October: The Unincorporated Man

We wrapped up the September book club before the end of August just to prove how efficient the book club is. After a great discussion of The City & The City, we decided to read The Unincorporated Man by Dani Kollin and Eytan Kollin. We’ll meet at 18:45 on Monday, October 5 in the reading room (look for the fireplace) at the Erie Community Library.

Hugo Awards

Just in case anyone missed it (and just in case anyone is actually reading this blog), the 2009 Hugo Award winners are out. Neil Gaiman won his second Hugo for The Graveyard Book. (We read it here first.)

Plug: Escape Pod

What good is this rarely-used blog if I don’t promote things I appreciate?

It may not be entirely fair to promote anything as “surprisingly good”, but that was my first reaction to Escape Pod. It’s a weekly science fiction short story podcast with good production values and interesting stories. Each episode is different, and some are better than others, but I generally find myself amused by the podcast.

If you’re interested in more Charles Stross, Escape Pod arranged a live reading in front of an audience of Rouge Farm.

Escape Pod spawned two other podcasts, PodCastle (fantasy) and PseudoPod (horror). I listen to PodCastle; their definition of “fantasy” is far broader than the epic high fantasy ghetto I’ve come to despise. Try In the House of the Seven Librarians, which seems appropriate given our book club’s venue.

“September” book club meeting (in August)

A fair coin toss decided our next book in favor of The City & The City, by China Mieville. We’ll meet a week early, since the first Monday in September is Labor Day, on Monday, August 31 at 18:45 in the reading room (look for the fireplaces) at the Erie Community Library.

We’re considering this the “September” meeting even though it takes place on the last day of August.

July becomes August

In June, a sufficient quorum attended the book club to pick the Hugo-nominated Saturn’s Children by Charles Stross. I forgot to actually send the announcement e-mail until, uh, now, mere hours before we might be expected to show up and talk about the book. (I’d blame Calvin for making my life more interesting.) Instead of expecting everyone to read the book in the next six hours, it seems more appropriate to reschedule for next month. You get four weeks to read Saturn’s Children, and we’ll meet on Monday, August 3 at 18:45 in the reading room at the Erie Community Library.

June Book Club

On Monday evening, 1 June 2009, we’ll be meeting for the monthly Erie Science Fiction Book Club meeting in the reading room at the Erie Community Library at 18:45. We’re reading the Hugo-nominated Newberry-winning The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman.

In related news, I’ve set up a Google calendar for the book club, which should give me one more place to keep up-to-date with the latest and greatest schedule.

May Meeting (The book club returns!)

After a three-month hiatus in which Gem and I introduced a new science
fiction fan to the world, we’re ready to resume the science fiction
book club. We’re meeting Monday evening, May 4, in the reading room at
the Erie Community Library at 18:45. We’re reading Idlewild by Nick
Sagan; please come even if you didn’t read it, since no one else will
remember much of it after three months. I’ll be there to lead the
discussion and pick our next book; Gem and Calvin may also be there if
they’re feeling up to leaving the house.

February’s meeting postponed

This may be late notice, but February’s book club meeting, originally scheduled for tonight, is postponed indefinitely.

We were to be reading Idlewild by Nick Sagan; at least, this gives me a bit more time to reread the book.

We’re also considering alternating between science fiction and fantasy. Initial feedback is positive. Any thoughts?

January Book Club

For January’s book club meeting, we’ve decided to read a book and then watch a movie based on the book. Any suggestions of science fiction book-to-movie adaptions?

Book Voting Results

From the beginning of the book club, the plan was to vote on the available books. It’s often difficult to pick a single book to vote for, given the number of books and the quality of each one, and coming to some sort of consensus is difficult. So we started allowing fractional votes. Each attendee gets to split his or her vote across all books, and the book with the most votes wins. This is the results for Monday night’s voting:

	Dan	Jon	Nick	Ted	Gem	Total
The Ordinary	40%	100%	45%		50%	47%
Anathem	10%		55%	60%	5%	26%
Eifelheim	50%			40%	15%	21%
In the Garden of Iden					20%	4%
The Child Goddess					10%	2%
	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%