SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

To accompany our list of 2016 Hugo Award Nominees, I decided to put up a thread for the Nebula. Okay, maybe not. I was researching the Nebulas and found out that Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard is up for the award this year. This book was so totally brilliant that I have to whip up enthusiasm for it. Also, the author is a psycholinguist and he's a leading expert in Klingon.

The List:
Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie
Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard by Lawrence M. Schoen
The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu
Raising Caine by Charles E. Gannon
Updraft by Fran Wilde
Uprooted by Naomi Novik

No bias at all there, eh Sarah. : ) Thank you for posting these award nomination lists. My TBR grows.

None whatsoever ;)

BARSK is pretty fun. I think I like The Fifth Season more

I can't wait to read Barsk and compare it to Fifth Season, I just found out my library has it. Now I just have to finish the 15 books I have checked out. Too many books, too little time.

Yup.

Would be great to have a poll for future group read based on this nominees regardless who wins.

Silvana wrote: "Would be great to have a poll for future group read based on this nominees regardless who wins."

This club has already read The Fifth Season and Uprooted. Ancillary Mercy and Raising Caine are later books in their respective series. That would leave Barsk, The Grace of Kings, and Updraft as eligible.

I want to read Updraft.

I've read:
Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie
Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard by Lawrence M. Schoen
The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
Updraft by Fran Wilde
Uprooted by Naomi Novik

It's a tough choice between Barsk and The Fifth Season for me. I loved them both. I agree with Nicki's comment about Updraft being average.

I loved The Fifth Season a lot. Grace of Kings has too many problems.
Updraft's sample looks ok but Barsk seems to be the most interesting.

I have no intention of reading Uprooted so I will probably read Updraft for completeness.

Go Nora go!

@MadProfessah Give Uprooted a try. It's NOT as good as everyone says it is, but the first half is fire.

It's a lot darker than I expected. The Wood was quite spooky.

The only one I'm planning to definitely read is Raising Caine by Charles E. Gannon. Other than The Grace of Kings, none of the others looks like something that would interest me.

Raisin Caine does look good :)

Thanks for the update of the Nebula list. Now I feel like I've been away in lala land because I've only read Raising Caine. Started but did not finish Ancillary. Does the committee have a bent towards certain subgenres or themes?

How was Raising Caine?

Ric wrote: "Does the committee have a bent towards certain subgenres or themes?"

Chaos Horizon makes predictions for Nebula and Hugo awards. According to its predictors, science fiction has an advantage over fantasy. Elsewhere, I have heard that Nebula voters tend to like a literary style. Other Chaos Horizon predictors have nothing to do with content or style, just indicators of critical and popular reception, past nominations of the authors, and rank order in a series.

Sarah Anne wrote: "How was Raising Caine?"

Excellent space opera but one has to have read the previous two books in the series to truly enjoy this, I say.

I have the first downloaded on audio. I'm anxious to try. Thanks.

Chris wrote: Chaos Horizon makes predictions for Nebula and Hugo awards. According to its predictors, science fiction has an adv..Elsewhere, I have heard that Nebula voters tend to like a literary style. Other Chaos Horizon predictors have nothing to do with content or style, just indicators of critical and popular reception, past nominations of the authors, and rank order in a series."
For published writers on general voting I can see where literary style would be a plus. Thanks for the info. Will have to visit the Chaos Horizon site sometime.

I guesd Nebula voters THIS year does NOT like literary style since they picked Uprooted over The Fifth Season.

http://io9.gizmodo.com/women-swept-th...

I preferred Uprooted to The Fifth Season by a long shot.

Oh? Why?

I liked the writing in Uprooted. She managed to tell a fresh story while keeping elements of the original Grimm tales. The Wood as a character was incredibly dark and I thought she did that brilliantly. I don't think it was perfect, and I would have voted for Barsk, but the POV situation in The Fifth Season really ticked me off towards the end. Irrationally - I couldn't even explain my reaction to myself.

I see. The Wood is pretty scary indeed. The ending/epilogue in Uprooted ruined it for me.... Anyway, I gotta read Barsk. Interesting that it does not get any nod from the other awards, at least Hugo and Locus.

Barsk is really cool. The author is a psycholinguist so the focus is more on linguistics and anthropology.

I agree about Uprooted. I liked a lot of it but it wasn't five stars for me.

Barsk came out at the end of December — poor timing for awards nominations. I imagine some Nebula voters had advance copies.

I liked BARSK and THE FIFTH SEASON. Since UPROOTED I will probably give it a try sometime later this summer. I have read the first 2 CAINE books and hope that he finished off the trilogy on a high point.

Clearly, we are reading award winning works. With Uprooted by Naomi Novik getting the 2016 Nebula, looks like our group can select prime works for our reading pleasure. Congratulations on the win, Ms. Novik. Well deserved for a book well-written, and in my opinion riveting!

THE FIFTH SEASON (surprisingly) won the Hugo Award! My money (and heart) was on SEVENEVES.