SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

Welcome, Time Agent!

We're looking for information. Your mission, should you choose to accept, is to read books from different decades of speculative fiction and bring back a wealth of knowledge for God and country. Here's what wealth looks like:

-10 points for the first book read written in a decade you've not read this year.

-1 point for subsequent books read from that/those decade(s).

-5 points if the author is a woman

-5 points if the author is of color

-5 points if the author is known or (posthumously) widely believed to be LGBTQIA

-5 points if the book was written from a viewpoint not belonging to a colonial power

-5 points if it's a book you owned before 2019

-5 points for reading as part of a buddy or group read

Points are cumulative (ex. an Asian American woman authored book from a decade you've already read this year could be 11 points)

If you'd like to sign up officially to track your reads, you may do so here!

Good luck!

A few clarifications:

-Must be a book. Novellas count, short stories or singular poems do not. I am not putting a page length, but it has to constitute a book.

-Can read the same authors, but you will only get points for them once per decade. Ex. If you read Octavia Butler's Kindred (1979), Wild Seed (1980) and Dawn (1987), only 2 of those would get points.

-Decades generally run from 0-9.

-Colonial powers refer to where the author is from and are those nations that were considered colonial powers during the height of colonialism. See this post for more information.

We've had some great comments and conversations over the past year about what defines speculative fiction over time, and how the "norm" often times speaks for the whole. I'd love to have more conversations about this in the coming year. What does the genre look like in 2019? What did it look like in 2009? In 1979? Who is telling these stories, and what stories are being told by someone else?

I hope you'll share your marvelous insights (and help me regrow my TBR!)

Intriguing!! I've already got books targeted for 2019 for each decade back to the 60s. I'm not going to attempt to define speculative fiction but I'm pretty sure I can defend my choices ;-)

Point of clarification: I presume that by this statement "10 points for the first book read written in a decade you've not read this year." you mean decade you didn't read in 2018? I actually keep track of this and can tell you I did not (and do not intend to) read any books from the 70s this year. Were you in my mind when you created this?

Monica wrote: "Intriguing!! I've already got books targeted for 2019 for each decade back to the 60s. I'm not going to attempt to define speculative fiction but I'm pretty sure I can defend my choices ;-)

Point ..."

Hahaha! I do attribute most of my great thoughts to other people. I am just a magpie messenger of other people's genius ;-)

Re: your question, this is for books read in 2019! You start with a clean slate!

So on Jan 1, 2019, the first book chosen is eligible for those 10 points plus of course subsequent books from different decades?

Monica wrote: "So on Jan 1, 2019, the first book chosen is eligible for those 10 points plus of course subsequent books from different decades?"

Yes! Anything read in 2019 is eligible. So, if you read a 2018 book, a 2002 book, a 2004 book, and a 1999 book, you'd get 10 points for 2018, 2002, and 1999 and 1 point for 2004 (assuming no other categories are available).

well, this is an interesting idea for a challenge... hmmm. You're forcing me to make some decisions here!

Lowell wrote: "well, this is an interesting idea for a challenge... hmmm. You're forcing me to make some decisions here!"

I can't wait to hear what you do!

Now that's a terrific idea! I will create an excel sheet for this one, cause in the end each book I will read in 2019 comes into this one way or the other.

Just going by these Wikipedia lists with 28 decades of SF novels (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categ...) and 37 decades of Fantasy novels (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categ...), one could accrue 650 points from Allison’s first bullet point alone. And since many novels tended to be shorter in past eras, 65 books is doable even for slow readers like me.

Edit: a closer look reveals duplicates in both categories. Still, a decent resource. Mary Shelley’s post-apocalyptic The Last Man is worth at least 15 points right off the bat.

Wow, what a great starting point, thanks Trike!

Lol, well this will add an exciting new dimension to my UKL reading challenge!

But also, like Gabi, good inspiration for tracking all of these things for my reading over the year.

I'll definitely participate in this challenge. One thing I enjoyed about the Owned Books challenge was adding up my points for each book as I read them. Checking my book stats, it looks like I often read books from 4 or 5 decades in a year, so this will help expand my reading.

Awesome!

Always the fine-point expert, I need to know if a decade starts with "1" or with "0"? Is our current decade 2010 to 2019?

(Because, of course, my time-tracker has no "year zero" on the dial. I believe the current millennium started in 2001. But I'll play along if you want to believe in, ahem, obviously erroneous misinformation. I won't even wear a tinfoil hat.)

I would do 0-9 (1990-1999) but consistency is king here, so if you count the 90s differently, that is fine too!

For help finding selections published outside the US/UK in past years, I'm finding the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction to be pretty helpful - most of the articles in the International section (http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/catego...) provide an overview of the history of the genre in various countries/regions. (It is not always immediately obvious, however, which works have been translated into English.)

Mike wrote: "Awesome!

Always the fine-point expert, I need to know if a decade starts with "1" or with "0"? Is our current decade 2010 to 2019?

(Because, of course, my time-tracker has no "year zero" on the d..."

I always find the “starts with 1” argument to be weird. Meaning that the 1980s are 1981-1990, the 1990s are 1991-2000, etc. It’s just wrong.

It’s like saying on the first anniversary of your birth you turn zero.

another way to check is on the My Books page under stats, there's a publication year chart where you can hover over the dots and see what's on your TBR pile

this might be a good source too

https://www.goodreads.com/list/tag/by...

more best fantasy of decades lists:

http://bestfantasybooks.com/best-fant...

and oo00oo, 3 decades in one book:

The Lord Dunsany Compendium
by Lord Dunsany

10 complete literary works by Lord Dunsany, considered by many as the precursor of Tolkien.

Contents

1 The Gods of Pegana [1905]
2 Time and the Gods [1905]
3 The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories [1908]
4 A Dreamer’s Tales by [1910]
5 Selections from the Writings of Lord Dunsany [1912]
6 The Book of Wonder [1912]
7 Fifty-One Tales [1915]
8 Tales of Wonder [1916]
9 Plays of Gods and Men [1917]
10 Don Rodriguez (1922)

Trike wrote: "Mike wrote: "Awesome!

Always the fine-point expert, I need to know if a decade starts with "1" or with "0"? Is our current decade 2010 to 2019?

(Because, of course, my time-tracker has no "year z..."

Yeah, my snarky comment was just making fun of both sides -- I'll play along with either system. On one hand, "the 90s" run from 1990 to 1999, right? But "the 1st century" has to start in 1 A.D. (there is no "year zero") and contain 100 years…
It's all very confusing.

I am so in.

I was planning to do a historical review of sci-fi/fantasy anyway, so this is tailor-made for me.

Hooray!

Mike wrote: "But "the 1st century" has to start in 1 A.D. (there is no "year zero") and contain 100 years…
It's all very confusing. ."

I don’t find it confusing at all. The “no year zero” thing was an error created by a Catholic monk who had a poor grasp of addition (he derived the calendar and the dates of things by adding up the ages of people in the Bible — badly, at that), yet people persist in perpetuating the problem simply because the New York Times declared that 1901 was the start of the 20th century. Nonsense.

That monk, Dionysius Exiguus, is the one who determined the whole BC/AD thing, declaring that 1 AD was the birth of Christ. Yet he missed the fact that Herod died 5 years previously, which means that Herod could not have ordered the Massacre of the Innocents upon hearing of Jesus’ birth. Since the Catholics were all “the Bible is the inerrant word of God”, Dionysius creates quite a theological pickle. If his math is correct then the Bible is not literally true. If his math is inaccurate, then he has the wrong Jesus. (Jesus was a very common name back then.)

It’s simpler just to use the calendar as given and treat numbers rationally: 0-9 are the start and end years of decades, centuries, and millenniums, while the whole “no year zero” is just an oopsie.

I believe Mike was mostly making light, and it is good to be clear on meanings :-) I welcome questions, though I think most of my answers run a bit towards a sort of literary take on Calvin ball.

I wonder if you could do a book challenge based on Calvin Ball

Rachel wrote: "I wonder if you could do a book challenge based on Calvin Ball"

Among this diverse crowd? How would we ever end the challenge? We'd never know when it was sunset and time to go inside for hot chocolate.

Allison wrote: "I believe Mike was mostly making light, and it is good to be clear on meanings :-) I welcome questions, though I think most of my answers run a bit towards a sort of literary take on Calvin ball."

Yes, thank you! I realized I was starting to play "smartest one in the room", which is usually a losing game for me. So writing 'it's all very confusing', that was my ninja smoke bomb to back out.

Fail. I'm just going to ignore the voices inside (and outside) my head, and be practical: My decades start at "something-0" and end at 'something-9".

Meanwhile, over on Twitter:

Okay, that’s funny.

Did I get this right: The basic challenge, where the sign up is for, is 12 books spanning 12 decades. The points however can be collected throughout the whole year with anything we read.

Thanks to Trike's links I chose 12 books, which I will track in my personal challenge thread.

Gabi wrote: "Did I get this right: The basic challenge, where the sign up is for, is 12 books spanning 12 decades. The points however can be collected throughout the whole year with anything we read."

I think, and Allison will correct me if I'm wrong, the challenge (with the special shelf, etc.) is just so you can track the books you've read for this challenge. If you want to read a certain amount of decades for example. Usually the challenges (on the challenge page, where you sign up, I call these challenge-challenges) are for those challenges (argh) that require tracking of reading a certain amount of books. So I'm not sure what Allison had in mind, but since this is a points challenge, I'm guessing she's added the challenge-challenge just in case someone want to track it. To me it would seem logical to add the first book of every decade to that shelf, to keep track of how many decades you've read from, whether it's 12 like Allison suggests, or Trike's 37 decades of fantasy.

I don't even know if I'm making any sense :D

If anyone is more confused now, this is the Time Traveler challenge-challenge, and this thread you're reading is the Time Traveler challenge. Other challenge-challenges are on the group challenge page, and other challenges are in the group challenge folder.

This sounds amazing, but also daunting. I feel like I might need to emulate Gabi and set up a spreadsheet for this one...

Mareike wrote: "This sounds amazing, but also daunting. I feel like I might need to emulate Gabi and set up a spreadsheet for this one..."

His is just perfect for a spreadsheet. Since I changed my job there is no need for me to use Excel anymore. So I'm really looking forward to this challenge for the "Play factor" 😇

Yeah, the challenge sign up is mostly for people who:

a. Like setting goals
b. Like redundancies in how they check what they've read
c. Use shelves as one of the ways they track things

If you don't want to commit to a certain number of books, that's fine! This isn't like the RATB or Anna's group challenge that really hinges on sign ups, but I thought we'd give folks the option, and also list all group challenges on the challenge page.

Otherwise, the idea is to have fun, find what writing styles across which decades you enjoy, and which you find tedious! Hopefully we'll also pay more attention to what we're consuming and whose stories are not as prevalent in our culture(s).

I made a spreadsheet for this using the Buried Alive! spreadsheet from last year. I'm happy to share it if anyone wants something like that to help tally points.

Link to copy: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...

Thank you Kaa!!

Yay! Thank you!

Since I'm seeing some questions about it, colonial powers are largely considered to have been : France, Britain, Spain, Portugal, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, the US and sometimes Japan and China.

I am of course open to various interpretations and am not intending to create a concrete list of everyone who has wronged or been wronged, but if you're not sure where to start, authors who are either not from those nations or who belong to a minority in those nations and are writing about the colonization of their people by the nations they call home would be a good place to focus.

Examples: Wild Seed is by an American author but one who is focusing on the subjugation of a people that had been colonized and so would count.

Heart of Darkness would not be appropriate as it was a person in the majority of a colonizing power writing about the colonized group.

Certain Dark Things would be fine because it is by a Mexican-Canadian woman, neither of which are colonial powers.

This looks like a fun challenge, and I think I'm going to participate. I haven't done a points challenge like this so I'm not sure if I will like it. Even if I abandon the points/challenge part I'll still be following along, and I look forward to hearing what people are reading for this challenge.

Thanks so much for clarifying the colonial point, Allison! Now I see clearer.

wouldn't you also consider earthlings as being colonized by an alien species type books?

My real focus with the points in this challenge are hearing from different people. So, for example, Jemisin's The Fifth Season would be perfect, even though the world is not really ours. Similarly Rosewater would be a great pick as it actually deals with colonization themes. I could see The Word for World is Forest fitting as she expressly writes with the non-human POV in mind. What I do not want to see is something like Childhood's End get those points. That would not be in the spirit of this challenge.

Allison wrote: "My real focus with the points in this challenge are hearing from different people. So, for example, Jemisin's The Fifth Season would be perfect, even though the world is not really ..."

Allison, what about this series:

any of Adrian Tchaikovsky Shadows of the Apt series deal with colonization from the POV of those being colonized as well as those doing the colonization

None of the characters are really human and the main POV is from those being conquered/colonized

I leave this to everyone's discretion. The goal is to get more points for reading outside of the majority viewpoints-- not just from the oppressed POV but with a mindset that really contemplates subjugation from a personal space.

Kaa wrote: "I made a spreadsheet for this using the Buried Alive! spreadsheet from last year. I'm happy to share it if anyone wants something like that to help tally points.

Link to copy: https://docs.google...."

Thank you Kaa! This will help a lot.

I'll read around the challenges but I'm extremely lazy about counting the points.
;-p
I'll try to use the spreadsheet.

Do you see Kaa's message in #35 (11 comments back if you're in the app)? I think that's the one folks are using :)

Question: Is it the decade the book is published in or takes place in?

I presumed it meant publication date

Nicol wrote: "Question: Is it the decade the book is published in or takes place in?"

Decade of original publishing date.