, and after that by special request of Dave we'll be reading Ready Player One.

Just dropping in to see if this is being updated. Are we confirming moving the Dark is Rising series to Feb? May I suggest The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova for cross genre if you are stuck (it has vampires but is often found in literary fiction sections). There is an ebook here and it is in print. I'm not familiar with anything on current awards lists.

>17 No, The Dark Is Rising Series shan't be moved to another date. Onward, ever onward!

The Feb books have been added to the list: Embassytown by China Miéville is on the Kitchies shortlist and the BSFA awards, I have been informed Tim Power's The Anubis Gates is considered a classic of the fantasy genre, Across The Universe by Beth Revis is SF/YA that is far better than its cover and for our Extra Wednesday (now Very Silly Kid's Fiction instead of So Bad It's Good) is *drumroll* Jack And The Beanstalk, the original version collected by Joseph Jacobs. Such a classic - boy breaks into house, steals, lives happily ever after.

>18

I have updated the wiki page to show the latest books chosen. At least I think I have. It's after midnight here and I may have got confused a couple of times. (Dark of Rising is now Science Fiction apparently). So can someone have a glance and make sure I didn't get too mixed up with all my threadlinking?

> 18

Oh, and can we have threads for the February books, please? I um, read your "Love on a generation ship that is far better than its cover (and its cover blurb)" book and wish to comment. Also, am halfway through Embassytown...

>19 & 18 Wiki checked, all good. And the Feb book threads have been added.

I have also reworked the Group's description to include links the wiki and Facebook page.

A round of applause for Scorbet, keeper of the wiki. All hail!

P-CON (The Irish SF&F Literature Con) is on in a couple of weeks and I hope to put up posters of the March and April books there, so Scorbet helped me nail down the March and April books in one sitting. *whimper* my brain hurts.

07Mar12: (SF) Night Walk by Bob Shaw - some Irish SF by a classic author for March, the month of St. Patrick. The assembled book club chose Shaw over McCaffrey and I rootled through the new SF Gateway ebook reprints till I found a good standalone.
14Mar12: (Current Awards Lists) Among Others by Jo Walton - Recommended by Scorbet from the Locus Recommended list. Which isn't an awards list but I was desperate for a female author. Leave me alone, this is hard!
21Mar12: (Fantasy) Beauty by Robin McKinley - Recommended by wyvernfriend and Charlotte
28Mar12: (Cross-Genre) The Mist by Stephen King (This novella is available stand-alone or as part of Skeleton Crew ) - recommended by my brother, the Stephen King aficionado, as being an excellent representation of the best of King's work...
04Apr12: (SF) Uncharted Territory by Connie Willis - a stand-alone from Hugo-award-winning Connie Willis! Available in ebook! Gosh!
11Apr12: (Current Awards Lists) Nebula Award 2012 Short Story Nominees - the nominees will be announced in the next few weeks. We can read whatever is made free online (most of the short stories usually are). We'll probably try this when the Hugos are announced too. As suggested by omegar24
18Apr12: (Fantasy) The Fate Of The Children of Lir in Gods And Fighting Men by Lady Gregory - As requested by everyone... more short things. Hurrah! The assembled book chat group liked the idea of reading The Children of Lir, so... Ta Da!
25Apr12: (Cross-Genre) Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman - when forced at metaphorical gun point to pick a Neil Gaiman book, Scorbet chose Neverwhere. Excellent. It ties with Coraline as my favourite Gaiman.

>22

And as I foresaw Among Others is a Nebula nominee so is now a proper awards list book.

Also the list of Nebula Short Story nominees are here.