Beyond Reality discussion

Hi everyone,

It's time to open nominations for our August 2017 Books of the Month. Each group member can make 1 science fiction and/or 1 fantasy nomination in this thread. If you would like to make a nomination, please reply to this post with the title and author of the book(s) you would like to put forward for the group’s consideration. A couple of suggestions to keep in mind:

1. Telling us a little about the book and why you think it would be a good group read can help get other members interested in reading (and voting for) your nomination.

2. To see if your nomination has already been read by the group, you can check:

a. the group's bookshelf for Previous Books of the Month

and/or

b. these threads:
Master List of Previous Books of the Month 2012-Present
Master List of Previous Books of the Month 2006-2011

Books the group has read in the past 2 years are not eligible for current consideration. Being chosen as a past BotM prior to that time is not an automatic disqualification, but be aware that it may hinder your nomination’s chances at the polls.

General guidelines:
• Feel free to re-nominate a book that didn’t win in the polls in previous months!
• For questions regarding specifics such as book formats, books in series, self-nomination and various rules for nominations, please see the group FAQ.
• Seconding isn't necessary in this group.
• Friendly discussion & debate is strongly encouraged, but let's please keep things civil.

Poll schedule:
• Nominations will remain open through Monday, May 22.
• The first round of polls will open Wednesday, May 24, and will run through Monday, May 29.
• The run-off polls go up Tuesday, May 30, and will be open through Sunday, June 4.

Thanks!


NOMINATIONS SO FAR:


SCIENCE FICTION:
Lotus Blue by Cat Sparks
How Few Remain: A Novel of the Second War Between the States by Harry Turtledove
Illuminae by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff
The Book of Phoenix by Nnedi Okorafor
Eight Worlds Of C.M. Kornbluth by C.M. Kornbluth
The Reality Dysfunction by Peter F. Hamilton

FANTASY:
The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden
Red Sister by Mark Lawrence
The Queen's Necklace by Teresa Edgerton
Declare by Tim Powers
Railsea by China Miéville
The Sorcerer's House by Gene Wolfe

Fantasy: The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...

Strong female character. Interesting bits of Russian folklore.

While this is the first of a three (?) book series, this book seemed self-contained, no big cliff-hanger.

For SF I would like to nominate Lotus Blue by Cat Sparks

For fantasy I would like to nominate Red Sister by Mark Lawrence.

For science-fiction (alternative history), I wii nominate How Few Remain: A Novel of the Second War Between the States by Harry Turtledove.

Fantasy: The Queen's Necklace by Teresa Edgerton, a tale of kingdoms and adventure. A steampunk fantasy tale from before steampunk was a genre.

SF: Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff. Space-opera adventure as ships chase one another through space. Told in an intriguing epistolary point-of-view

I'll nominate:

Declare by Tim Powers for fantasy.

The Book of Phoenix by Nnedi Okorafor for SF

Railsea by China Mieville.
I think it is fantasy. And this group seems to like Mieville books a lot.

Since I am going to be reading it, I will nominate Eight Worlds Of C.M. Kornbluth for science fiction.

For SF will nominate The reality dysfunction by Peter F Hamilton.

For fantasy will nominate The Sorcerer's House by Gene Wolfe.

The first polls will go up tonight when I get home or first thing Wednesday morning. I've been offline/swamped.

Nominations will be open most of the day. :)


Edit: Yeah, it's going to be tomorrow (Wednesday) morning. I've just got home, and it's after 9pm here.

The polls are finally up. Sorry for my tardiness. I'm swamped right now!

Science Fiction: https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/1...

Fantasy: https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/1...

The polls will be open through May 29, and the run-off polls will run May 30 through June 4. As we poll for several months in advance, I don't think this will create any problems.

The run-off polls are up and will be open through Sunday, June 4.

Fantasy: https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/1...

Science Fiction: https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/1...