/r/Fantasy Discussion Group discussion

The July book of the month was a great novel and a moderate success discussion wise. Let's start talking about what to read in August!

Once we get a few nominations I'll put up a poll to vote in the upcoming days. Nominate away!

The Rithmatist by Brandon Sanderson was a solid choice last month, and it is burning a hole through my desk currently!

I'd also like to give The Cloud Roads by Martha Wells a shot!

Since i already have a copy, but still need to read it, I'll nominate King Rat by China Miéville. (Selfishly trying to work down my TBR pile AND hopefully participate in discussions on a book I really want to read at the same time)

I haven't read Abercrombie's First Law trilogy, so I nominate the 'The Blade Itself'. Also, 'Promise Of Blood' by Brian Mclellan because of the many, many good reviews and gunpowder magic.

I just read Promise of Blood and it was definitely an enjoyable read. I'd be up for Cloud Roads or King Rat. Just because it's on my own TBR pile, I'll nominate Marina and Sergei Dyachenko's The Scar (not to be confused with the China Mieville novel of the same name).

The Scar was an incredible read and I'd recommend it to anyone. (again, not the Mieville novel!)

I'll nominate Blood Song by Anthony Ryan. Always good to see a self-published guy "making it." It's a damn fine story, and I don't think I've run across anyone who doesn't like it yet. For me it seems like kind of a cross between George R.R. Martin and Patrick Rothfuss, which isn't such a bad thing.

Oh! I definitely want to read Blood Song. That's another book I already own but just haven't gotten to yet. Promise of Blood it also already on my TBR list.

So far the poll is looking like:

- The Rithmatist
- The Cloud Roads
- King Rat
- The Blade Itself
- Promise of Blood
- Blood Song
- The Scar

Big list already!

The Rithmatist is my vote for Aug

Ive read blood song which is just beyond awesome

Promise of blood is perhaps the best one ive read this year....fresh magic system and story moves quite well :)

When does the "book of the month" actually get discussed?

As soon as we start reading it - last month I started a thread (it's under "BOOK DISCUSSION" I believe) and we just had a single conversation with use of spoiler tags. I am not sure how else to best go about it - some people want segmented discussions as we go, but thus far we haven't had enough participation to really warrant that.

Devices and Desires by KJ Parker
The Folding Knife by KJ Parker
The Company by...you guessed it! KJ Parker

I haven't read KJ yet so...

Two books out at the beginning of August are Emperor of Thorns and The Crown Tower. Consider both nominated.

I vote crown tower because MJS is so active. Going to read emperor of thorns regardless. Might be fun to discuss the nature of anti-heroes and villains.

China Mieville's The Scar is considered by most of my friends to be his best. I've been meaning to give it a shot and would love to go through it with the Reddit group.

Alternatively, how would the group feel about Fantasy Comedy? Tom Holt's Portable Door is the gateway to his series, and I can attest from his SciFi that he's hilarious.

I agree with The Rithmatist as I'm a big fan of Mr. Sanderson. Steelheart looked good too.

My vote goes to Acacia though. Been meaning to pick that book up and this group would be a perfect excuse for me to do so.

Both Emperor of Thorns or Crown Tower would be awesome options - both MJS and Mark Lawrence are awesome active redditors and internet personalities.

I'm going to read both in august either way as I have both pre-ordered.

Control Point - Myke Cole

Joel wrote: "Both Emperor of Thorns or Crown Tower would be awesome options - both MJS and Mark Lawrence are awesome active redditors and internet personalities.

I'm going to read both in august either way as ..."

I think later books in series/trilogies are always going to exclude people from the discussion (unless the group has done the earlier ones previously) so Theft of Swords or Prince of Thorns might be better choices -- however, I'm going with Control Point, see below :D

Mark wrote: "I think later books in series/trilogies are always going to exclude people from the discussion (unless the group has done the earlier ones previously) so Theft of Swords or Prince of Thorns might be better choices -- however, I'm going with Control Point, see below :D "

Crown Tower is set before Theft of Swords, and its my understanding that they can be read in either order.

As for Emperor of Thorns vs Prince of Thorns, I think it depends on the group. PoT may not get as much activity if most people have read it already. But your definitely right that EoT would exclude some readers. My opinion would be to allow it as a nomination and let the votes decide. But maybe I'm being selfish because I plan on reading it either way :)

I plan to put a poll up tomorrow. The list has grown substantially since start.

- The Rithmatist
- The Cloud Roads
- King Rat
- The Blade Itself
- Promise of Blood
- Blood Song
- The Scar
- Crown Tower
- Emperor of Thorns
- Control Point
- Acacia
- Multiple KJ Parker books

Going to either be a big poll or we should whittle down before the poll is created.

Might as well whittle it down. I'll surrender my KJ choices in favor of Acacia.

I nominated King Rat, but honestly I think I am more likely to vote for Blood Song or Crown Tower.... or Emperor of Thorns ... gah! Too many great choices!

I don't think King Rat will get the votes to be a real contender anyway, so it's probably a safe one to throw out.

I'm going to agree with Michael on Blood Song. Been meaning to read it, so that'll definitely be my vote.

I'd rather read something less known/mainstream... i really didnt expect The Whitefire Crossing to be this good and i'd love to get surprised again with something i wouldn't stumble upon in discussions, i mean cmon, everybody's talking about Blood Song.. (not that i didn't love it)

- The Cloud Roads
- King Rat
- The Scar
- Control Point
- Acacia
- Multiple KJ Parker books

^sounds good to me

Drop it to one nomination per person/book per author?

And I'm with Jan. I want something else as surprisingly good as Whitefire that I wouldn't have read otherwise.

I like Jan's point/sentiment, maybe I'll rethink how I want to vote because it is really nice finding and enjoying something new/unexpected.

And I'd like to see one of the K.J. Parker books in the vote (but agree it should be just one, otherwise they'll compete against each other/split the Parker votes)

How about The Shadow of the Torturer, by Gene Wolfe? It has a new Kindle edition. Also, it's incredible (although a bit old).

I think it would make sense to narrow the list down to a top 5. That way we have a nice clean list for the poll.

I also agree with Jan; something less mainstream would be very cool. Finding an unexpected gem of a book is a nice event I haven't had the pleasure of experiencing in a long while.

But can you narrow it to top 5 without a vote? Seems like to do that, you'd need 2 voting periods, a preliminary and a final. (Not disagreeing with idea at all, just trying to think how to do it).

One way ti help limit the options is tho require nominations to be seconded. Not sure how many that would eliminate here (if any)

Lesser known book? Cloud Roads! I kid. I say if we get it to 10 candidates, most people get one of their choices on the list.

It's easy enough to use something like Single transferable vote (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_t...) to make it happen in one voting round.

While technically its one round, it does require voters to come back after a time frame to see if their vote has been eliminated and needs to be reallocated. Still its a good method and maybe the easiest/fairest way to eliminate to 5.

But if you are looking to get to just 10 and have taken your nomination of The Rithmatist off, you'd only need to eliminate two more (and narrow down to 1 Parker). Emperor of Thorns may eliminate potential readers since its a 3rd in a series. Eliminating that one would bring that user down to just one nomination as well (another suggestion) ... So that's 11. Parker still hasn't been narrowed down to one book and the nominator sort of rescinded their nomination (although, I'd like to read one myself, there is always next month). That'd be 10. I'd also be fine with my nomination removed if that helps.

Just suggestions though, however you decide to do it is fine by me.

How about House of Blades from Will Wight?

There was a thread about his book on /r/fantasy a month ago so i added him to my to-read pile... started reading yesterday and boy, it's incredible.. stopped reading at 4am :p

I'd like another book by an author who is active on /r/fantasy or recently did an AMA. My nomination is The Thousand Names by Django Wexler.

(Keeping it to one nomination - Blood Song is good, too!)

blood song - Anthony Ryan.. Plz

I second Will Wight's House of Blades. Seems pretty great so far, plus it's only $3 on Kindle right now.

I'm creating the poll right now, narrowed down to these choices:

- The Cloud Roads by Martha Wells
- The Scar by Maryna Dyachenko, Serhiy Dyachenko
- Control Point by Myke Cole
- Acaciab y David Anthony Durham
- House of Blades by Will Wight
- Crown Tower by MJS
- The Rithmatist by Brandon Sanderson
- Blood Song by Anthony Ryan
- Promise of Blood by Brian McClellan
- The Thousand Names by Django Wexler

http://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/87...

Vote now! Voting will end on 7/31, book discussion will open on 8/1. I think I'll try a 50/50 split on discussion this month, i.e. "First Half Discussion" and "Second Half Discussion" - any input there?

Thanks guys!

Sounds good to me. I'd like to read something a bit less known but surprisingly good as well. I really enjoyed blood song but i'd rather discuss a more recent book than one originally released nearly two years ago. The thousand names book was pretty good. Rithmatist has some great concepts, but I felt like Sanderson tried too hard to force the content into the YA theme, when he could have wrote it more in his typical style and let the content itself come off as YA. I personally enjoyed House of Blades too. Crown tower will likely be decent, though we know its ending lol. It would be between those 4 for me.

I put in my vote for The Thousand Names. I like the idea of supporting a redditor, and I liked what I saw from the excerpt that Django Wexler shared.

I wouldn't mind Promise of Blood, either, since that's been on my radar a while.

The Crown Tower could very well have been my choice if I wasn't right in the middle of Theft of Swords at the moment.

J.S. wrote: "I put in my vote for The Thousand Names. I like the idea of supporting a redditor, and I liked what I saw from the excerpt that Django Wexler shared.

I wouldn't mind Promise of Blood, either, sinc..."

Yeah, supporting a redditor is how I came to house of blades when the author did a casual AMA that was really good.

Looks like Blood Song by Anthony Ryan wins it. I think Joel had mentioned trying two discussion threads this time, so I set those up. After reading the 1st half, join discussion 1. Spoilers are allowed, but only for that section of the book. Full spoiler comments are allowed in the 2nd discussion which covers the entire book.

We're still getting settled in this group and trying to figure out how to best hold the discussions, we'll see how it works with two this time. If there's a lot of activity, we can do more discussions next month, or if people are eager to discuss before getting to the midway mark, maybe can add an earlier discussion. In other words, we're winging it a bit here. :)

Nice! I'm glad I nominated it, although I'm sure if I hadn't someone would have ;-)