Fantasy Book Club discussion

It's that time of the month again! Place your book suggestions here, one nomination and one second per person. Do read through the rules first, please. Feel free to nominate books that have failed selection previously.

1. All nominations must be shelved on GR as fantasy primarily.

2. All nominations must be linked to their book page, or they'll be ignored.

3. All nominations must be seconded.

4. Check our group bookshelf as we won't be including books we've read since January 2016. Check here https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

5. No self-nominations.

6. All nominations must be novels, novellas or collections of short stories; graphic novels, comics, mangas and light novels cannot be nominated.

7. All nominations must have an available English edition.

You have a week to nominate, then I'll set up the poll.

All nominations are subject to moderator's whims.

Have at it, Helen

The following list includes all nominations and seconds up to message 12 (included)


Seconded
- Redwall (Redwall #1)
- The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings #1)
- Blood of an Exile (Dragons of Terra #1)
- Darkness Weaves

Nominated only
- Stormsong (The Kingston Cycle #2)

How would I link? Haven't done this before

Hit the 'add book/author' above this box. Type in the title, select and hit add.

Nominating Stormsong

Helen wrote: "Hit the 'add book/author' above this box. Type in the title, select and hit add."
The OP should just be aware that only works when you are accessing the website from a computer. The phone app does not allow you to add book or author links (or to quote when replying to a previous post).

The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien

I will nominate Redwall

I'll second Redwall.

I'll second The Fellowship of the Ring

I'm going to nominate Blood of an Exile. I really can't remember ever reading a book about a man being condemned to hunt dragons. Sounds very promising.

I'd like to nominate a classic that many 'younger' readers are not aware of, and even 'more experienced' ones often forget its existence and think of either Howard's or Moorcock's creations when talking of "sword & sorcery" progenitors... yet there is a third author, universe and character that is just as or even more memorable than Conan or Elric once you get to know him... so let's introduce Kane through the omnibus of Gods in Darkness: The Complete Novels of Kane.
And I'll second Blood of an Exile...

That link shows books 2, 5 & 7, is there one for book 1?

Helen wrote: "That link shows books 2, 5 & 7, is there one for book 1?"

The nominated book is only for the novels. KEW published quite a few short stories & a few novels, but it's a mess getting them. Most have been out of print for ages. I bugged Jared at Centipede Press for years to publish the complete Kane stories & novels. He did a few years ago, but the sets were pretty expensive ($200?) & are now sold out.

Marcin, please don't hate me for raining on this idea. I'm a real fan of KEW's Kane books & I'd love to read them with a group, but I know how tough they are to find. To the best of my knowledge, "Gods in Darkness" is only available in HB & has been out of print for years. Last time I looked it was selling for $100 or more. I have a copy (plus PB copies of each novel) but I'm probably the only other person in this group & I doubt it's even available in most libraries. REH & Moorcock's books are far more abundant.

FWIW, the Kane novels and short stories are (mostly) available in eBook format, at least in the US -- basically, reprints of the original five paperbacks, plus The Book of Kane. They're missing a few more recent stories that Wagner had published after the initial paperbacks were put together, plus the unfinished novel fragment that first showed up in that Night Shade collection, but it's still better than nothing.

Also, while the books are numbered, they all stand alone very well, have only very tenuous continuity, and were written out of chronological order.

If I had to choose one Kane novel, myself I'd probably lean towards Bloodstone -- it's the second one he wrote, but I think it's a bit stronger than Darkness Weaves, the first novel.

Amazon links:

https://www.amazon.com/Kane-5-Book-Se...

https://www.amazon.com/Night-Winds-Ka...

(Also, the Amazon series numbering is kind of messed up.)

Joseph wrote: "FWIW, the Kane novels and short stories are (mostly) available in eBook format, at least in the US -- basically, reprints of the original five paperbacks, plus The Book of Kane. They..."

Super! I'm glad I was wrong. Thank you.

I really wish these were in audio. At least in the USA they're not. I have noticed there are several books that are not available in the U.S. that are available in other countries.

Jim wrote: "Helen wrote: "That link shows books 2, 5 & 7, is there one for book 1?"

The nominated book is only for the novels. KEW published quite a few short stories & a few novels, but it's a mess getting them..."

Yeah, that's exactly why I chose the novel omnibus instead of a single book, especially since those who have read Kane works have trouble with proper arrangement in chronological terms or preference terms... and this compendium somewhat contains the novels in chrono order prearranged... Short stories are contained in the "sister" volume that also holds the #1 of the series...

@Jim, I'm a fan as well, though I've read the shorts and the novels years ago and it's high time to finally sit down and read them again... These were some of the books I bought in a London street sale while on a student exchange back at high school times... 'cause I could not get them in Poland. I had gone on a sight-seeing tour and ended up with a backpack and two bags worth of reading material, including those of KEW (Moorcock was amongst the buys as well ;) and I also have not read him for a long time, but it seems like people are aware of his works or Howard's but not so with KEW's).

Joseph wrote: "FWIW, the Kane novels and short stories are (mostly) available in eBook format (...) If I had to choose one Kane novel, myself I'd probably lean towards Bloodstone -- it's the second one he wrote, but I think it's a bit stronger than Darkness Weaves, the first novel."

Well that's what made me choose his works as my nomination this time around, at least the bookshops' and publishers' spam promo newsletters have finally shown something really great for shops/companies located in US, UK, FR, IT, GE, CZ, PL, RU and BR... so I guessed people now have little reason to abstain from the red-headed character ;)

Yeah, I know that Bloodstone seems a little bit darker, but it is not the premier long work of KEW's Kane universe, so in order to keep us at the start point of the series in terms of novels, I thought that Darkness might have been better... but an omnibus/complete edition of the series would be better still. Though, if Gods in Darkness could not be accepted here, then maybe we could go with Darkness Weaves for a start... @Jospeh, would you second Gods or Darkness, or Bloodstone only?

I'll second either.

I'll second any of them.

Since the omnibus edition (Gods of Darkness) is out of print, we can't accept it as a nomination. However, the individuals novels are all available (yay reprints!) so they're fine for nominations. If the novels truly stand alone like Joseph mentioned, then any of them can be nominated (even if not the first published or the first in chronological order).

So it's up to you, Marcin. Do you want to nominate Darkness Weaves or Bloodstone ?

And thank you Jim & Joseph for the research :)

I'd rather have Darkness Weaves if possible... it's the first novel in terms of publishing chronolgy.

I'll second Darkness Weaves, then.

I'm nominating The Cloud Roads by Martha Wells.

I'll second cloud Roads.

Looks like I've missed all the fun.

I've been unable to access the group all week, I keep getting a blank page saying formatting error, anyone else?

All has been fine for me. I'm using Win10 & Chrome or Firefox.

It's happened before but usually only up to a couple of days.

Anyway, I'm currently here, and the poll is up.