Fantasy Buddy Reads discussion

This is a Buddy read for A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers starting on September 10, 2025.


Happy Reading!

Thank you!

We are also reading book #2:
A Prayer for the Crown-Shy


This is a Cozy Parsley between the Sharing Knife series and Vatta's War series.

Thank you!

Sharing Knife by Lois McMaster Bujold:
1. Beguilement (May 10) [link]
2. Legacy (Jun 10) [link]
3. Passage (Jul 10) [link]
4. Horizon (Aug 10) [link]
4.5 Knife Children

Sept Standalone: A Psalm for the Wild-Built/A Prayer for the Crown-Shy

---Pause for Spook/Cozy/Wrap-up season---

Next: Vatta's War
1. Trading in Danger (Jan 10)
2. Marque and Reprisal (Feb 10)
3. Engaging the Enemy (Mar 10)
4. Command Decision (Apr 10)
5. Victory Conditions (May 10)
Vatta's Peace:
1. Cold Welcome (Jun 10)
2. Into the Fire (Jul 10)


Following possibilities:
Find 2 solos to tide to Spook/Cozy
Penric--all short, could just bully through
Paksenarrion--3 connected series in-world

I'm doing my presentation tomorrow (Weds 8/27)! If anyone wants to check it out, here is the PPT:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/...

I'm working on a kahoot too.

I have zoom open during the class. It'll be from about 4:30-5:30pm Pacific Time. If anyone actually wants to join the zoom/presentation, send me a message. Only open to folks who I've interacted with and friended in FBR, sorry silent observers!

This is a pre-read presentation--so it won't spoil anything, we won't go into the book content, and folks don't have to have read the book beforehand.

I'll look at the presentation when you give me access. Shame I can't see it in zoom but I'll be sleeping

Whoops, share settings weren't open yet. It should be accessible now!

Kahoot link: https://create.kahoot.it/details/sola...

I did more questions right in the kahoot by luck than anything else haha. I did not know there were so many punks, i only knew of cyberpunk, steampunk and biopunk.

And i liked the presentation, the background was lovely and you had a lot of videos.

Thank you! I'm presenting in about... seven hours? Gosh, is the day really so long? Yikes...

I use slidesgo for all my PPTs... they have such a nice selection and organization.

Good luck! I always used PowerPoint and really liked the trasitions. I saterted doing a couple and then i ended up doing the whole presentation with animations and trasitions haha

It can be addicting! I just finished for today and I think it went well. I was really excited about the topic so that always helps.

Glad it went well! Being excited is important for a teacher, because then the students feel it

Well, my students in this case was about six fellow teachers, so not too hard of a sell. I love the dedication in this book: "To anyone who needs a break." Everyone in the room (save one) raised their hands. The one dude was like "nah, I'm good." LOL

The Kahoot was funny. Very few folks knew anything. There was one question "Which -punk was the first -punk?" and I tossed "Punk Rock" in there as an option along with Steampunk, Cyberpunk, Stonepunk... I had one rather incensed teacher pull up the factoid that Punk Rock is from 1970 while Cyberpunk didn't show up until 1983... and I just pointed to the small hyphen in front of the word "punk"... not any punk, but a -punk, as in the literary genres. Other teachers were like "oooh, burrrrn." A very teachery thing to point out.... I thought it was pretty funny and will be teasing her about it for a while. As I'm sure she will be arguing that it was a misleading question every time. Fun times. On such exchanges are friendships made.

My favorite video out of the bunch in the presentation is the interview with the author which has several video clips--the one on cozy SF. She talks about how rest should be normalized. Comfort should be normalized. We should not feel guilty for wanting--or needing--to indulge in something comforting. It hits a deep note. I should not feel guilty, right now, for taking an hour to myself before bed after being at work from 7am until 8:30pm. But it's hard not to, when there are so many demands on my time from all directions, and some days it feels like society exists just to tell me I'm doing everything wrong.... So, long story short, I'm looking forward to this BR. Y'know, in like, a month. LOL.

Those students are better than the actual students haha. What a happy guy the one who didn't raise his hand

The kahoot was hard, i agree, I knew almost nothing. The arguing over the -punk sounds fun. A little detail but you won the argument

I still need to watch the author interviews, I love watching those. The behind the scenes so to speak. Yeah, I agree about the guilty part, it's difficult. I remember when I was a student and wanted to read and even then I felt guilty that I was not studying more. I also look forward to this one (only one month away haha)

I agree--I love hearing about the nuts and bolts that goes into the inspirations. One of the reasons I love Sanderson is for how analytical he is about his writing process.

It'll be really interesting to see if these books still give the same level of catharsis.

I finished the first just now and it was just as lovely as I remember from my first read <3 I looked before I started posting and 1582 people rated this 1 star? I mean I appreciate people have various opinions in general but yeah, I am judging them lol This book is absolutely a hug in book format. (view spoiler)[The way Dex's first tea service played out followed pretty mush immediately with Dex and 2 years of service under their belt was the best but even after achieving such success and bringing peace and joy yo so many people Dex realized they still weren't fulfilled which brings Mosscap into their life. I loved how Dex's main priority for so long was bringing comfort to people and Mosscap was looking to help bring humans what they need as well, quite the dynamic duo. Mosscap helping Dex get to the hermitage and man, that tea service at the end? MY HEART <3<3<3 When I read this initially it was a Hoopla borrow but I bought it on Audible so this will most definitely be joining my bed time rotation :) (hide spoiler)]

Ann-Marie wrote: "I finished the first just now and it was just as lovely as I remember from my first read <3 I looked before I started posting and 1582 people rated this 1 star? I mean I appreciate people have vari..."

Some people really don't like cozy / hopecore books...

Sucks to be them :D

Right? Happy to say just 159 people rated the second 1 star and I'll say the same to those people I say to those who don't like Klune, I am sorry you lack joy in your life lol

Finished the second, no surprise that I thought it was as lovely as I did the first read. Back to civilization and we get to see how Mosscap interacts with humans in general. (view spoiler)[Loved how the humans welcomed Mosscap for the most part and it makes sense with how the pebs system was described, they are like the ultimate, positive version of socialism maybe? All are equal including a robot lol Loved meeting Dex's family and I definitely loved how the ending leaves it open whether their journey will continue and as far as I am concerned they do indeed remain travel companions <3 (hide spoiler)]

I'll probably be reading these late rather than early, since my book club for 'em is on the 19th and I'll forget details if I go too early. I'm really looking forward to the reread though--both as "hug in book format" as Ann-Marie says, and also after doing all the research I did...

From that research, seems like Chambers is working on a separate solo Spacey project right now, and then has plans to return to Monk & Robot... After so much space, she needed to ground herself... but after having a few books on the ground she itched to go back into space...

Are you ready to be jealous? I found ANOTHER SFF book club in my area and we are meeting Thursday and the book is The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet which I started after I read these 2 today so it is a Becky Chambers day for me lol

Gah!!! Yes, I am so jealous!!!

Joined the book hug party... Good description of the series... Zoomed through book 1 after reading Harmony Black... Then went and finished League of Unusual Denizens... Then read Lady Darby 11... Now over halfway through book 2...

Bunch of short and medium books...

Also a bunch of books that kinda surprised me when the end credits happened...

These really feel like modern fables or allegories or whatever word I'm looking for...

They have a feel good message to convey to the reader...

Wait until you get to The River Has Roots, 3 simply lovely novellas in less than a week is a good week for sure :)

I really loved The river has roots too! Very fairytale like.

Started, just read the first three chapters and it's so lovely. The only thought I had was wow, those laptops sure are long lived. I've had one computer for 13 years too and it's so slow that's maddening. The fans also make so much noise. So last year I bought a laptop instead and I was floored that it started in less than 5 minutes, the bar was so low...

That's the difference between SSD and HDD... SSDs startup in like 30 seconds (depends how much BIOS stuff there is before it loads Operating System...

My old computer was from 2012, but the OS was on a 128GB SSD... and then most of the rest of my stuff was on a secondary 1TB SSD and 1TB HDD...

My new 2025 PC, my OS is on a 2TB M.2 NVMe (basically an SSD that looks more like a RAM stick and plugs in sideways to the motherboard) and my audiobooks and other junk I don't want on the internal SSD are on a 5TB external HDD that's just plugged into a USB back port and sits on top of the computer...

I guess "laplets" are a thing now... 2-in-1 laptops that can also function as touch screen tablets and detach the keyboard...

Also, yea... technology longevity isn't really a thing these days... most things are designed to be replaced in a few short years to make companies more money...

TVs have Operating Systems that stop updating... etc etc etc...

Really bad for schools, that were kinda tricked into getting cheap Google tablets in the past decade I think, and now need replaced...

When I was in school, half the textbooks were like 50 years old... no budget to be replacing all the time...

Yeah, I have seen people with "laplets".

My parents refrigerator is 30 years old and until its broken down they won't change it

When I was in school we had to buy the textbooks, still do. But there is a system where you rent those books for the year if they aren't new.

That's college over here... you buy the textbooks, and it's a whole racket where teachers write books that either they use, or other teachers/schools use, and they come out with a new edition every 2 years, so you can't buy the books used for cheaper, really...

I think things are alot more digital these days, but you have to buy ebook leases for the same exorbitant costs...

In uni everything we needed was digital and we didn't use textbooks. You only had to pay to fotocopy them. It was mostly PowerPoint slides so it was the bare minimum. And there were so many slides that i fotocopied 4 per page, to be cheaper and fool myself to think there were less haha. They recommended textbooks if we wanted and I checked some on my first year from the library but they were mostly useless. But yeah, there plenty of textbooks online (legal and ilegal) or scientific articles

yea... I paid the first year, and found alternatives as much as possible in later years... PDF math books, just waiting until day 1 of class to learn if the teacher thinks it's worth it or provides alternatives on their class website, endure the first few weeks while buying used copies online (back in 2005-2009, when physical textbooks were still common)... you were supposed to be able to checkout some textbooks from the university library, too, and use without leaving library, but the library was under renovation the entire 4 years I was in college, and for the 2nd half all the books were in annex storage and you needed to request they dig them out of storage... kinda sucked...

The library being under renovation is really bad luck