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JohnT
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Capitalist
Mar 1999
time: 00:25
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 06-02-2003 19:47
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#1
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The Apolyton Science Fiction Book Club: April nominations
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Tired of ads?
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A few things before I get into my nomination...
For starters, thanks to all those who participated in The Handmaid's Tale discussion! I kind of threw this all together, and then picked a book dealing with women in a mostly male forum, so I was uncertain how it would all turn out. But we did pretty good. Especial thanks to St. Leo, Che, and Obi-wan for their many contributions. 
The thread is still active and needs your participation!  I'm gonna reply to something Che said when I'm done with this one, so you'll have no problem finding it: it'll be Front Page material again. 
March's book has been selected and it is Asimov's Foundation. Now stop groaning some of you: this book is a Giant in the history of science fiction (I'm going to see if I can make the argument that modern science fiction can be dated from the publication of Foundation, but lets save that for the thread, OK?  ), and there will be plenty to discuss. Anyway, this will be a book that is easy to find in used book stores and the library, and, having done so already, it is a damn quick read. It was nominated by Clear Skies, btw.
Now for the nominations. The nomination rules are as follows:
1. You must have read the book you are nominating. *
2. Please nominate only 1 book, as to allow others' selections to be listed.
3. The books must be science fiction.
It would also be appreciated if you could link to a good description (Amazon, sfsite.com, whatever) of the book.
On the 15th (or so), I will post a thread listing the nominations with a multiple-choice poll which will allow you to select up to three (3) books. The poll will be timed to end at the end of the month, and the winner will be the book we read in April. If there is a tie, I make the decision as to which book to read.**
My April Nomination is Excession, by Iain M. Banks. This book is awesome: it is deep in themes, the civilization that Banks created is complex, shiite, I could go on and on. Warning: This is a difficult, complex book: Banks is an author, one who demands far more from his readers than creative typists like Timothy Zahn or Robert Jordan.
To quote Amazon: "It's not easy to disturb a mega-utopia as vast as the one Iain M. Banks has created in his popular Culture series, where life is devoted to fun and ultra-high-tech is de rigueur. But more than two millennia ago the appearance--and disappearance--of a star older than the universe caused quite a stir. Now the mystery is back, and the key to solving it lies in the mind of the person who witnessed the first disturbance 2,500 years ago. But she's dead, and getting her to cooperate may not be altogether easy"
* For the reasoning behind this rule, read my arguments in this thread.
**Yeah, I know: it sounds kind of arbitrary and capricious on my part. But the nature of the medium kind of dictates that it be this way: do I run yet another thread for a runoff? How long should that poll run for? Ugh. Sometimes you just have to cut through the BS and make a decision. But I can be wrong: if y'all wanna discuss this and come up with alternatives, this is the thread to do it in.
Last edited by JohnT on 06-02-2003 at 19:53
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Jon Miller
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oh, I need to find that thread
BTW, I nominate Cosmonaut Keep
Jon Miller
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Jon Miller
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oh, and I thought you said that I could nominate books which I had not read
Jon Miller
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chegitz guevara
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Ft. Lauderdale, FL Communist Party of Apolyton
Jun 2000
time: 00:25
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The Dispossesed is an excellent book!
Haven't read Cosmonaut Keep yet, but I like the author, Ken MacLeod. (he's a fellow Trotskyist and someone I used to debate with in the usenet group alt.politics.socialism.trotsky). I've read three of his other books, The Cassini Division, The Stone Canal, and The Sky Road. Of the three, I like the last one the best. The Stone Canal is about a splinter colony from Earth that sets up a true libertarian society, but one that is heavily dependent on slave robot labor. The Cassini Division, is about a true communist society on Earth and the conflict it has with a conoly of "fast humans," humans who uploaded themselves into computers. In order to deal with the threat, Earth makes contact with the libertarian society from the first book, but things don't go to well. The Sky Road, is about how these things came about and a Green Revolution on Earth that wiped out a good chunk of humanity. There's a fourth book in the series (dealing with the fast humans) but I haven't read it yet.
Last time I nominated three works, MacLeod's The Cassini Division, and Ali Covenestra's Joe. Instead of these two, I'd prefer to nominate the other book I nomiated last time, Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars. It's a tale of the colonization of Mars, from scientific colony to an oppressed colony of Earth. It's pretty good on the science (mostly), and it's a brilliant critique of modern neo-colonialism.
Last edited by chegitz guevara on 07-02-2003 at 04:20
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JohnT
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Capitalist
Mar 1999
time: 00:25
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quote:
Originally posted by Jon Miller
oh, and I thought you said that I could nominate books which I had not read
Jon Miller |
In the March Voting thread, both you and GP asked this question. I replied, going into my reasons as to why I thought it important that the nominator actually have read the book they are nominating. Of course, the issue was left open to discussion: GP responded, saying "Keep it up. Good work, JT." which I took as agreement; and you didn't respond at all. So I figured the issue was properly discussed and settled with the 3 people who actually cared enough about the issue having debated it and finally "voting" 2 'for' and 1 'abstain'.
I also suggested in the very first thread that, if the issue is important enough to the group, you can research a new author (defined as having published his/her first novel within the past 5 years), and we can make your selection the automatic "winner." You didn't reply to that either, I might add.
Note that nothing prevents anybody from voting for books they haven't read yet. It's just in the nomination process that one must select a book that they think is capable of carrying on a conversation, and the only way to make an honest determination is to read the novel.
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JohnT
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Capitalist
Mar 1999
time: 00:25
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Sweet. Got some good nominations going so far:
Ramo, The Dispossessed, Ursula K LeGuin
jon miller, Cosmonaut Keep, Ken McLeod
Chegitz, Red Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson
St Leo, Ringworld, Larry Niven
Wraith, Aristoi, Walter Jon Williams
Thud, Ender's Shadow, Orson Scott Card
Clear Skies, Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
JohnT, Excession, Iain M. Banks
Other than mine, one particular novel stands out, as WJW is an author I have NEVER tackled. But we'll leave the hard core lobbying for the voting thread (coming Feb. 15th).
By the way, I should point out that we might want to make sure that the novel we are selecting is readily available. A number of classics are out of print, and even with used book stores, some books and authors are very prized and are hard to find (I'm thinking Harlan Ellison, here, and Sturgeon).
Last edited by JohnT on 07-02-2003 at 23:09
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loinburger
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Sweet Sauce Jones
Jul 1999
time: 00:25
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David Drake, All the Way to the Gallows.
Edit: Damn browser...
Anyhoo, the book's a collection of short stories that are all full of what Drake calls Gallows Humor. Drake mostly writes gritty military science fiction, and occasionally he'll (usually accidentally) write something funny, but the grittiness of his writing is always reflected in his humor, e.g. "If I cut my finger then it's tragedy, and if you fall down an open manhole and die then it's comedy."
Last edited by loinburger on 07-02-2003 at 23:10
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