Alternate Realities: A Scifi Book Club discussion

If you have a suggestion for a book or a theme for the month, leave it here. I like the idea of theme months. I will try to always leave the polls open for write-ins as well.

or

or

or

or

or

will put a couple of these on the poll next month.

Lucy wrote: "[bookcover:Doomsday Diaries IV: Luke and t..."

The poll with these should go live on 08/20/13. hopefully you would be willing to post some discussion questions for the winner.

The Lost Father Chronicles young-adult fantasy book series IMAGES at Goodreads - https://www.goodreads.com/photo/group...

Shayla wrote: "Lightning by Dean Koontz
The Taking by Dean Koontz (AWESOME book- recommended, even if it doesn't make it into the polls.)
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress..."

the poll will be active in march and we will discuss one of these in june.

theme: eastern european sci-fi like We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, or R.U.R. by Karel Čapek.

Brett, thanks! can you vouch for these two and give us one or two more. Sadly, I have no experience with the eastern european stuff.

Budd wrote: "Brett, thanks! can you vouch for these two and give us one or two more. Sadly, I have no experience with the eastern european stuff."

Well, I haven't read R.U.R, but it's on my to do list. It's a 1920s Czech play, and it supposedly introduced the word "robot" to science fiction. R.U.R. stands for Rossum's Universal Robots. Anyway, I'm curious about it, but I can't really vouch for it. People I know that have read it, loved it.

We is a Soviet dystopian novel about a world where individualism is outlawed, people have numbers instead of names, and every minute of the day is planned. It was written as a criticism of the Soviet government, but it's also a fun, easy read. I think this novel was censored and didn't actually get published until long after it was written. Here's the link:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7...

Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov is another good one, about a professor who puts a human heart into a dog, and it's a really good book, but it's sort of science fiction lite. I read it about 10 years ago and loved it. Supposedly the Soviet government wanted to censor this book, but the author was so popular that they weren't able to repress it. (If I'm not mistaken). Despite it's popularity in Russia, it hasn't been read that much in English, but that's a shame, because it's great. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...

Don't forget about Stanislaw Lem's works for something famous and Eastern European (I've had Solaris gathering dust in my to-read list for some time already).

I've actually read RUR (English translation) and found it pretty horrible: camp and melodramatic, it's only worth reading as a historical curiosity.

The Garin Death Ray by Tolstoy (no, not that 19th-century bore, the other one) is a really great sci-fi adventure novel, though I'm not sure if English translations are easily available (EDIT: they are, as it turns out).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gari...

Oh, and also there are the Strugatsky brothers.

Just created the poll, it should show up in may for discussion in August.