SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

The current plan is to use this to track progress on my 2025 TBR Cleanup challenge and also the not-yet-completed 2024 TBR Cleanup and Zodiac challenges. (The 2024 ones have both formally ended, of course.)

My selections for the 2025 TBR Cleanup challenge, copied and pasted from the main challenge thread:

✔️****1. Welcome to the Red Carpet - Vermilion Sands Vermilion is red
✔️***** 2. Suit Up - Have Space Suit—Will Travel
✔️**** 3. All That Glitters - The Gold Coast
✔️ **** 4. Let Your Hair Down - Space Chantey. loosely based on the Odyssey, but Lafferty was pretty informal
✔️*** 5. Special Effects - The Great Fire Of London ( replaces Experimental Film)
✔️****6. Six of One … Half a Dozen of the Other - The Spare Man Based partly on Hammett’s The Thin Man, which I recently reread. The idea of a second book that might be seen as a version of an earlier one seems to fit the prompt.
✔️*** 7. Strike a Pose - Skinflick Murder mystery from 1980 set in the world
✔️****8. Bohemian - The Dharma Bums Kerouac in 1950s bohemian San Francisco
✔️****9. Global Inspiration - Osama Notorious terrorist who may have been inspiring to some.
✔️ *** 10. Dime a Dozen - In Milton Lumky Territory - protagonist is a salesman
✔️**11. Slay - Deathworld 1
✔️**** 12. Twelfth - Station Eleven Start counting at 0
✔️ ***** 13. Cottagecore - This Census-Taker. Protagonist lives in an isolated house
✔️ *** 14. Oh! the Horrors - The Long Loud Silence. unpleasant scenes in post-disaster USA
✔️*** 15. Punk vs Prep - The Magic Walking Stick.
Privileged kid home from boarding school acquires magical object.
✔️**** 16. Organic vs Synthetic - The Simulacra. Humans and androids.
✔️*****17. Modern vs Traditional - Last Men in London Human descendant from the far future critiques humanity in 1932
✔️ **** 18. Avant-garde - Divine Invasions: A Life of Philip K. Dick . Was Dick an “avant-garde” writer? I don’t know, I’m sure a case could be made. I want to reread this biography.
✔️****19. Bold Look - The Blue Star. Individual in cover illustration has a bold look on his face.
✔️ *** 20. Loungewear - Scales of Justice. An old fashioned cozy English village mystery.

Books selected for the 2024 TBR Cleanup challenge, with a few recent substitutions. (Gentle Gemini and Reap What You Sow).

1. Authentic Aquarius - innovative, revolutionary

✔️****Galileo's Dream - Galileo was a revolutionary figure

2. Popular Pisces - dreamy, artistic

✔️The Other Side - The author was primarily a visual artist. The book involves a Dream Realm. I read an earlier translation in the 70s but I barely remember it.

3. Active Aries - optimistic, adventurous

✔️Bush Runner: The Adventures of Pierre-Esprit Radisson - Radisson was nothing if not adventurous

4. Tender Taurus - soothing, dependable

✔️Wodehouse: A Life - Wodehouse was the consummate pro, reliiably turning out books for decades, and they can work well as comfort reading.

5. Gentle Gemini - adaptable, curious

✔️****Time for the Stars

6. Compassionate Cancer - emotional, imaginative

✔️Space Lords

It’s a long time since I read most of these stories. They are certainly imaginative and often moving.

7. Limelight Leo - dramatic, humorous

✔️The Complete Ghost Stories of Charles Dickens - Dickens was often dramatic and humorous

8. Veracious Virgo - attentive, analytical

✔️Stan's Kitchen - Includes essays as well as fiction and poetry

9. Lively Libra - diplomatic, harmonious

✔️The Gradual - A composer sent on a cultural tour of warring islands

10. Spirited Scorpio - complicated, powerful

Replacing Plutocrats with Big Men Fear Me. Replacing Big Men Fear Me with Henry VIII. replaced Henry VIII with

✔️The Loner: Three Sketches of the Personal Life and Ideas of R.B. Bennett, 1870-1947

11. Sweet Sagittarius - idealistic, wanderlust

The Islanders - Priest’s “Dream Archipelago”. Hopefully fits the prompt.

12. Capable Capricorn - protective, noble

✔️Hard to Be a God - The Introduction to my copy by Ken MacLeod says the authors did a “noble deed” in publishing this book, i.e. resisted political evil and corruption

13. A breath of fresh air

✔️The Planetbreaker’s Son

14. Playing with fire

✔️Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster

15. From the ground up

✔️The Overstory - involves trees

16. In deep waters

✔️****Starfish

17. Spring into action

✔️Lenin on the Train - Lenin’s return from exile in April 1917 - “into action”?

18. Sweet summer child

✔️Cat's Eye - I believe this involves a woman’s unpleasant childhood.

19. Reap what you sow

✔️ **** Greener Than You Think

20. On thin ice

Austral - set in warming Antarctica

Selections for the 2024 Zodiac challenge, with a substitution for MONKEY.


CYCLIC

RAT : 1924, 1936, 1948, 1960, 1972, 1984, 1996, 2008, 2020

✔️The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike (1984)

OX : 1925, 1937, 1949, 1961, 1973, 1985, 1997, 2009, 2021

✔️The Memory of Whiteness: A Scientific Romance (1985)

TIGER : 1926, 1938, 1950, 1962, 1974, 1986, 1998, 2010, 2022

✔️****Ending Up (1974)

RABBIT : 1927, 1939, 1951, 1963, 1975, 1987, 1999, 2011, 2023

✔️Old Babes in the Wood: Stories (2023)

DRAGON : 1928, 1940, 1952, 1964, 1976, 1988, 2000, 2012, 2024

Norstrilia 1964 (The Planet Buyer)

SNAKE : 1929, 1941, 1953, 1965, 1977, 1989, 2001, 2013 —


✔️The Ballad of Beta-2 / Empire Star (1965 original publication of The Ballad of Beta-2)

HORSE : 1930, 1942, 1954, 1966, 1978, 1990, 2002, 2014 —

The Road to Corlay (1978)

SHEEP* : 1931, 1943, 1955, 1967, 1979, 1991, 2003, 2015 -

✔️The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories (1979)

MONKEY : 1932, 1944, 1956, 1968, 1980, 1992, 2004, 2016 —

✔️ ***** Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968)

ROOSTER : 1933, 1945, 1957, 1969, 1981, 1993, 2005, 2017 —

✔️Fourth Mansions (1969)

DOG : 1934, 1946, 1958, 1970, 1982, 1994, 2006, 2018—

✔️*****Titus Groan (1946)

PIG : 1935, 1947, 1959, 1971, 1983, 1995, 2007, 2019

✔️The Anome aka The Faceless Man (1971)

Nice lists, Stephen!

DivaDiane wrote: "Nice lists, Stephen!"

Thank you.

Oh, and I see you haven’t checked off two books that I have on my list as well: Gloriana and Titus Groan. I don’t think you’ll want to wait for me though, to buddy read. I wouldn’t be able to tackle them until April or May!

Thanks Diane. I do intend to read Titus Groan in the next few weeks. I’m not sure about Gloriana, but I’ve seen it suggested that it was influenced by Titus Groan, so I’ll definitely read TG first.

Ah, good tip! Thanks!

I finally finished Titus Groan. Remarkable book.

I succeeded in completing all 20 books in the 2025 TBR Cleanup challenge. Still have 2 books each left from the 2024 TBR Cleanup and Zodiac challenges.

I’ll copy the info for the 2026 TBR Cleanup challenge over here soon.

2026 TBR Cleanup Challenge:

(List as modified February 6 2026)

1. Appetizer - Phantastes: A Faerie Romance by George MacDonald - Victorian fantasy praised by C.S. Lewis and others. “Appetizer” because precursor?

2. Snack Food- A Judgment of Dragons by Phyllis Gotlieb. First winner of the Aurora award back in the 80s. Comprises 4 novellas, 2 of them previously published. Appears to be fairly light stuff.

✔️****3. Kids Menu - Mistress Masham's Repose by T.H. White. 1946 children’s book.

4. Latin Flare - The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Set in Mexico. The author is Mexican Canadian I understand.

5. Asian Menu - Vagabonds by Hao Jingfang - Asian author.

6. European Fare - The Valkyrie by Kate Heartfield - based on northern European legend

7. Lean Cuisine - The Watch Below by James White - seems to be one of the thinnest spines on the TBR shelf. It’s a good many decades since I read the novel. It will be interesting to see what I make of it.

8. Bad Apple - The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro. Significant themes as I recall include marriage and the state of fallen humanity, which link (in my mind) to the Garden of Eden and therefore to the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil; a Bad Apple? A stretch maybe, but I want to reread this one.

✔️****9. In a Pickle - Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome. Three young Victorian British guys on holiday, boating on the Thames.

10. Recipe for Disaster - Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation, and the Loss of Aboriginal Life by James Daschuk. Historical work on the Canadian west.

11. Food for Thought - Headlong Hall and Nightmare Abbey by Thomas Love Peacock

✔️***12. Piece of Cake - Murder Is Easy by Agatha Christie

13. “Dammit Doughnut” - The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks -

14. Vegan - Animal Rights: A Very Short Introduction by David DeGrazia

15. Spicy - Crash by J.G. Ballard

16. Homemade - Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake. The title castle is home to most of the characters and the centre of the novel.

✔️****17. Comfort Food - The Tomb of Dragons by Katherine Addison. This trilogy is something of a comfort read for me. I haven’t read this third volume yet.

✔️***18. Popcorn - Crimson Snow: Winter Mysteries ed. Martin Edwards

✔️****19. Takeout - Gun Before Butter by Nicolas Freeling, Takeout in the sense of murder. Hopefully not too tenuous a connection to the prompt.

20. Dessert - Ice by Anna Kavan. An “Ice” may be a frozen dessert.

Oh! I really want to read Three Men in a Boat! I read To Say Nothing of the Dog last year.

DivaDiane wrote: "Oh! I really want to read Three Men in a Boat! I read To Say Nothing of the Dog last year."

I just read Three Men in a Boat and enjoyed it, a pleasant read. I haven’t read To Say Nothing of the Dog. I’m not a huge Willis fan and the length of some of her books deters me.

I’ve made major changes to my 2026 TBR Cleanup Challenge list in message 12 above.

I love how you justify some of these picks, especially when the prompt is a stretch but the reasoning is honest. That “Bad Apple” explanation made me smile because I do the same thing, I’ll chase theme and mood first, then see if it can plausibly fit.

Also Phantastes as an “appetizer” is such a cool choice. I’ve been on a myth and folklore streak lately (sometimes with a bit of faith or apocalyptic atmosphere in the background), and MacDonald feels like one of those roots you can still see branching into later fantasy.

Curious: do you build the list around what you want to read first, then fit prompts, or do the prompts drive the TBR?

P.E.N. wrote: "Curious: do you build the list around what you want to read first, then fit prompts, or do the prompts drive the TBR?”

Both, really. I have books on TBR shelves and elsewhere that I want to read. I look at the prompts and scan those shelves to see what books might fit. Then maybe I think of a book I’ve been wanting to read and review the prompts to see if there’s one it would fit. I end up not being able to find a prompt for some books and maybe picking a few books that were lower priorities but work nicely with the prompts.

I love that approach. It feels like the cleanest way to keep a challenge fun instead of turning it into a checklist you dread.

Do you ever notice certain prompt types “pull” you toward a specific mood for the year? Like, do you end up reading more comfort reads, or more bleak stuff, just because the prompt list nudges you there?

Also, I’m curious: when a book fits multiple prompts, do you decide early where it belongs, or do you keep it flexible until you finish and see what it really felt like?

With respect to a mood for the year, I don’t think I’ve ever noticed one. If my choices do have something in common I think it’s more likely to be a result of my own feelings when I’m choosing the books, not the influence of the prompts.

Sometimes I move a book from one prompt to another in order to make room for a book that fits the prompt better.

That makes sense. It sounds like the prompts are more of a framework than a driver, which I think is the healthiest way to approach it.

I like the idea of moving books around when something fits more naturally elsewhere. It keeps the structure flexible instead of rigid, more like curating a year of reading than filling out a form.