Book Club Newsletter Issue 6

2

Comments

  • 1
    Honestly? I read Red Mars a few years ago, and enjoyed it enough to go on to read the rest of the trilogy. I don't know whether I would want to read it again, but I can remember enough to join in the conversation.
  • 1
    I also read it a few years ago. I think it stands well enough on its own. It’s a bit on the long side for a monthly pick, but we can extend the reading time if people want. I think Clash and Richard will love it, but they may have read it already and have an opinion.
  • 1

    I’m not set on Red Mars. I thought about it because I got the game Terraforming Mars for Christmas, and now that the spring semester is over I’ll have some time to play (and more time to read).

    It sounds like there are a couple problems with using this book as a monthly selection — 1) its age and notoriety making it more likely that many here have already read it and 2) its length.

    I don’t mind continuing to think about another selection.

  • 0
    > @Apocryphal said:
    > I also read it a few years ago. I think it stands well enough on its own. It’s a bit on the long side for a monthly pick, but we can extend the reading time if people want. I think Clash and Richard will love it, but they may have read it already and have an opinion.

    I persevered with the whole trilogy quite a while ago. I thought Red Mars was good, but that the series as a whole sagged and was needlessly long. It felt as though the publisher had said "look Kim it has to be a trilogy, and each one has to be at least xyz words long, so get to work and do it!" But would be happy to reread Red Mars with the group, and if we wanted to go on to the rest, then maybe this long after my initial read I'd see other things in it
  • 0

    Also read Red Mars a while ago but, as I think everyone knows about me, I like reading things more than once.

  • 1
    @WildCard Do you want to settle on Red Mars, then? Seems most of us have read it, which allows some people to still participate in the discussion if they don’t re-read. I will re-listen to my audio version, and it sound like Barners in, too.

    Does anyone think they need more than a month for it?
  • 1

    @Apocryphal said:
    @WildCard Do you want to settle on Red Mars, then? Seems most of us have read it, which allows some people to still participate in the discussion if they don’t re-read. I will re-listen to my audio version, and it sound like Barners in, too.

    Does anyone think they need more than a month for it?

    I’m good with Red Mars, but it looks like I’ll be the only one reading it for the first time. I could easily go with something more recent, making it more likely that more of us can read for the first time, and something shorter. I guess we’re fast approaching the point of no return and need a decision.

    Would there be more energy for something like Gods of Jade and Shadow, which BookPage describes: “The ever-wonderful Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s superb world building and lush prose bring Jazz Age Mexico to life in this stunning historical fantasy that plays with archetypes from Greek and Mayan mythology alike.”

    If in the next day or two we get some hits on this, I would be inclined to go this route. If not, fall back on Red Mars? How does that sound?

  • 1
    Hookay, that looks pretty cool! I ordered a copy - even if we don’t do it now.
  • 1
    _Gods of Jade and Shadow_ sounds more interesting to me than _Red Mars_. Let's do that!
  • 2
    edited May 2020

    Alright! This is already more enthusiasm than we had for Red Mars. Let’s do Gods of Jade and Shadow.

    Final answer. :)

  • 1
    edited May 2020

    Dammit! I have just started Richard's new book, a book on Egyptian ruling queens, the sequel to The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, and a couple others along with the Slow Read. I just didn't hit it off with the LeGuin book. I would have loved Red Mars - it's due for a re-read - but I am tentatively on for the other. I have to look it up!

  • 1
    edited May 2020

    @RichardAbbott said:
    Hope you like it :)

    I don't think there is any realistic chance I won't! ;)

  • 1
    edited May 2020

    Oh oh! "For fans on NK Jemesin?" THAT does not bode well! :o

  • 0
    > @clash_bowley said:
    > Oh oh! "For fans on NK Jemesin?" THAT does not bode well! :o

    Perhaps I should have put that on my cover :o though said fans might be a tad disappointed at the end result
  • 1

    @clash_bowley said:
    I would have loved Red Mars - it's due for a re-read -

    Now you tell us! :) Tha was the biggest burst of energy for Red Mars we had, but it came after the whistle was blown.

    Shall I throw a flag for a late hit? Fifteen-page penalty from the end of the play.

  • 1
    edited May 2020

    @RichardAbbott said:

    @clash_bowley said:
    Oh oh! "For fans on NK Jemesin?" THAT does not bode well! :o

    Perhaps I should have put that on my cover :o though said fans might be a tad disappointed at the end result

    They would be all worked up at the LOGIC behind everything! :D

  • 1

    @WildCard said:

    @clash_bowley said:
    I would have loved Red Mars - it's due for a re-read -

    Now you tell us! :) Tha was the biggest burst of energy for Red Mars we had, but it came after the whistle was blown.

    Shall I throw a flag for a late hit? Fifteen-page penalty from the end of the play.

    I'm still up for Gods of Jade and Shadow. I don't think it will be much like Jemesin really!

  • 1

    @WildCard Can I ask you to write an introductory post for your pick, basically announcing and saying a bit about why you picked it or think it’s worth readiing. Please paste that in the ‘nominations’ thread.

    To everyone,
    I have the July pick. I’ve already given it some thought and I’m leaning strongly toward The Great Eastern by Howard Rodman.

    The Great Eastern by Howard A. Rodman is an anticolonial adventure novel, set in the 1850s-1870s in New York, London, India, Paris and the North Atlantic. Pitted against each other: the two great 19th-century fictional anti-heroes, Jules Verne's Captain Nemo and Herman Melville's Captain Ahab. One lives beneath the waves and hates everything upon them. The other lives upon the waves and hates everything beneath. Caught in between: the real-life Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the preeminent civil engineer of Victorian England, here kidnapped, pressed into service to build Nemo his submarine, then to join him in his battle against the modern world. It was published by Melville House Publishing on June 4, 2019.

    It seems to be quite well reviewed. It’s available on Kindle on Amazon as a hardcover. Please look at your purchasing options and let me know if anyone has Issues. I’ll wait before confirming this just in case.

    https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/past-and-pastiche-in-howard-a-rodmans-the-great-eastern/

  • 1

    @Apocryphal said:

    To everyone,
    I have the July pick. I’ve already given it some thought and I’m leaning strongly toward The Great Eastern by Howard Rodman.

    That looks like it might be fun!

  • 0
    > @Apocryphal said:
    > To everyone,
    > I have the July pick. I’ve already given it some thought and I’m leaning strongly toward The Great Eastern by Howard Rodman.

    Looks good though weirdly expensive, and apparently not on the second hand market to any great extent (this is perhaps a recommendation!). Wonder why the publishers didn't do a p/b version. But as a book to read I'm in.
  • 1
    @RichardAbbott Its a newer book, and as with many newer books the publisher thinks will be successful, it’s been released hardback first. I suspect they’ll do a paperback eventually.

    And so no second hand, either.

    But most of you buy kindle, no? The kindle is about $10US or £10, which I know is more than usual, but again I chalk that down to it being new. Is that too high? That’s why I decided to ask now, since there’s plenty of time to pick a different book if there’s an issue with this one.
  • 0
    I'm sure that even in these covid-19 straightened days I can run to £10.50, and the pleasure of reading it with the club will vastly outweigh that. But as a matter of abstract principle, charging that much for an ebook feels wrong :)
  • 1
    I'm in with the Great Eastern; it looks tremendous fun.

    Aside: The only club book I avoided because of price was Arkwright, which I could only find in a new hardback specially imported from the US, which worked out as about £30. Then again, judging by what people said about Arkwright, I felt like I was the one at the start of a horror movie who was too ill to go on a trip to stay at the cabin of unspeakable horrors.
  • 1
    We don’t discuss The Great Eastern until the end of July, so maybe the price will come down, or a paperback be released, before then.
  • 2

    @Apocryphal said:
    @WildCard Can I ask you to write an introductory post for your pick, basically announcing and saying a bit about why you picked it or think it’s worth readiing. Please paste that in the ‘nominations’ thread.

    Yes, I’ll get that up by the end of the day tomorrow.

  • 1

    @Apocryphal said:
    We don’t discuss The Great Eastern until the end of July, so maybe the price will come down, or a paperback be released, before then.

    Bought it.

  • 0

    Hello everyone and especially @Apocryphal - I have a feeling that our standard rotation means that I'm up for another choice somewhere before the end of the year. Am I right? If so, I shall start thinking about a selection... and as a seed question, how would people feel about a book which was also made into a film ("movie", I believe, in the US of A :) )? Have we done this before? Other than occasional, usually negative, comparisons between LoTR books and film adaptations.

  • 0
    edited September 2020

    @RichardAbbott - I have October, so maybe you have November or December? I am thinking of another Becky Chambers book, or possibly Vance's Languages of Pao. I don't think we did LotR - just the Silmarillion, and I don't think you had joined yet, as it was our first book. As for a book made into a movie, I am not sure we have ever done one. American Gods was made into a TV series...

  • 1

    I'm happy to read a book that's been adapted. What book are you thinking of? Does it have a film that everyone would know?

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