Hello /c/sciencefiction, it is that time of the month. Time to vote for the book of the month. The options are loosely collected from the most voted and discussed books in the “What are you Reading” thread for August.
At the end of the month the poll will be closed and the winner will be the book of the month for August 2023. Myself and hopefully some others will read this book over the following month and then near the end of the month a discussion post will be made to talk about it. Feel free to participate or not at your leisure.
Once the book is chosen it will be set to “Reading” status on the community BookWyrm account here. https://bookwyrm.social/user/ScienceFiction Feel free to follow this account with your own BookWyrm account so other members can find you. This can help people find book recommendations of like minded science fiction readers.
Here are this months selection
- Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir
- 22/11/63 - Stephen King
- Leviathan Wakes - James S. A. Corey
- Hyperion - Dan Simmons
- Wool (Silo Series Book 1) - Hugh Howey
- Children of Time - Adrian Tchaikovsky
- Red Rising - Pierce Brown
- Neuromancer - William Gibson
- A Memory Called Empire - Arkady Martine
Neat! First time seeing this community. Going to check it out, commenting so hopefully others do to :)
Children of time is amazing imo. Love the concept and the characters.
The trilogy is amazing. The last book in the series Children of Memory is maybe my favorite. Some real heady hard sci fi.
But…
They’re all worth reading!
Well my arachnophobia rules out children of time for me…
I’m sure some of them will show up in future votes. Maybe some day we will get to everything. 🙂
HYPERIONNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
I absolutely love Hyperion, but the second book is almost necessary for these stories to end properly. Fall of Hyperion is my favorite of the series (…that I’ve read so far).
This may be a hot take cause I know most people don’t like the latter 2 books but I’d argue you need to read them too to get the full picture. Also fuck em cause those books were awesome too.
Project hail Mary is probably the best book on that list
Currently reading. It is quite good indeed, but I haven’t read the other ones so I don’t feel I should vote.
E: Oh, I got the intent of the vote wrong.Right, you would probably want to pick the one you are most interested in reading, but it doesn’t really matter if you pick your favorite that you have read and want others to read.
Thats why I said probably because other than leviathan wakes I haven’t gotten to the other ones yet
Project Hail Mary is probably the best book I’ve ever read, lol.
“Consider Phlebas” is the ultimate 80’s Space Adventure. I say I’m a fantasy guy, but that’s my favorite book currently.
Great story, you’ve reminded me how much I enjoyed it. Thanks!
Really? Because that’s like, the worst one of the entire series.
The only other one I’ve read [Use of Weapons] felt overly goofy. I dig the bits it added, but “Consider Phlebas” had some special feel.
I liked use of weapons personally, but it’s one of the ones I liked the least. I enjoyed the character of Charedenine Zakalwe or however the fuck you spell it. But stuff like The Hydrogen Sonata and Player of Games and Surface Detail and Excession really rocked.
Have you read the rest of the Culture series? I’ve got them all on my Kobo but haven’t started.
Only “The Use of Weapons” which is hard to follow because of the unconventional structure.
Weir’s characters are always so ‘alive’ somehow!
It was a revelation when I found out he wrote “the egg”. That was my favorite internet story. He’s my favorite living author (RIP Adams and Pratchett)
Same! Haven’t stayed up late reading like that in ages, if ever.
Bold. To me it seems like Andy Weir telling the exact same engineer survivorporn story over again. It’s The Martian, but in an only slightly different locale.
Ooh, Children of Time, please!
That’s my first suggestion for anyone who wants to try sci-fi. What a legendary book!
Been a Tchaikovsky fan ever since.
The final architecture series is a hoot too.
Oh yeah. Reading book 3 right now. Love these characters. I’ll miss them when I finish.
Honestly I feel like there needs to be multiple video game series based around the factions. I’ll take a Partheni fps any day of the week.
22/11/63 - Stephen King
Is this the sequel to 11/22/63? /s
Sensible Date Format Edition
Both are a prequel to 1963-11-22.
oh shit it’s a trilogy??
Not enough sci fi fans seem to read neuromancer, it’s what got me into it and I recommend to anyone who likes fast paced cyberpunk. Such a vivid book to me.
It’s good but I can understand why many people don’t read it, the way it uses language can make it difficult to decipher what is going on and it doesn’t really hold your hand.
I’ve had one go at Neuromancer and the language definitely made it a more difficult read for me. I want to read it again (I voted for it in the poll), and I think on my second go it’ll be more enjoyable.
Try a short story anthology called “Mirrorshades.” It’s edited by Bruce Sterling, another early cyberpunk pioneer. The stories are amazing and more accessible than neuromancer, but I bet you’ll be more primed to read it afterwards.
Also look up anything by Pat cadigan. She writes great cyberpunk and also edited a few good anthologies.
I vote necromancer.
I’ll have to read children of time next tho as I haven’t read it yet. Currently reading through anathem.
I’ve read five on the list (Martine, Tchaikovsky, Corey, Howey, and Weir) and I’d put them all on the same (excellent) tier. But if I had to rank them, that’s the order I’d put them in.
I’ve read 4, and I would probably order them: Weir, Howey, Tchaikovsky, King.
It’s a very close call though. If asked to rank them again next week I’d probably have a different answer.
Just subscribed! I have read more fantasy than science fiction, but I’ll vote for children of time based on some of these comments! I’ll join the collective read next month, that sounds like a healthy change for me (:
Thanks for joining us. Perhaps you will some day become a science fiction enthusiast. 🙂
Voting for Leviathan Wakes as it’s the only one I’ve read so far. That being said, the majority of these titles are on my list of books to read, and the ones that aren’t, I’m looking into now!
Weir! Though I am currently reading Martine myself.
Voting for Wool as it makes sense to read the book before checking out how AppleTV have (maybe) destroyed it
Apple’s series is very enjoyable. I loved the books, and it does a good job of translating them to screen. Howey is an executive producer on the show.
Sounds good, still not forgiven them for foundation, although if you forget the books it is quite an enjoyable story in its own right
I read Foundation quite a while back, so I just enjoyed the TV show. There weren’t that many bits that sounded familiar, but I wasn’t sure if I’d just forgotten parts of it.
I’m shocked that I’ve never read any of these although a bunch are on my list. Voted for Neuromancer because cyberpunk is my main focus for my own work.
Neuromancer is basically the manifesto of the cyberpunk genre. A great novel with an astonishing prophetic look at the technologies of the future.
Only one I read on this list is Project Hail Mary and it was really good…and everyone I know who has read it (including people who don’t regularly read science fiction) loved it, too.
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