Fantasy Book Club?

What if the fans of fantasy who are Giascioch had a book of the month club? Alot of us seem to love them. We could then start a thred of the book we were reading, insights, thoughts, etc...

Would anybody be intrested in that? I've never done anything like that before, so I don't know how it would work necessarily. 

I would be interested in something like that :) goodreads.com would be a good place to do that easily. I've never been in a book club before and I read sporadically, not altogether fast, but I would still like to see how it would go or at the worst: See what other people think of books in the end :D The way I would see it work would be voting on a book, reading it, then people give comments and opinions on it.

» Edited on: 2013-01-19 20:57:40

I'm all for it. Let's be highbrow and snooty about it though. Start with classics first.

i would be up for it.

as long as we start with "the eye of the world" im in:)

Count me in!!:)

I'd love to join ^_^

That would be awesome!!

But I don't do horror anymore. Hubby travels and I just can't deal.

If I take this right we pick a book once a month and then read it and talk about it here on the forums. If that it then yes count me in.

I recommend NOT starting with a series, let alone a very long one. I think standalone books would be a good starting choice. I'll make this recommendation before Marrra does: Redemption of Althalus by David Eddings ;) Marrra introduced me to that book and I have been meaning to reread it.

» Edited on: 2013-01-21 13:46:05

Sounds like fun. :) I agree that starting with a series might not be the best choice, just because if someone doesn't like the first book they are going to lose interest in the book club, and its harder to do a complete review without reviewing the whole series. But if we were to do more standalone books there would be something new to try and fully review every month. For which book, we could always come up with several suggestions and have people vote. @Jayvenpup - I don't know if that was what you meant to link to? It took me to some article about which browser has the best password security.

So seems like we have some interest in this to at least get it rolling. Seems we need to decide on how we go about choosing a book for the month ( i admit i have no idea how to make that streamlined or easy). On that note we would need a time frame for reading the book and then a time frame for commenting/reviewing the book and lastly a time frame for choosing the next book. In my opinion the time frame for review can overlap the time frame for choosing a new book and can even spill over into the reading of the new book. Something like 3 weeks to read the book then one week to both review and choose another book. This would be approximately a month long total time. So any suggestions on maybe a website that has a gigantic list of fantasy/sci-fi books that we can pull from or anybody have experience running or being part of a book club? **edit** It would be cool if Gaiscioch turned into gaming/athletics/book reviewers :))

» Edited on: 2013-01-21 10:51:12

@Rylssa: Ack! I was checking up that last night and must have had it in clipboard. Trust me not to check the URL that I am pasting.. All fixed now! I agree with Rylssa too. It would have to come down to a voting method. People submit books, maybe randomly pick (re: hat) a set amount and then people vote on which one to read. Streamlining it to make it easy is the main catch. Even if it is say pick a handful of books and people choose themselves which one of those, say 5 books, they want to read and comment on. Then if some are fast readers (Yes, I am looking at you, Marrra :P) they can read more than one while others may only read one. Everyone then comments on what they thought of what they read. Perhaps the books then are categorised into what type of genre they are so there is a similar theme (fantasy romance, for instance, or adventure, etc). I still recommend goodreads.com as the site to look at since it has a good number of books up there and if they aren't, you can add them in.

» Edited on: 2013-01-21 13:49:55

» Edited on: 2013-01-21 13:51:31

I do like David eddings. Is there any way for us to have a poll on these boards were we can vote. Let say each person suggest a book for the next month then we do a poll and the one with the most votes is read the second place winner is read the following month.

I don't know who has access to create content for this site aside from Ben. Maybe some of the elders do but i dont' know for sure. We would need one of them to get this rolling in that fashion tho if we went that way for ease of use and such. Otherwise we would just put up a thread of vote for book and have to count each forum reply for a book. Any elder out there can shed some light on this???

Hmm, there is an easier alternative to the book club. Even if it is just to start the ball rolling. Geek & Sundry has a show called Sword & Laser that does a book club once a month as well as interviews with authors. Sword & Laser Marrra and I kept delaying watching episodes of it but watched our first today with the interview with Terry Brooks and it really clicked that that may work in the end for us. Watch Sword & Laser and read their book club book and then comment on the forum about it. Then when we get our stuff organised, we can work out how we do our own system, if we decide it is even required.

There is also a free sci fi/fantasy course online that's getting ready to start: https://www.coursera.org/course/fantasysf I'm signed up for it and have taken courses through coursera before, it's good quality teaching.

We could always take book suggestions in the forums and have someone setup a survey monkey for free that everyone could take to make their choice.

@Denvasslav: Ooo, interesting. Thank you for that. Going to take a look now..

Very good comments. I think if we pick a book by the end of Jan, and have it read by March, and start the forum discussion and give our selves a few weeks to discuss it then pick our next book. We would then be reading our 2nd book in April and discussing and picking out the next in May. Read in June etc... Something along those lines. So we basically have a Month to discuss and decide our next book, and a month to read. That would be 6 books a year aprox. If that doesn't work for everybody I am open for whatever. I just want to put a frame work out there for discussion and to see and have you good folks give your ideas and input. Having a place to go to tally our votes would be nice. But how would we decide which books to vote on. I think we could have a ranking order. Where we all can put out a book to read, we then tally a 1 by the book we most would like to read. Each book would recieve a 1-5 or however many books we decide to vote on. 7 books would require 7 ranks. So we do this ranking system and whichever book wins by having the highest ranking/ lowest tallied number, would be read first. We could then redo the rankings as needed as we read the books. We can all give a reason why we want to read a certain book and decide after we have made our case. This technique is deomcratic and would allow for everyone to have a voice, but it also makes things slower and more complicated. What do you guys think?

» Edited on: 2013-01-23 22:44:39

We could have a seperate thread for a series that we pick that could go over a longer period of time, giving time for the series to be read. We could have an ongoing Series thread, and a Stand alone book thread. There is no boundary here. I just want to enjoy a book with ya'll. However we decide.

I'm in. I've read a ton of sci-fi/fantasy and am up for new ones.

I was thinking "Enders Game" would be a good place to start. It is a stand alone book and its a fantastic sci/fi. Orson Scott Card is the Author. I have never read the "The Life of Pi" and the movie that came out got me intrested in that book. I didn't watch the movie becasue I knew I would read the book. I hate having a movie spoiling a books plot. I haven't read "Frakenstein" a classic. I don't know why I haven't. Its free online now so no purchase necessary. That brings me to other classics I haven't read such as "The Count of Monte Cristo", another free to read book. Any book you guys suggest I am happy to read. I am only putting some suggestions out for us to chew on.

The First Law trilogy by Ambercrombie looks good. I've never read this series. Malazan Book of the Fallen series by Erickson. I've never read this series.

~raises hand and jumps up and down~ oooo ooo me me me! lol. I will keep my ears perked up at work to see what our local books clubs are reading as well. They have actually come up with some interesting reads this past year. But off the top of my head, Just Sci/Fi and what I see going through the lines at work. Here are a few. Mistborn (Brandon Sanderson) The Black Prism (Brent Weeks) Enders Game (Orson Scott Card) Something From the Nightside (Simon R Green) Storm Front (Jim Butcher) Dead Witch Walking (Kim Harrison) Moon Called (Patricia Briggs) The Name of the Wind (Patrick Rothfuss) Star Wars: Scoundrels (Timothy Zahn) A Game of Thrones (George Martin) Gardens of the Moon (Steven Erikson)

I like anything by Anne McCaffrey, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Terry Goodkind, Harry Harrison, Timothy Zahn, Robert Heinlein, and Tolkein.

Well all of the above sound good so we going to have a vote or something?

"Malazan Book of the Fallen series by Erickson. I've never read this series." I'm on the third last book of this series. Really good if you like brutal, gritty scenes and an excessive amount of blood and bile. Don't think they are good for a book club, though, seeing as they average out at about 1100 pages each.

I would be interested in participating. Should we pick someone to lead this and establish the rules, procedures, etc?

I have no idea how to proceed? Its so hard with out someone just saying..."this is the book to read, lets discuss it in a month." I don't think this will happen unless someone with a bit of clout with the family takes it up and organizes it. I vote "Enders Games", but am happy to read anything anyone else wishes too. I just finished Patrick Ruthfuss two books, and was taken by his incredible story telling style. I am currently rereading the Wheel of Time Series. I can read that any time though and think something by Sanderson would be great. I haven't read any of his stuff yet and hear great things.

Count me in! Malazan Book of the Fallen series by Erickson as well as the books by his partner Ian Esslemont on the same world are indeed gritty but in my opinion the best written epics out there! george martin "Game of Thrones" is a distant second, my main reason for them being second is im not a fan of all the sex in the books to me its can be written without it and still be a great series. brent Weeks, Gail Z Martin and David Eddings all outstanding as well! I got to meet Mr. Eddings many years ago and I must say he will surely be missed!

Okay, Cliff you said it, and since you started the thread we will be reading Enders Game by Orson Scott Card. Today is the 1st of May so we will create a thread to discuss on the 31st of May. Give people a month and we can still discuss Enders while we chose a new book on the 1st of June. So try and get the updated Enders Game - 1991 I think is the "updated" version. I don't think you can buy the old version anymore anyway. book - Enders Game author - Orson Scott Card Have fun all :)