UK Book Club discussion

My twist: must be SciFi, Fantasy or Fairytale.


A -
B - Butcher, Jim - Summer Knight
C - Cole, Jay - Conversations with Larry Xenomorph
D -
E - Erikson, Steven - Gardens of the Moon
F -
G - Goble, Jeramy - Souls of Astraeus
H -
I -
J -
K -
L -
M -
N - Niffenegger, Audrey - The Time Traveller's Wife
O -
P -
Q -
R -
S - Suarez, Daniel - Daemon
T -
U -
V -
W -
X -
Y -
Z -

How about some classic writers:

Asimov
Bova
Clark

For your ABC

Asimov is definitely on my to read list!

It will an even harder selection of an actual book. I would not be able to choose one tale from any of them.

I already did the same challenge before, and last time I had Ben Aaronovitch for A.

Already looking forward to new (old) authors to try!

Next up: The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

not my genre but I enjoyed James Smythe's The Explorer and The machine in the monthly challenge recently , also loved watching Blade Runner at cinema a few weeks ago so will watch your posts with interest Kat.

Well, Gardens of the Moon was a brick of a book, and definitely not for beginners in the fantasy genre. I enjoyed it and will eventually continue to read the series, but not in the near future.

Souls of Astraeus was a thoroughly enjoyable space opera by an indie author I stumbled upon and took a chance on.

Daemon is a tech thriller set in present-day America, which explored what happens when a computer program goes rogue. I really liked it. The only downside was that the story has some loose threads at the end that are resolved in the sequel Freedom™, which I didn't enjoy as much.

I love this idea for a challenge - a great way to cause yourself to read some things you might not otherwise have picked up (especially for X, I imagine...)

This challenge is going slow, because I keep reading non-SFF books inbetween.

Next up for M is ashbug by Ainsley McCutcheon. The book hasn't got any ratings on GR yet, so I'm taking a gamble with this one.

Could not finish ashbug, the writing style just did not appeal to me. So no M after all.

I should be reading Asimov for my A, but I'm on my 4th Aaronovitch in 8 weeks, whom I don't want to use for A because he was the A last time I did this.

At this rate the challenge is going to take me a long time, haha.

Ha ha - tell me about it! I've been doing the challenge for a year and I'm still not finished....

How are you doing with this? Need any recommendations? I have a certain amount of sci-fi in my book bag. Nothing by your favourite letter A author though. I guess I should check him out. Though I really have enough As to last me. ;)

Oh, just realised you said sci-fi, fantasy, or fairytale, not just sci-fi. I have definitely got recommendations for you then, if you want them.

Thank you Leni, that would be nice :)

I do have a TBR pile that's a few feet high, with lots of SFF in it, so I'm going to try and use that first.

Problem is, I binge-read series, so I might end up reading 5 books in a row of an author whose letter I already did, and make no progress on my challenge....

But I realised I forgot to add Jim Butcher since I last updated my list.

Also just finished a book by Jay Cole that was hilarious!

Just let me know if any letters prove difficult. :)

I have some letters earmarked already (Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Garth Nix... oh wait, I already have N), but there will be a few I have nothing for so far - I'm drawing a blank for P at the moment. I have a Pratchett book still on my pile, but wasn't sure whether I should use Pratchett for my P, as I *think* I used him last time.

X will also be a challenge - last time I left out X and Y.

For Y I have earmarked Nicholas Yermakov

For T
If you like time travel, and amusing, and series, try Jodi Taylor's series about time travelling historians

Jodi Taylor

Think it starts with...

Just One Damned Thing After Another

I have read them all - really enjoyed.

Awesome, thank you Philip!

time travel and historian sounds right up my alley.

*pencils Taylor in for T*

X is always a challenge. Q likewise. But for P I have Philip Pullman, Mervyn Peake, and K.J. Parker.

Thank you!

Have William T. Quick for Q.

Ooooooh, and I have Peake in my physical TBR pile. As well as Parker. Very good. That means I don't have to spend extra money.

Ah, it's wonderful when that happens! For X you could reason that X is "unknown" and read a collection of fairy tales?

That is a wonderful idea for X !!!

:D Unfortunately the big collections tend to have authorship in the sense that they were oral stories with many variations first and then were written down in fixed form by people like the brothers Grimm. So in that sense they have authorship. But there are some ancient written stories that would fit where the author is unknown. Beowulf and The Epic of Gilgamesh spring to mind.

Andrew Lang has some fairytale collections where he is the editor/publisher, but did not give sources for individual stories, especially from East/Southeast Asia.

I'll choose one of them, I think.

Oh yes, I had forgotten about him!

I just remembered that I've been meaning to read Eragon by Christopher Paolini. And then I thought, "Wasn't someone looking for a fantasy etc author on the letter P?" lol

But you already have P now. Well, it would give you E if you decided to go for one word titles next.

The darned thing about this challenge is that I keep reading other things. Either it's not SFF, or I already have the letter.

Reading the second Bernard Cornwell novel already since I read Jay Cole. Also reading humorous books that are non-SFF and some historical novels...

I'm not helping myself here... :)

Heh, I have so many challenges going, progress is spread out and invariably slow. So I don't feel like I can allow myself to read anything that isn't covered by at least one challenge. And there's not much room for SFF in any of them. I miss SFF. Might have to start yet another challenge to give myself the excuse.