SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

The idea here will be to discuss two pieces of short fiction per month, with one novelette and one short story per month, discussed on the last two Mondays of the month respectively.

At least to start, the story choice will be curated by me, but I will always pick from relevant recent short speculative fiction that is either an award winner or a finalist for an award (as there are only 12 reads a year I should have plenty to work with between the Hugo’s, Locus, Sturgeon, and Nebula awards, not to mention the reader’s choice awards among the various ‘zines). Additionally I will only choose fiction that is free to read online (although of course feel free to support authors/‘zines however you’d like).

This is meant as a bit of a survey course, a 101 of recent short fiction rather than a deep dive into more obscure reads or specific magazines/authors. Of course this is all in beta test mode, so we can work out the wrinkles as we go and adapt this to be what works best for most people.

Thanks for participating, I hope this will be a positive experience for everyone involved!

Here's a list of past and upcoming reads:

Short Stories
January 28: "Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience" Discussion (Starts Jan 28)
February 25: "A Song of Home, the Organ Grinds" Discussion
March 25: “A Witch’s Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies”
April 22: “The Court Magician,” by Sarah Pinsker
May 27: The Rose MacGregor Drinking and Admiration Society by T. Kingfisher, Uncanny Magazine
June 24: STET by Sarah Gailey (Fireside Magazine, October 2018)

Novelettes
Februrary 18: "Nine Last Days on Planet Earth" by Daryl Gregory
March 18: “The Last Banquet of Temporal Confections”
April 15: “The Thing About Ghost Stories,” by Naomi Kritzer
May 20: If at First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again by Zen Cho, Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog
June 17: When We Were Starless by Simone Heller (Clarkesworld 145, October 2018)

I hope you’ll do current nominees in the run up to this years awards ( obviously not announced yet)

Yeah that was what I was thinking, but can see what people want to do. Hugo slate should be up before the April read.

The Nebula nominees were announced last year on Feb 20 so as long as everyone is okay with reading on short notice we could start reading one of those next month.

Christopher wrote: "The Nebula nominees were announced last year on Feb 20 so as long as everyone is okay with reading on short notice we could start reading one of those next month."

This sounds great! Thanks for organizing.

So long as they're free online, short notice should not be an issue at all.

Christopher wrote: "The Nebula nominees were announced last year on Feb 20 so as long as everyone is okay with reading on short notice we could start reading one of those next month."

perfect, will join this!

This is a fun project, thanks for getting us rolling.
Tor.com also has a lot of free short fiction.

Thanks John, I think for now the plan is to work through the Nebula nominees for 2018 fiction once they are announced on February.

Later this year once we’ve worked through the award nominees we might have a chance to take recommendations although can see what the group wants to do (and if this project is still going). Given just one read a month it’s tough to slot in much more, but if this goes well and there’s appetite for more group short fiction reads per month that would also be a way to get more recommended reads in.

For now though, just planning on keeping it simple with the mission as planned to see how it all goes. (Also even if we only stick to award nominees going forward there’s a chance the Nayler story will show up on 2019 ballots).

And there's always the option of looking backwards, too. If only we'd started this project years ago!

I agree that starting simple with a mission that looks forward is wise... but if you change your mind, I'd personally be up to reading a new story every week!

Yes, let’s start with this trial run and see how it goes, but there’s certainly room to increase frequency (although eventually there’s a trade off to quality — at once a month we can basically read exclusively from award nominees, at once a week we’d exhaust that at some point).

One framework I could see would be doing 3 short stories and 1 novelette per month. So that would be 13 novelettes and 39 short stories per year. Current year Hugo and Nebula nominations would cover between 6-12 of the novelettes and 6-12 of the short stories. The balance could easily be covered by the current Locus recommended reading list (2017 had 21 free novelettes [6 of which overlapped with Hugo/Nebula] and 38 free short stories [4 of which overlapped with Hugo/Nebula]. Also have the ‘zine awards, Rocket Stack Rank, and individual reviewers. We’d probably just talk about one work each Monday (“Short Fiction Monday’s”). Seems like the first story’s discussion might only last a day so this might work out, but can monitor. I’d really prefer to stick to nominees and recommended recent reads to make the selection process more mechanical and less work plus I just like having a system rather than randomly jumping around too much, but that could just be how I work.

Thoughts? Feedback? Not sure how many people would have to be interested to make this worthwhile. Like if we have 3-4 people is that a quorum? Is it better to have a bigger turnout with fewer reads?

Totally in with weekly short stories. I've grown up with short stories (80ies/90ies)'and they are still my favs. Plus I need to get acquainted with more modern short stories.

I had a great time reading the nominated stories and novelettes last year, it would be fun to have other folks to read with!

ETA: I don't know if I could join in every Monday, but that seems as good a schedule as any.

I'm interested but probably not one a week, unless I'm way ahead, life is way slow, and we're reading lots that pique my personal interest. I can be counted on for once a month :)

I'm definitely interested, but I'm not sure if I can make one per week work for similar reasons Allison has stated.

I think I'll see how it works for me in February and if one per week is too much, I'll just pic and choose among the ones suggested each month.

I prefer reading Tor.com short fiction, because they each have their own GR record. When I read one piece from a magazine, I immediately feel pressure to read the entire magazine as soon as possible, which is why I rarely read short fiction magazines anymore. I have a huge backlist of ones I must get to "next", but I never do, because I always go for Tor.com ones when I have a little extra time to kill. I know I could leave the magazine issue hanging on my currently reading shelf, but my personality doesn't let me do that. I'm also very bad with scheduled reading. I can't guarantee I'll be in the mood to read a certain thing on a certain day.

But I'm also doing my own personal project of trying to read one piece of short fiction per day in 2019, so I'll probably join for Tor.com ones if I happen to be in the mood on that day. So in short, I might occasionally join.

Actually, thinking about this more, 4x starting to daunt me. Maybe just do 2x for February, 1 short story and 1 novelette? Will think on this more and update thread later today.

Christopher wrote: "Actually, thinking about this more, 4x starting to daunt me. Maybe just do 2x for February, 1 short story and 1 novelette? Will think on this more and update thread later today."

That sounds like a good compromise to me.
And if it works well, we could still try doing 4 for March and then compare those two set-ups?

When the Hugo nominations come out I would love to have others to read with!!

Hi! I haven't read short fiction in ages, I am definitely joining! I like the idea of reading one each week, but I can see how 2 a month sounds better.

I'm very interested in this! I've been starting to read more short fiction recently, so it would be great to be able to discuss it. I like the idea of starting with a focus on recent award nominees, although I do also have a preference for stories I can find free online.

Like a couple others, my participation will probably depend on my availability and interest in the story. Two a month is probably doable for me. I'm in for the two you have scheduled for February.

Kaa, yes, the plan is to only select stories that are free online (most of the recent nominees are).

Excellent!
I'm looking forward to the two pieces you have selected, Christopher.
As a suggestion: would it make sense to link directly to the novellas/stories once we've agreed on which to read?

Quick question — now that the Locus recommended reading list is out I could see reading two stories from 2018 (one novelette and one short story) in February instead of the two stories I listed above from 2017. Any preference from people planning to do these reads?

Same here. Maybe start from the short stories available free online.

But I don't mind having a novelette too!

My proposal if we read off the Locus List would be:

Novelette: Nine Last Days on Planet Earth (free on Tor.com)
Short Story: A Song of Home, the Organ Grinds (free on Lightspeed)

These are the Locus stories with the highest rating on RSR.

I’m definitely interested in Nine Last Days.

What's RSR? Count me in for both.

Rocket Stack Rank, a short fiction review & aggregator site.

Christopher wrote: "My proposal if we read off the Locus List would be:

Novelette: Nine Last Days on Planet Earth (free on Tor.com)
Short Story: A Song of Home, the Organ Grinds (free on Lightspeed)

These are the Lo..."

These two sound good! I have also read the two bot ones from last year (although I liked them a lot! If you haven't read them, give them a try!).

I'd be on board for both of those.

Okay, so let's try for this:

Feb 18th: Nine Last Days on Planet Earth
Feb 25th: A Song of Home, the Organ Grinds

I'll add threads for the discussions before I go to bed the night before.

While A Song of Home, the Organ Grinds has the highest rating on RSR (that's why I've read it last year), I cannot say I enjoyed it. Maybe it's just me

John wrote: "If everybody enjoyed the same stuff then there would be no variety in the world."

True, and this is a good sign. I only pointed that a reader can be disappointed :)

Just a reminder that we’ll be discussing “Nine Last Days on Planet Earth” starting Monday for anyone interested.

The Nebula nominees are out! I’ll use that list to select a short story and novelette for next month’s reads.

How about:

March 18: “The Last Banquet of Temporal Confections”
March 25: “A Witch’s Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies”

Also a reminder that we will discuss “A Song of Home, the Organ Grinds” this upcoming Monday, February 25.

@Christopher: great selection for March

Christopher wrote: "The Nebula nominees are out! I’ll use that list to select a short story and novelette for next month’s reads.

How about:

March 18: “The Last Banquet of Temporal Confections”
March 25: “A Witch’s ..."

I already read the story you picked for March 25 (the title jumped out when I looked at the list) and it is really, really good. Looking forward to re-reading it and people's comments about it!

Mareike wrote: "Christopher wrote: "The Nebula nominees are out! I’ll use that list to select a short story and novelette for next month’s reads.

How about:

March 18: “The Last Banquet of Temporal Confections”
M..."

Yes, those two are great, especially the witch one.

Reminder that the discussion for "A Witch's Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies" will start on Monday 3/25/19.

Good picks so far, Christopher. Three out of four are Hugo nominees.

I’m debating whether to continue this project. Is there still much interest going forward?

I am interested to discuss the rest of the short story and novelette nominees that I have not read.

Okay, I'll add two more for this month.

I added them to the schedule at the start of this thread, but they are:

April 15: “The Thing About Ghost Stories,” by Naomi Kritzer
April 22: “The Court Magician,” by Sarah Pinsker

I'm enjoying the discussion when I can pop in!

I'm very interested! I can't always get to a story on Mondays, but knowing that I have that to look forward to gets me through the early week tasks!