Play Book Tag discussion

Lol, I didn't predict this tag would be as favored as it was. For July, we will be reading:

speculative fiction

Please share your reading plans and recommendations below.

Remember, for the regular monthly reads, the book can be shelved as "speculative fiction" on Goodreads, or be a book that is not yet shelved that way but you feel should be.

One way to find books to read for this tag is to please visit:

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

We encourage people to link to additional lists below if they find them.

Happy Reading!!!

Woohoo I'm excited. I just got The Poppy Fields by Nikki Erlick and I was really hoping to read it over the long holiday weekend coming up soon. Not that I couldn't have read it anyway but this makes the decision even easier!

I am pleased. I have upcoming reads for my IRL Feminerdy Book Club that fit nicely!

Oh yay! I did not expect this one to win, but I'm glad it did.

Apparently I'm going to have to put actual effort into reading something that fits June's "Summer" tag. I really thought it was one of those that would just naturally happen, but I don't know where the month has gone! If we're already planning for July, I guess I better get on it

That's a shocker, eh?

There were quite a few good books on the speculative fiction shelf which I suspect is why it was chosen this month.

These books are just some of my choices and I'm likely to read some of them:
Farenheit 451
Sea of Tranquility
The Windup Girl
Her Body and Other Parties: Stories
Circe
Legends & Lattes
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
Freshwater
Blackout
The Anomaly
The Blind Assassin
The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina
The History of Bees
Beggars in Spain
The Book of Love
A Song for a New Day
When She Woke

Awesome. I have a lot of books to choose from.

But first, a few favorites:
The Year of the Flood on audio. (It’s the middle book of a trilogy)
Migrations
Station Eleven
How High We Go in the Dark
Binti, Home and The Night Masquerade - I reread the trilogy this year and still love it. Short and sweet.
A Tale for the Time Being
Dawn trilogy by Octavia Butler. It’s intense at first, but incredible.
The Word for World Is Forest
Playground
Nothing to See Here
This Is How You Lose the Time War- weird, delightful

Also, If you like:
Historical fiction - The Golem and the Jinni
Time travel love story - The Seven Year Slip
Sci-fi detectives, robots - Lock In
retellings - Cinder
mythology - Circe and others
books about books - The Eyre Affair
music, Asian food, space, sapphic fun, donuts, devilish deals and a truly sensitive trans story- Light from Uncommon Stars
Alternative worlds (quantum fic) -The Space Between Worlds
language - Drunk on All Your Strange New Words, or Stories of Your Life and Others
Thought provoking short stories - Exhalation, Stories of your life
Thrillers - Dark Matter
YA alien fun- An Absolutely Remarkable Thing
Witches - Weyward
====

I want to read at least one book by Ursula K. Le Guin, and another by Nnedi Okorafor. Maybe also Scalzi for fun, Andy Weir

I want to hit a few different genres or sub genres that fit the tag, for variety. I have two set aside for possible compass locations, and I’d like to identify a few more around the world.

So far I have
Prophet Song for Ireland.
The Mountain in the Sea for Vietnam.
The Humans
I Who Have Never Known Men - this 1995 book was new to me, but it keeps catching my attention
The Dog Stars
My Real Children
Wrong Place Wrong Time
The Water Knife or The Windup Girl

Booknblues wrote: "There were quite a few good books on the speculative fiction shelf which I suspect is why it was chosen this month.

These books are just some of my choices and I'm likely to read some of them:
[bo..."

Fahrenheit 451 is one of my favorite reads ever, but also throwing a vote for The Windup Girl from your list. Read that one a few years ago and really liked it,

Here is my TBR for Speculative Fiction. I have read so many for this already.

1) Ready Player One - Ernest Cline
2) Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
3) The Midnight Library -Matt Haig
4) We - Yevgeny Zamyatin

I just returned Aftertaste to the library, but called for it again....

Its a debut author speculative fiction, and I need a debut author for my Play Harder Prompt. I need to finish list two this July. So its coming back home to Mama.

I will probably be reading some of these:
Some Other Time
A Civil Campaign
Past Master
The Great When
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
The Haunting of Hill House
Written on the Dark
The Unusual Second Life of Thomas Weaver

Jen wrote: "Woohoo I'm excited. I just got The Poppy Fields by Nikki Erlick and I was really hoping to read it over the long holiday weekend coming up soon. Not that I couldn't have read it anyway but this mak..."

It sounds good. I’m getting a Wizard of Oz vibe from it.

I will put a plug in for The Master and Margarita which has a bunch of speculative fiction tags though I personally never thought of it that way. But given when it was written ... in thinking about it, it fits.

Recommendations:
The Immortal King Rao
The Handmaid's Tale
Speak
Scattered All Over the Earth
In Ascension
Mobility
Station Eleven
Parable of the Sower
The Plot Against America
Ice
Wild Dark Shore
Not Forgetting the Whale
The Circle
Awake in the Floating City

I am considering:
Parable of the Talents
Ubik
Children of Time
American War
The Calculating Stars
Starter Villain
Red Clocks
Too Like the Lightning
Woman on the Edge of Time
The Bees
Radiance
Civilizations
Company Town
Deadlands
Meet Us by the Roaring Sea

Some of my favourite books ever fit this tag, not that I was in the mood for it right now but I'm sure I'll find something.

I adored Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch which made me laugh out loud on a long-haul flight and annoy all the poor people trapped with me. I also think Wool Omnibus is very underrated and very much enjoyed the whole series.

I have now been through the TBR piles and I think I have about 30 books that fit this tag if not more.....must be something that suits my mood in that lot.

I already finished Araminta Station by Jack Vance in June, one of the best creators of imaginary worlds and imaginary cultures in the field. If I don't have time to write a review now, it will be my fist for the tag. I think the second book in the series will soon follow.
I don't really need to prepare, because speculative fiction is my most read genre each year. It includes anything that could be described by What if ...

I need something lighter, so I am going with the A Catalogue of Catastrophe, the next book. for me, in The St. Mary's Chronicles.

Well, one of my F2F book clubs is discussing Stephen King's 11/22/63 in the fall ... and it has over 170 Spec Fic tags, so that's what I'll read. PIcked up the audio today at the library (30 discs / 31 hrs! ... that will take a month "reading" a disc a day).

Book Concierge wrote: "Well, one of my F2F book clubs is discussion Stephen King's 11/22/63 in the fall ... and it has over 170 Spec Fic tags, so that's what I'll read. PIcked up the audio today at the li..."

quicker to read the book....but then you can't do 2 things at once or listen as you fall to sleep.

I listened to the audio of 11/22/63 and it was very good.

Full disclosure: I had to google "speculative fiction." lol. Still not totally sure if there is a real definition, it seems pretty amorphous!

But, having said that, I have a few books on my shelf that seem to fit!

The Names by Florence Knapp
Terrestrial History by Joe Mungo Reed
My Documents by Kevin Nguyen

A few others that may fit that I am considering:
Anima Rising by Christopher Moore
Esperance by Adam Oyebanji

Perfect - I just put a hold at the library for Prophet Song by Paul Lynch

...and such a dangerous tag - I'm sure my TBR will grow this month

Oh no! This is not what I had hoped to see when I returned! LOL!

Curious - what were the other two choices? Thanks.

I still need to finish my current book, then I plan to read my summer book next for June (wish my eyes luck to hold out properly this time!)

Good luck and take care of your health. It's the most important thing for each of us. Maybe an audio book will be easier right now
There are a lot of spec-fic books that defy genre expectations and slide into literary fiction. The whole term was invented because writers often refuse to stay within artificially drawn borders. Magic realism for example is included, so Marquez and Allende qualify

Algernon (Darth Anyan) wrote: "Good luck and take care of your health. It's the most important thing for each of us. Maybe an audio book will be easier right now
There are a lot of spec-fic books that defy genre expectations and..."

Thanks! I do read quite widely and use tags to find what's on my tbr to find something to fit, so there will likely be something there that will work. It's just not usually my "favourite" genre!

And yeah, I've been doing audio books lately, for sure! I do like to stick to my tbr when at all possible, so if something is available on audio (via my library), that will be at the top of my list, for sure.

LibraryCin wrote: "Oh no! This is not what I had hoped to see when I returned! LOL!

Curious - what were the other two choices? Thanks.

I still need to finish my current book, then I plan to read my summer book ne..."

Other choices were Non-Fiction and London.

P.S. Glad to see you back!

Sushicat wrote: "Perfect - I just put a hold at the library for Prophet Song by Paul Lynch

...and such a dangerous tag - I'm sure my TBR will grow this month"

I’m planning to read Prophet Song too. It’s one of my priority books for 2025. I was planning to read it during my next (imaginary) trip to Ireland - if I can wait for the compass direction to send me there. Do you want to try to read it together?

Cool! But then I voted for this one. I haven't planned what I'm going to read, so will have to comb the list and my want to read shelf.

I've read or dnf 33/50 on the first page (mostly read, so you can see I was going with easy for the summer. None of the options were new for me.

Joy D wrote: "Recommendations:
The Immortal King Rao
The Handmaid's Tale
Speak
Scattered All Over the Earth
In Ascension
[book:Mob..."

Ironically, you have some books I gave 4 stars to in the ones you've read, and some I didn't like or finish or gave 3 stars to in the ones you want to read, but I won't say since our tastes aren't always the same

Theresa wrote: "Other choices were Non-Fiction and London.

P.S. Glad to see you back!..."

Thank you! I would probably have voted for London (of course, I don't get to vote, anyway!). :-)

This is pretty much 90% of the books I read, so I'm set for next month! :D

Will also be an easy one for me. The hard part will be narrowing down all the choices. I hope to finish up a few series instead of starting new ones but we will see.

NancyJ wrote: "Sushicat wrote: "Perfect - I just put a hold at the library for Prophet Song by Paul Lynch

...and such a dangerous tag - I'm sure my TBR will grow this month"

I’m..."

I just checked and the book will probably not be available before the second half of July :-(

I've actually never really done a buddy read before...

Sushicat wrote: "NancyJ wrote: "Sushicat wrote: "Perfect - I just put a hold at the library for Prophet Song by Paul Lynch

...and such a dangerous tag - I'm sure my TBR will grow t..."

It can be low key. Depending on the timing, we could share comments on a thread, via messages, or reviews.

So far I'm planning on reading The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi. I hope it's one I like by him (I've had mixed results with his books, but then I've read 11 of his books so far, from 2 to 4 star ratings.)

Karin wrote: "So far I'm planning on reading The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi. I hope it's one I like by him (I've had mixed results with his books, but then I've read ..."

It's a good summer pick, a little too frothy and predictable but also a lot of fun. I have ordered the new one with the moon cheese, but I don't know if I have time to get to it soon.

Algernon (Darth Anyan) wrote: "Karin wrote: "So far I'm planning on reading The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi. I hope it's one I like by him (I've had mixed results with his books, but t..."


Good to know. I haven't been enamoured with his funny books and have held off on the one where the moon turns to cheese. I only gave 3 stars to Starter Villian and Red Shirts even though I loved the premise of Red Shirts a great deal.

Algernon (Darth Anyan) wrote: "Good luck and take care of your health. It's the most important thing for each of us. Maybe an audio book will be easier right now
There are a lot of spec-fic books that defy genre expectations and..."

Yeah, I have 10 options after a 5-minute search of one bookshelf (I have 7). It is a broad tag so if I don't manage to do it it is purely due to my brain not being able to focus atm.

Karin wrote: "So far I'm planning on reading The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi. I hope it's one I like by him (I've had mixed results with his books, but then I've read ..."

It’s very zany. What I like ab Scalzi is that besides the humor, there is usually a message of inclusion, and a hero who learns to be a better person.

NancyJ wrote: "Sushicat wrote: "NancyJ wrote: "Sushicat wrote: "Perfect - I just put a hold at the library for Prophet Song by Paul Lynch


Happy to discuss after reading :-)
But please don't wait for me and risk missing the boat

Theresa wrote: "I will put a plug in for The Master and Margarita which has a bunch of speculative fiction tags though I personally never thought of it that way. But given when it was written ... in ..."

This is one of my absolute favorites.

I've read one, but it was a disappointment. I'm behind in my reviews right now, but finished it on the first, so it fits (read most of it that day.)

I have to second Booknblues recommendation above for

When She Woke by Hillary Jordan

Fabulous book! More people should read this re-telling of The Scarlet Letter