Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels discussion

There will be no nominations or polls for April. Several members requested a "catch-up" month, where you read monthly books you missed, or put some time into challenges you're behind on. That said, state your catch-up plans for the month in this thread when you figure it out & maybe we'll find some commonality for a catch-up buddy read.

Oh yeah! I've missed a couple of books that I've been meaning to check out some day, and now could be a good time for one of them. I think I have two main options:

First, our January MR, Powers. I wanted to read this, but just didn't have the time.

Second, a couple of years back (I think?) we read Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, but I skipped it. After reading and loving Piranesi I decided that I will someday tackle JS&MN, too.

Great idea with a catch up month. I would be interested in both Jonathan Strange.. and Piranesi as well. I don´t think I will tackle to catch up with this group - you are awsome readers.

Aya wrote: "Great idea with a catch up month. I would be interested in both Jonathan Strange.. and Piranesi as well."

It took me forever to read JS&MN, I got stalled 40% through. But with a determined effort I finally finished it. It wasn't bad, in fact it was quite good, but I am just impatient & get frustrated with books I don't make fast progress on. Piranesi was a whole different deal, fascinating & easy to read.

I think that I will tackle monthly books I've missed. Those are Cloud Atlas, Up the Walls of the World and A Midsummer Tempest. I also missed Farmer in the Sky but I plan to knock that one out quickly before April. Don't know if I'll get to all three, but I'll give it a shot.

Oh yeah, I forgot about Cloud Atlas. That one is a pretty interesting possibility, too.

Thank the gods for catch-up months!
Last year I knocked off The Man in the High Castle but still have a decent list of books on my shelf that I didn't have time to read.

I'll probably tackle Babel-17/Empire Star. But if I'm feeling more ambitious, I'll try to catch up on last year's challenge with The Scar (I doubt I could read both this and Iron Council in one month though).

Seriously, couldn't agree more Kalin!

Depending on how my library holds come in, I may try one or more of these:
Perdido Street Station
His Majesty's Dragon
Going Postal
The Dispossessed

I consider Perdido & The Scar two of the best books I’ve read in years. No spoiler here but I will never forget that jaw-dropping moment in Perdido that takes it into the stratosphere. And as good as PSS was, The Scar had some of the most imaginative world-building I’ve ever read, and the story was superb. I know everyone didn’t feel like I did, but Mieville really proved himself here, if he hadn’t already done so with Embassytown.

For starters I am going to finish Babel-17. I started it but set it aside. I did read it a few decades ago but don't really remember it, but get a flash back now and again. Depending what else is going on I'll review past reads for a book or two I've missed. Plenty to choose from.

Even I may catch up with the first book we read, Darwin's Radio, which I passed because I've read it before but now plan to re-read

I have not yet read the February Butler Parable book. So I expect to read that in April. I also started the Killing Moon and quit. So I will try that again before I give up.

And hello everyone. I will try to be around more in the next weeks.

In the end, I decided to read Cloud Atlas during the catch-up month.

I’ll join you in that, Antti! That’s one of a few group reads I missed early on and I had already planned to read it in April as well.

Great!

Got to laugh. Signed in this morning thinking "I need to get back to the group reads, let me see what's going on for April"

Guess I'm going to do whatever March reads were. . . I haven't been active in this group for quite awhile.

Haha, well welcome back Rebecca!! The March reads were meh for some of us so feel free to check out other months too 😊

Antti and I will be reading Cloud Atlas, which was a monthly read in August 2018, a few months after the group was formed. Feel free to join in or pick any monthly read you didn't get to.

I am already reading the second "Parable" book, which I did not get to in February. I read Cloud Altas and was not thrilled with it. I already tried The Killing Moon again and still not thrilled at the third introductory "chapter" which is probably where the real characters are introduced. Probably not continuing.

If I find something else i skipped, maybe. I did leave The Golem and the Jinni because no time, but not sure right now if I will continue