SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

Have a random book sent to your home every week that is hand selected for you as a perfect six-star experience from the millions of books in existence but may be very obscure

or

Have the most popular book of each week sent to you with a mixed bag of enjoyable reads and recycled trite?

Option A means few people to discuss the books with and no chance of seeing them in any other medium; however, each is the exact gem you needed at that point in your life. The only others who read it will be because you convinced them through relentless praise.

Option B means you can share your opinion with practically anyone, but not all those opinions will be positive.

You may not read any books from the other pile. So no cheating and buying books discussed by others while getting free literary jewels.

Option A for certain!

Option A. I mean, I love talking about books (or I wouldn’t be here), but I’d rather read exclusively good books and talk people’s ears off about them till they read them than read crap.

a. a. a.

I keep hitting the button and I'm still not getting a shipping notification?!

To may way of thinking this is like Option A... or having a dentist's drill stuck through your ear.

A no brainer...

Would you rather get pulled away from the book you're reading right before the end of a chapter every chapter

or

set your own preferred reading schedule, except that you always had to wait a week between the penultimate and final chapter of the book.

Option A I believe, although there really isn't a win in either scenario.

Be raised by immortal elves (LOTR style)

or

be raised by self-aware androids (Data)?

Allison wrote: "Would you rather get pulled away from the book you're reading right before the end of a chapter every chapter

or

set your own preferred reading schedule, except that you always had to wait a wee..."

Option B is better for me.

I think the elves; I'm really partial to trees :) They could be reasoned with in the case of a conflict.

Either of those sounds like my life at any given time, but I think I prefer A since it doesn’t specify how long the interruption is.

My luck, I'd say elves and get stuck in Menzoberranzan underground.

Would you rather read all books unedited or read all books abridged?

Eesh! :S

Unedited :(

Allison wrote: "Would you rather read all books unedited or read all books abridged?"

Is "none of the above" a choice?

All books abridged?

It was a difficult assignment, but Frodo finally managed to chuck the ring into the fire. Several people helped.

I'll take abridged, but I won't like it.

Adrian wrote: "All books abridged?

It was a difficult assignment, but Frodo finally managed to chuck the ring into the fire. Several people helped."

hahahaha

Definitely abridged, although it’s a pretty crappy choice. Especially, if they are abridged like the above LOTR abridging.

I'll take the unedited ones if I can get paid for doing the edits!

Ha, this reminds me of Rinkworks.com's Book-A-Minute section!

Would you rather no series or no standalones?

My initial reaction was that I'd rather have no standalones as I want authors to have room to really explore ideas, but, looking at my read shelf and what I recall of most series, that doesn't happen often. Standalones like Piranesi, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, and others on the other hand manage to do so more often. So I guess I'd do without series.

No series. Nobody said a standalone can't be a million words long. Plus, it would let me explore more worlds.

Definitely no standalones for me ))) I'm a series junkie :)

No series. That way the story would be complete. Unlike some series that I won't mention because Anna will refer me to the "You're Never Gonna Get It" thread 😆

:D

No series. Too many of them feel like episodes with no fundamental character arc. Also, too many of them feel like too big a commitment and a bet that the author is actually going to conclude it.

No series. I tend to prefer standalones, anyway.

Defo no series! I rarely read more than the first in a series (unless it doesn’t really end), so not much lost for me.

No series.

Maybe there would need to be a page limit on standalones to prevent "cheating" too - although at least with a long standalone you're getting it all at once instead of forever waiting for a sequel that the publisher cancels. Yes - I have a list.

I'm amazed you're willing to give up much of Le Guin's writing, Diane. No Earthsea or the Hainish Cycle?!

Ha! You caught me out! I don’t consider the Hainish books to be a series though. They are standalone books set in the same extremely vague world. It would be sad to lose the Earthsea books. And The Realms if the Elderlings (Hobb).

Have none of your favorite books adapted to any other medium

Or

All your favorite books are transferred but never more than 20% accurately.

Phillip wrote: "Have none of your favorite books adapted to any other medium

Or

All your favorite books are transferred but never more than 20% accurately."

Oh, that's an easy one! I'll take the first option with no hesitation at all.

Definitely #1 ! No Farseer or Earthsea adaptations, thank you.

Stay away from beloved IP, Disney!

Adapt them all! I want the creators of my faves to be well compensated for their brilliance. It's not as though I have to consume them in their new medium. And even if I do I'll still be able to love the original untarnished.

When asked what book I'd like to see adapted to screen in the past I used to say 'none', but I was only ever thinking of my own enjoyment. These days the reality of the publishing industry has me thinking more about the authors livelihoods and how virtually all of the full time genre authors who are living comfortably are doing so because they had their work adapted. With that in mind it really doesn't bother me to have a work I love interpreted differently and to gather a different fanbase.

I would say option 1, but Ryan does have a point. We done have to watch the bad movies made from our fave books.

DivaDiane wrote: "I would say option 1, but Ryan does have a point."

He does ... but in that case, I'd limit it to living authors who could actually benefit from the use of their works.

Would you rather give up the ancillary reading hobby of book collecting or book browsing?

I'd give up browsing... but I do wonder how I would find the first editions of books I love if I can't browse second hand bookstores or the internet

Book collecting brings more joy to my life even though I don't get around to reading everything I get.
Book browsing can be such a depressing task as I sift through the the same tropetastic book written by different authors.

I'll give up book collecting 8D

Book browsing, for sure!

You would have to pry my book collection out of me dead hands, so I agree with DivaDiane!

Key point - would we give up our current collections or just couldn’t increase past the number of books we currently own?

That's a good question, Rachel...

Rachel wrote: "Key point - would we give up our current collections or just couldn’t increase past the number of books we currently own?"

that wouldn't be difficult as that's what I was already doing - if I kept a book, I had to discard a book

Book collecting, probably, as I have a great local public library. I could stand to give up both and just read the TBR I have, though.

Allison wrote: "Would you rather give up the ancillary reading hobby of book collecting or book browsing?"

book browsing, rarely doing it anyway.