Science Fiction: The Short Stuff discussion

Basically, the limits on the works we agree to consider reading together are less than 40,000 words and they're science fiction. That's all.

There will be monthly polls in which are chosen three or four titles to read per month. I'm going to do something I've never before done in one of my groups and make a monthly moderator selection. The other selections will be chosen by the normal democratic process.

There are no restrictions regarding publication date of the material. I also don't plan to moderate what can and cannot be considered science fiction. My hope is that if someone nominates, let's say a fantasy story, it won't win the poll. Even if it does, okay, there's obviously membership interest in reading it. So, we'll go ahead. This saves me from having to get in an argument with anyone over what is and is not science fiction. If this becomes a big problem, I'll amend the process.

All of science fiction literature is our provenance. This means sometimes the story might come from an unexpected place or source. It also might be a franchise story. Does Star Trek, Terminator, or Battlestar Galactica have works shorter than novels we can consider nominating and reading? If they do, they're on our menu!

I ask for nominators to consider ensuring that the nominee work be reasonably accessible in some way shape or form to most of the membership for less than $10. If you want your nomination to have its best chances in the polls, might I suggest you inform members in advance how they can acquire a copy of the work in question?

I'm really excited about the premise for this group. I think there's some really terrific shorter science fiction work available that's been overlooked that we can be informing one another about and trying out. Because the work is short, we can also read more of them. This is a great way to find out about authors whose longer work may appeal as well, for those of us out there who want to venture reading an occasional novel outside this group.

I have been playing around with the format some since the group began. How many stories per month shall we read? Two? Too few. Five? Too many. I now think three is the right amount. One novella, one novelette, and one short story per month. With a buddy read thrown in for good measure once in a while, as desired.

From where will these three official group read stories come? Well, from the poll, I think. But that will only yield one story, or two perhaps, if there is a tie. And that's just right. If we have a poll and there's 7 votes for one story, 3 for second place, and no other place holders with more than one, then I think only the top vote-getter will be read as a group read. If the vote finishes 4-3-1-1-0, then I'd take the top two vote-getters in that case.

So, how do we get three? Well, let's say in that last case the 4-vote winner was a short story. The second place with 3 was a novella. Then we need a novelette to round things out. I'd select a novelette that won an award and make that our third read. By selecting award winners, we're in that way guaranteed quality reads no matter what other work might win the polls. I'd select the award winner from a time period not represented by the other two winners.

It's not a perfectly ordered system of selection for the stories, but there is a method being implemented I hope everyone can see and feel is a fair way to get our three group read stories each month.

Okay, so applying the above system for December 2024 group reads. Heinlein's "All You Zombies" is a 1959 short story. That covers short story.

I thought "Miracle" by Connie Willis was a short story too. But happy day, it isn't! It's a novelette. In fact, I see it was nominated for some awards and finished...
3rd in the 1992 Asimov's Readers' contest for Best Novelette
3rd in the 1992 Hugo voting Best Novelette
6th in the 1992 Locus voting for Best Novelette

Now we need a novella. The two stories we have so far are 20th century written and I think both involve time travel. So let's find a novella that's neither of those, for variety's sake. I go to my favorite website for looking up SF awards winners: https://www.worldswithoutend.com/. And I start with Locus Awards for novella at 2010. That one is a Kage Baker fantasy. Good no doubt, but disqualified for our purposes due to it being fantasy. How about 2011 then? Perfect! A Ted Chiang novella. Ted Chiang is hard SF, and we have many members who prefer hard SF. It will add some balance to the other two softer works on offer.

And that's the group read selection process, folks. Just trying to keep things transparent for all to see. Now go to the nomination topic and nominate up to two short works for our next poll. Won't you?