SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

hugs and love to everyone!

This question is not specifically for our group, but it might help others beside myself. I had just accepted a friend request from someone, and he started a highly disturbing conversation. I removed him from my friend list, but is that sufficient? What do you all suggest?

report him to goodreads from his page

Allison wrote: "report him to goodreads from his page"

Thanks, I'll do that!

Michelle wrote: "I had just accepted a friend request from someone, and he started a highly disturbing conversation. I removed him from my friend list, but is that sufficient? What do you all suggest?"

It depends on how your profile is set up whether you can receive messages from somebody who isn’t a friend, so he might still be able to message you or comment on your reviews. The settings for it are under your profile, on the Settings tab, in the “Privacy” section.

You could also block him. That might be your best bet to get rid of him more effectively without having to change any settings on your end or wait for GR to do something. I’ve never had to block anyone, so I can’t vouch for how well it works, but supposedly it prevents them from messaging you or commenting on your reviews.

This article has some info on how to do it and what it does:
https://help.goodreads.com/s/article/...

YouKneeK wrote: "Michelle wrote: "I had just accepted a friend request from someone, and he started a highly disturbing conversation. I removed him from my friend list, but is that sufficient? What do you all sugge..."

Thank you, YouKneek! I did block him, and it looks like GR might have kicked him out. Which...thank goodness they did! Eww.

I'm glad they handled it quickly!

I’m new to Goodreads and this book club. How do I get started?

Hi Stoyan! I'd recommend, for the beginning, keeping all the notifications up and peeking in on the conversations that look fun to you! Once you get a feel for how involved you'd like to be, you can turn off different conversations or follow only those you like and so on.

Basically we read two books a month, one fantasy one scifi, and we are voting on the December picks now, so you can vote there!

https://www.goodreads.com/poll/list/1...

Otherwise I'd check out our group rules/explanations, and bookmark Current Events. You can see the "big" topics on the group page here:

https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...

Welcome, glad you're here!

Stoyan wrote: "I’m new to Goodreads and this book club. How do I get started?"

Greetings Stoyan and welcome to SFFBC!

We're currently voting on our Science Fiction and Fantasy reads for December. Head on over to the polls and vote for Vita Nostra whatever takes your fancy. :)

For November we're reading Daughter of the Moon Goddess and Persephone Station. You can read one, both, or neither.

The groups bookshelf has a few gems worth checking out. Hopefully you'll find some great books that are new to you and others that stir up pleasant memories.
We happen to be voting on the official Rereads, which will decide which books we'll be (re)reading in the first three months of the new year.

Once a month we discuss one of the official reads via Zoom. You can register your interest and help decide what book we discuss over in the Virtual Book Club.

If there's a particular sff book that you want to talk about with others then you can arrange a Buddy Read here.

If you're still wanting to engage with the group after all of that then maybe head on over to the Current Events thread and check out some of the reading challenges we've got going. There are also links to some of our (extra) fun threads in there.

We usually have a member nominated and mod curated poll each month, but January is mod madness so we won't be asking you to suggest books for the shelf until the new year.

Allison likes to stress that there's no wrong way to participate in the group, so don't feel pressured to do everything (or anything).

Dear book club! We've listened to your feedback and are going to make this a trial year for shorter works. We are now changing the criteria for book club picks to complete stories over 160 pages (rather than 170 pages) and removing the restriction on novellas, assuming they meet all other criteria.

If this is successful, we will continue this into the future.

We feel that there's movement towards novellas lately and that it's better for our shelf and all of us if we do not discourage discussion of these works. Let's see if it works!

excellent!

Allison wrote: "Dear book club! We've listened to your feedback and are going to make this a trial year for shorter works. We are now changing the criteria for book club picks to complete stories over 160 pages (r..."

That's great news. I myself have always preferred brevity to long-windedness epicness in my novels.

Sounds good!

According to my listings which I have just checked I read six books but when I went to update it shows I have read 0. Help!

Is this general Goodreads reading or group books? Where are you looking?

Rusty wrote: "According to my listings which I have just checked I read six books but when I went to update it shows I have read 0. Help!"

Since your profile is private I can’t really tell what the problem is, but if you are asking about your challenge, be sure that you added the read date.

Thanks Anna! It's been corrected. Sometimes I am not sure where to post my questions so I try a couple of different places.

Hello all, I did an introduce yourself several months ago. I am struggling a bit to understand how to navigate these groups. I wanted to see if a few people wanted to buddy read a series but when I clicked on the buddy read section it was books that have been done.

Can anyone direct me to the right place? I was looking to maybe do the Dandelion Dynasty. There are 4 books total.

Thanks Guys,
Melissa

Hi Melissa,

It's terribly difficult to navigate GR!

Here's the buddy read space I think you're looking for :D

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

If you're on the website, you can at least pull up the list of discussions and do a search, which is at least sort of helpful. The app is atrocious!

Thank you Allison. I have no issues with tech nor social sites but goodreads just seems so chaotic and hard to really create & utilize the groups on here! Reading has been a way for me to cope with major health issues at a young age and I knew being able to discuss those books would also help but just struggling to find a niche or the right groups to start in.

I’m glad it’s not just me that finds this site hard to use and overwhelming! Thanks again Allison!

it is definitely not you. this is old, old tech that got way bigger than it ever planned on and it's kludgy at the best of times. I hope we can be part of your niche ^^

Hey ahoy hello. I was seeing something about... a newsletter? That's something I'd be interested in. How do I sign up for those?

Allison sends the newsletter but if I understand correctly, you can’t avoid it if you’re a group member 😅 the next one will be coming on November 1st!

Anna wrote: "Allison sends the newsletter but if I understand correctly, you can’t avoid it if you’re a group member 😅 the next one will be coming on November 1st!"

Thank you! I'll keep an eye out. If it doesn't arrive, I'll know whom to hit up. 😆

Status update: I received the newsletter all in good order! 💙

I have another question,,.. (I hope it's all right, I don't want to be a nag!)
How would I go about creating my personal 2024 to-read list here in the group?
I've seen some personal threads with or without comments allowed,.. But I guess that's only meant for specific challenges and not for general to-read lists per year? Since those threads are in the Challenges folder...

(Sorry to be such a bother, I just don't want to do anything wrong!! Love y'all for your patience with me 🥰)

There's instructions in Personal challenge threads, but you can start yours in the challenge folder, and it doesn't have to be linked a certain SFFBC challenge. If you take a look at other people's threads, you'll see that there are several different styles, so it's your playground! The only thing we ask is that you don't add lots of new posts all the time, but even this is mostly around the new year, when lots of people are thinking about their new year's reading goals, and we don't want the group to be flooded by new challenge thread posts. So if you want to, for example, add a post for four different challenges, go ahead and start them all one after the other, and then edit them later at any point, and people who are not interested in other people's personal threads will only see it once in their feeds :) And the comment thing is just so people know if you're OK with others coming into your thread to chat.

Thank you so much! I'll give it a thorough look and think about what thread format would work best for me first -- I can't wait for the new year.
Y'all mods are doing a great job I really appreciate it! This group feels so helpful and supportive.💙

Yay!

Hmm, I could make a post about my reading goals for 2024. And it is loosely connected to challenges.

Aga wrote: "Hmm, I could make a post about my reading goals for 2024. And it is loosely connected to challenges."

might want to wait until the challenges are posted

I usually participate in the same challenges every year. But perhaps something new will catch my eye. I don’t make specific book lists for every challenge, I go with the flow, because I’m a mood reader and frequently prioritize group reads.

It would rather be a list of challenges I want to participate again, trends and series to check out, some reading habits I want to implement. That’s why it may be only loosely connected to challenges. But I’d like to see what others think about it.

Yes, go ahead and post it, no need to wait! :)

Attention readers!

For 2024, the mods are opening the field even further. Now, novellas, graphic novels, and single-authored short story/novella collections over 160 pages are allowed for nomination and inclusion in polls. The world of genre fiction is changing and we are adapting to it! This will be reflected in the official rules for monthly nominations. May the best book-sized spec-fic make it to our shelf!

Allison wrote: "Attention readers!

For 2024, the mods are opening the field even further. Now, novellas, graphic novels, and single-authored short story/novella collections over 160 pages are allowed for nominati..."

thank you for the inclusion of single-authored short story/novella collections over 160 pages. There are some wonderful collections out there. I plan on reading White Cat, Black Dog: Stories by Kelly Link for one challenge and I am expecting it to be pretty good

Yay! ❤️

Woo!

*gasp* Nice!

Great news!!

Super!

Very glad to hear this. One of my reading resolutions for this year is to include more short(er) books.

When are we reading the winner of the non-fiction poll that opened today, April 1 2024?

we'll be posting in the Buddy Read thread to plan with all interested readers :)

Ok. I'll just have to see what works out then.

Thank you! but so far we're keeping up :)

But we're always happy to see members who engage the group by joining buddy reads, starting new threads and contributing to existing ones! That's what makes this space fun

Last year we had a Formative Speculative buddy read. That was fun. I wanted to participate more . . . .so many books.

I wonder of we might do another such themed buddy read. Maybe Utopian/Dystopian? Maybe Steampunk/Cyberpunk?

that's a fun idea! I'm afraid most of the mods are at capacity for big planning, if we help with logistics, would you be interested in setting that up?

That's a real possibility! May I set up a thread possibly in Buddy Reads and start asking for suggestions as done with the Formative Speculative?

This club seems really active! How long have you all been a part of it?

Cynda wrote: "I wonder of we might do another such themed buddy read. Maybe Utopian/Dystopian? Maybe Steampunk/Cyberpunk?"

I'd be interested in both, as far as I can keep up with the schedule.