I mentioned this in my last SFF swap thread too, but I decided to go ahead and post it over here. :)

I was thinking of starting a SFF book club, the read and discuss type, here on BO. I figured we could switch off between Fantasy and Sci-Fi, give ourselves about a 2 month reading period, and then discuss. We can nominate books as a group, or we can switch off and each pick a couple books for the group to choose between that we liked and wanted to share, or have been wanting to read, etc. Or we can do both!

Would anyone be interested in taking part? It'll be a mostly informal thing, I may try to come up with some easy general questions just to start discussion, and discussion doesn't have to be high level at all, I'm all for the "I can't believe so and so did that!" or "how dare the author kill off my fave character, or put those two together" or whatever. I just like talking about books that I've read in common with my friends!

NOTE: The name list is mostly to gauge interest to see if it's worthwhile, there won't really be any requirements you have to fulfill, this is just to gather a group of peeps who are interested in reading the same book and then talking about it on a relaxed time frame, so you can join whenever, or if a chosen book sounds awful to you, you don't have to read that one, etc.

What do ya think?

1. Shaunesay
2. Giz-Angel
3. Lemonitsa
4. Wss4
5. Luckaye
6. Elsi
7. DragonGoddess
8. Lexilewords
9. Kyrissaean
10. GateGypsy
11. Pepper
12. Xeyra
.
.
.

Yes please in my scared of SFF mode :lol:

me, me, me :)

I wouldn't mind trying.

yes please :)

yay I'm gettin' excited! Cause to me we don't need a certain number of people to do this! I'll try to make it as relaxed and fun as possible :)

alright, everyone pick a doorstopper size, just for Giz! :lol:

j/k ;)

I'd love this. And, if you're not aware, there's a *lot* of SF (Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Superhero Fiction, Swords Fiction, Sorcery Fiction, Spies Fiction, Supernatural Fiction and Scary Fiction) freely available on the web. Classics are available in simple text format from Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org) and Project Gutenberg Australia (http://gutenberg.net.au/). Many of these have been formatted for better presentation (html, pdf, and various eBook formats) and can be found at Feedbooks (http://www.feedbooks.com/) and Munsey's (http://www.blackmast.com). Baen Books have made many of their books available for free download in multiple formats at http://www.baen.com/library/ Classic SF and SF released with a Creative Commons or other shareware license can also be found at MobileRead (http://www.mobileread.com/) in various eBook formats.

One of the things that I am newly into is eBooks. I experimented with the MobiPocket Reader (free download from http://www.mobipocket.com -- runs on Windows PCs) and the Rocket Reader (can't remember where I downloaded this one) reading books on my PC. I recently purchased a Kindle from Amazon.com. While I can certainly purchase books for the Kindle from Amazon and other online "stores" (and I have done so), the majority of what I have loaded onto the Kindle are freely available books. Right now, I'm reading Sheepfarmer's Daughter by Elizabeth Moon which I downloaded from Baen Books. It's the first book in her Deeds of Paksenarrion trilogy and I'm enjoying it very much.

So -- a long post to say that you might consider a classic SF book from time to time which folks can download rather than having to find in a store.

moi aussi, s'il vous plait :lol:

I'd love this!

Me! :wizard:

I'll throw in magic wand/sword/ray gun too!

I'd be interested in joining up -- but I wouldn't be able to participate with the first book. I will be swamped with school and horribly-delayed bookring books 'til the end of April at the earliest. But come summer I'll be set!

:rofl:

And some people would love the idea and some people, like me, would sit the month out if they weren't lucky enough to stumble across a copy of the out of print book at the library, on a trade site, or at a UBS.

I'd possibly be willing to give it a try.

Participation is certainly not mandatory, and I'm not going to take roll or anything, it's more of a hey, I want to read this one, whoever wants to join me come on! If you don't, that's cool too, maybe we'll catch ya next round! :)


It's looking to me like we have enough interest to make a go of it, let me think on it a bit more, and I will pose some questions to you all to see how we want to structure it. Right now I'm kind of leaning towards a different person gets to "host" each month, and I'll be a facilitator that kind of keeps it all strung together in a disorganized yet not kind of way! :lol:

I wouldn't mind joining up. :)

So if we have rotating hosts, would the host/hostess choose the book to be read? Should we all put a bunch of titles in a hat and randomly draw them? :lol: I guess those are the kinds of questions you'll be asking us, eh?

I'll be keeping an eye on this thread. I'll think about it all, too, so I can offer some useful suggestions when the time comes. Though I guess there's nothing saying we can't adjust the event to suit our needs if we find things that don't work out for us, eh?

I'm too intimidated to do swaps, but I'd love to participate in a book discussion. It would be great if I can get the book free online or at the library (I don't really need to add to my book mountain) but I'd probably pick up a new or used book if it sounds interesting.

I used to read a lot more SFF than I do now, but I still enjoy it now and then.

Too intimidated! More than half of the SFF books I own got moved to the wayside, because I got bored with them! I'd be too embarrassed to say I didn't finished a book.