SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

I know we have people from all over the world, and I'd love to see where everyone is located! So tell us, if you're comfortable, where you're from and/or where you currently live. I'm happy with a country or even a continent or time zone, no need to tell us your exact address! :)

I'm from and currently live in Helsinki, Finland, but I've also lived in Malaysia and the Middle East. My time zone is EET/EEST, UTC/GMT +2/+3, GR time (PST/PDT) +10.

I was born in Hawaii, but grew up and live in Omaha NE. Nothing too exciting about Omaha. We get mentioned in TV shows and movies a lot when someone wants to reference the midwestern US For instance, Steven King referenced La Vista in IT (it’s a suburb of Omaha)

I live in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Before moving here I lived in New York City for almost 40 years.

I live in Scotts Head (Beach), Lithgow (Mountains), Armidale (Farm) and Warren (Outback), New South Wales, Australia.

Let’s see.....we’re 10 hours in front of GMT and that’s 7 hours in front of the pacific time zone in the US so about 17 hours ahead of the west coast of the US. We don’t need the Concorde to get to LA before we leave.

Hello from tomorrow. Despite the efforts of some parts of the world the sun does come up today so there’s no need to sacrifice anyone to make sure it does.

I like this thread. It will be interesting to see where everybody comes from.
I live near Duesseldorf in Germany (originally from the beautiful Black Forest). Our time is GMT + 1.

Turku, Finland. GMT +2.

(Omg, Gabi! Black Forest is gorgeous! What a place to have lived in.)

Oakland, Tennessee - just east of Memphis. GMT -6 (U.S. Central Time Zone).
A few trivia items:
Tennessee shares borders with more U.S. States than any other state (eight: AR, MO, KY, VA, NC, GA, AL, MS).
Tennessee is one of the few states that cross time zones (Memphis and Nashville are Central Time, Knoxville is Eastern).
Tennessee is considered a southern state, but if you rotated the state 90 degrees clockwise around its northeast corner, Memphis would end up in Canada. In other words, its a very LONG state.
I was born in Michigan and worked in New York City for 27 years; but (in case you haven't figured it out) I LOVE Tennessee!

I’m from Denmark and have lived there all my life, in and around Copenhagen. Our timezone is GMT +1.

I’m currently on vacation in Alberta, Canada, though, and will be in Denver and Texas the next from next week :P

I'm was born in Fairfield, California and I live in Elk Grove, California a suburb of Sacramento and about 80 miles from the Bay Area (going West) and South Lake Tahoe (going East) GMT-7. I'm both ex-military and a military brat (for those who are not familiar with the term, this means a parent (my father) was in the military. Being in the military implies moving around a lot. Staying in one place over 3 years was rare) so the years between birth and moving back to Sacramento (approximately 28 years), I lived somewhere else in the United States. Outside of California, Alaska is my favorite.

Dawn wrote: "I’m from Denmark and have lived there all my life, in and around Copenhagen. Our timezone is GMT +1.

I’m currently on vacation in Alberta, Canada, though, and will be in Denver and Texas the next ..."

...Is there a connection among those three vacation spots? I don't often hear folks from across the pond hankering after Denver or Edmonton.

I'm an East Coaster from the US! My family keeps trying to get us to move back to California, but I am way too impatient for the West Coast. So we settled in Philly, where I can say hello to folks on the street (a thing you didn't do where I grew up in New England) and still people don't try to jabber at me in the checkout line. Win-win! We're GMT -4.

I'm currently stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, but at this point I've lived in five different countries and fourteen American states.

NYC

Monica wrote: "I'm was born in Fairfield, California and I live in Elk Grove, California a suburb of Sacramento and about 80 miles from the Bay Area (going West) and South Lake Tahoe (going East). I'm both ex-mil..."

And to think, for years I had family under 2 hours from you! Ah well. And Alaska! Are you one of those people who goes outside in winter?? Oh no, do you do the Tahoe Peaks in winter???

@Allison Haha, well I have relatives in Big Valley and Stettler in Canada. My grandmother’s sister moved there with her husband in the 60s. She’s been to Denmark many times visiting my grandmother and so has her son and his family, so it was about time I went and saw them.

We’ve been to Denver two years ago for a brewery trip ss we love craft beer, and we felt we weren’t finished with Denver, we really loved the town. And for variety’d sake we’re going to spend four days in a new place and chose Austin. Texas bbq here we come!

I am from the very tiny state of Rhode Island and I think I’ll be a New Englander for life. (Although I do love the south and the Midwest.)

I currently live about 30 minutes w/ traffic (15/20 without) from where I work and it’s the farthest from home I’ve ever worked. I hate it. In RI, if it’s more than 10 minutes away, it’s too far.

True story.

I'm in Missouri (St. Louis) which also borders 8 other states. GMT -6

I live in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia in the US. I’m in what we call the “Eastern” time zone. Translation: GMT-4 / BST-5.

My life history:
* Born in California at the age of 0.
* Moved to Germany at the ripe old age of 2 weeks.
* Moved back to California at 2 years.
* Moved to Virginia at 4 years.
* Moved to Ohio at 18 years.
* Moved to Georgia shortly before turning 35 years old. Still here at 43 years.

I have lived in the same town my whole life and fully intend to live in it for the foreseeable future. I like consistency. (That is until my husband and I retire and buy a fancy conversion van and road trip the country. That's the plan anyway.)

I'm in Fall River, MA. Just on the border of RI. It's just urban enough to have all the conveniences I like, but small enough that you can still park on the street or in a good sized parking lot pretty much anywhere you go. We are in the EST time zone.

currently Portland, Oregon = Pacific Time
2014-2018 = Houston, Texas
2009-2014 = Paris France.

I've also lived in

Trappe, Maryland
Fairborn, Ohio
Rhein Main AFB / Langen, Germany
Sacramento, California
All over Montana and North Dakota (I worked in the oil fields in a lot of different towns but was based in either Billings or Butte)
Tucson, Arizona
and a lot of other places I've forgotten. I'd lived in 18 different houses by the time I was 18 yo

Fairborn!! I got family out there. Springfield and Dayton areas. Last time we were out that way we spent a day at the Air and Space museum and still didn’t get to see everything. Really amazing stuff there.

Indonesia here. It is in Southeast Asia. Yes, that place with Bali and Komodo dragons.

We have three time zones, but I have been spending most of my life in the Western part, GMT+7.

I've lived around Minneapolis, MN my whole life (USA, GMT-6). I suspect I'll continue to live here my whole life. Cold, snowy winters and hot summers.

Up until a couple months ago, I was living in Portland, Oregon, and before that I grew up in western Montana. Now I'm down in Arizona, which is one of the only places in the US that doesn't have daylight savings. It's on Mountain Standard Time (GMT -7) all year, which means right now we're actually on the same time as the west coast.

I grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, then moved to St. Petersburg, Florida for a miserably hot twelve years. From there I moved to Virginia Beach, and I'm staying!! I've been here for about twenty-five years so far.

Wow, we have a diverse group! I'm in beautiful sunny San Diego, can see the Pacific Ocean from my house. I grew up in Miami, FL (also sunny) and moved to California after college. I've been here for 37 years! Can't beat paradise :) I love to travel and have been to almost everywhere you all live, except unfortunately not yet Australia.

Kaa wrote: "Up until a couple months ago, I was living in Portland, Oregon, and before that I grew up in western Montana. Now I'm down in Arizona, which is one of the only places in the US that doesn't have da..."

Hawaii doesn't use it either and Oregon wants to opt out now too. The Arizona bit was a pain as my in-laws lived there and I never could tell if we were early or later calling them than was advisable

I live in San Leandro CA which uses PDST in the same time zone as Goodreads.

Hi, I’m from Ottawa Canada :)

I live on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state (Pacific Time Zone, GMT-8). We can see a national wildlife refuge and then Canada (Vancouver Island) from the deck so I tend to read more when it's raining (soon). I was born in Minnesota and have lived in half a dozen other US states - including some time in New Mexico where Santa Fe was the "big city" for us.

CBRetriever wrote: "Hawaii doesn't use it either and Oregon wants to opt out now too. The Arizona bit was a pain as my in-laws lived there and I never could tell if we were early or later calling them than was advisable "

It's kind of convenient for me, as half the year I'll be in the same timezone as my in-laws on the coast, and the other half it's the same as my family in Montana.

Where in Montana? I lived in Butte, Sidney, Billings and Glasgow

I grew up in Missoula, and my family is there and around Kalispell, plus I have in-laws in Bozeman and Belgrade.

I know Bozeman and Missoula a bit from living in Butte. Don't know Belgrade at all (it is an enormous state)

Very true. I've been to Billings a couple times, and Butte more frequently, but can't say I've ever been to Sidney or Glasgow.

Y'all had me confused talking about Sidney, Glasgow, and Belgrade. Does Montana name all its cities after major cities from other countries? ;)

I was born in Syracuse New York, went to elementary in Kansas City Kansas, went to highschool in Gainesville Florida, worked at Disney in Orlando for a year and now currently live in Salt Lake City Utah which is Mountain Standard Time. I plan to be living somewhere overseas next year though to teach English.

David wrote: "Y'all had me confused talking about Sidney, Glasgow, and Belgrade. Does Montana name all its cities after major cities from other countries? ;)"

Well, there is also Manhattan...

Hey everyone



I've always lived in my city of birth, Sheffield in South Yorkshire, UK. It's a city of almost 600, 000 people (and the metropolitan area takes in further million) but has a reputation for feeling more like a "big village"; the city has a very low density with not a lot of high-rise buildings, and famously the highest tree to person ratio of any city in Europe. We're an hour by train to both Leeds (which is smaller but "feels" much more like a Big City) and Manchester (which, again, is smaller, but is hemmed in by the other cities and towns that make up the conurbation of Greater Manchester so is very densely built up).



We're pretty much the geographical centre of England (actually a bit further North; I once worked out we're exactly halfway from the South coast to Edinburgh in Scotland) and perched on the edge of the Peak District National Park. From where I grew up in the SW of the city I could get there on my bike in 15 minutes. Because we're on the Pennines it is very hilly. As a cyclist and a runner I can confirm that every journey is uphill, usually in both directions.



It's been said we have the highest concentration of craft breweries in the world (a claim which has been met with some criticism, but can certainly be argued if you play fast and loose with where you draw the boundaries) and are the birthplace of such musical greats as Joe Cocker, the Human League, ABC, Def Leppard, Paul Carrack, Pulp and the Arctic Monkeys. We also have the two oldest professional football clubs in the world, Sheffield FC & Hallam FC.

I’m from Denmark at GMT+1 where I have lived all my live, for the past twenty years I have been living in a small city in the southern part of the country, very close to Germany. I work in Copenhagen, Stockholm and sometimes London.

I'm from the Upper Hunter NSW, Australia, but originally from Perth in WA.

We also lived in Tom Price in WA for about 16 years.

I'm from Michigan. I lived in Arizona for a couple years, too. Right now I'm living in Taiwan, though (GMT +8).

I'm living in the capital of Switzerland - and no that is not Zurich, but a beautiful little town along a river

Kyiv, Ukraine
GMT+2

Phillip wrote: "I'm currently stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, but at this point I've lived in five different countries and fourteen American states."

Army Ranger? I'd bet you have some stories to tell!!

Allison wrote: "Monica wrote: "I'm was born in Fairfield, California and I live in Elk Grove, California a suburb of Sacramento and about 80 miles from the Bay Area (going West) and South Lake Tahoe (going East). ..."

Ah, next time you have a family visit, we have to meet!! Also, definitely no on the winter wonderland!! I left that stuff behind when I turned 40 and couldn't topographically differentiate snow. Moguls became traumatic when they looked exactly the same as a flat slope... ;-)

Kaa wrote: "David wrote: "Y'all had me confused talking about Sidney, Glasgow, and Belgrade. Does Montana name all its cities after major cities from other countries? ;)"

Well, there is also Manhattan..."

and Havre and Manhattan and Nashua and Troy and a few others. However Sidney was named after the postmaster's son, not the city. There's a story that when the railroad that was built across northern Montana was built and they had to name the stops, the the builders threw darts at a globe and named them after the spots they hit

I grew up in a smallish town in Austria. I moved to the capital (Vienna) about 15 years ago.
Never regretted it, not planning on moving back. :)

(oh and GMT+2)

Monica wrote: "Allison wrote: "Monica wrote: "I'm was born in Fairfield, California and I live in Elk Grove, California a suburb of Sacramento and about 80 miles from the Bay Area (going West) and South Lake Taho..."

Ha! Yes, better to stay on reasonably flat land then. Yes to meeting! I'm just going to have to do like a European and take a whole month off to go tour the west coast, see all my people!

This thread was a good idea. I'm loving all the anecdotes you all are sharing, too :-)

Greetings from sunny Athens, Greece!