VOTE: April Challenge
As you know, for 2011 we are no longer doing themes. Instead, selections are based on my to-be-read pile, and organized in an Alphabet Soup manner. So the titles of your selections for at least the first half of 2011 will go in alphabetical order. For the second half of the year, alphabetization will be based on the author's last name.
Now, if you signed up for the 2011 book club and told me you wanted a say in what made it to the polls, let me tell you how that worked:
This month's poll is slightly different. In the past few months, you've gotten one title per letter, but one thing I realized is that some titles in my TBR pile are letter heavy, and this is one of those months. There were a TON of "M" titles to choose from, few "N" and few "P" and absolutely no "O". Rather than trying to force the theme to one title per letter (which might mean forcing all of you to vote on a title you just don't care about), I decided the book clubbers would get ONE BIG POLL with all the eligible titles, and for the most, the titles with the most nominations made it to this poll.
I say almost because Justin Cronin's The Passage tied with Lauren Beukes's Moxyland for nominations, and I had every intention of including it in this poll, but when I checked on Amazon, I learned that the paperback version of the title would be available in MAY, and I thought to myself, "That sucks. This is going to be April's challenge, and if it wins, people won't be able to get the paperback if they want." So with that in mind, I left it off the poll. Don't worry, you'll probably see it again over the course of the year, given the way the polls work, so don't worry if you REALLY wanted to vote for that title. You'll get to. Just not this month. :)
Everyone, whether you signed up for the challenge or not, is allowed to vote. But please, don't vote unless you have every intention of reading the book you select if it wins, okay? And if you don't like the choices, then sign up for 2011 and tell me you want your voice heard!
Also, if you don't have a Live Journal account but can comment using OpenID, just go to Live Journal's home page and in the upper right-hand corner, log in using said OpenID address, and then you can vote on this page!
Kelly Link: Magic for Beginners
The nine stories in Link's second collection are the spitting image of those in her acclaimed debut, Stranger Things Happen: effervescent blends of quirky humor and pathos that transform stock themes of genre fiction into the stuff of delicate lyrical fantasy. In "Stone Animals," a house's haunting takes the unusual form of hordes of rabbits that camp out nightly on the front lawn. This proves just one of several benign but inexplicable phenomena that begin to pull apart the family newly moved into the house as surely as a more sinister supernatural influence might. The title story beautifully captures the unpredictable potential of teenage lives through its account of a group of adolescent schoolfriends whose experiences subtly parallel events in a surreal TV fantasy series. Zombies serve as the focus for a young man's anxieties about his future in "Some Zombie Contingency Plans" and offer suggestive counterpoint to the lives of two convenience store clerks who serve them in "The Hortlak." Not only does Link find fresh perspectives from which to explore familiar premises, she also forges ingenious connections between disparate images and narrative approaches to suggest a convincing alternate logic that shapes the worlds of her highly original fantasies. (synopsis ganked from Amazon)
John Scalzi: Metatropolis
Five original tales set in a shared urban future -- from some of the hottest young writers in modern SF:
A strange man comes to an even stranger encampment...a bouncer becomes the linchpin of an unexpected urban movement...a courier on the run has to decide who to trust in a dangerous city...a slacker in a "zero-footprint" town gets a most unusual new job...and a weapons investigator uses his skills to discover a metropolis hidden right in front of his eyes.
Welcome to the future of cities. Welcome to Metatropolis.
More than an anthology, Metatropolis is the brainchild of five of science fiction's hottest writers -- Elizabeth Bear, Tobias Buckell, Jay Lake, Karl Schroeder, and project editor John Scalzi -- who combined their talents to build a new urban future, and then wrote their own stories in this collectively-constructed world. The results are individual glimpses of a shared vision, and a reading experience unlike any you've had before. (synopsis ganked from Barnes & Noble)
Robert A. Heinlein: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Robert A. Heinlein was the most influential science fiction writer of his era, an influence so large that, as Samuel R. Delany notes, "modern critics attempting to wrestle with that influence find themselves dealing with an object rather like the sky or an ocean." He won the Hugo Award for best novel four times, a record that still stands. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress was the last of these Hugo-winning novels, and it is widely considered his finest work.
It is a tale of revolution, of the rebellion of the former Lunar penal colony against the Lunar Authority that controls it from Earth. It is the tale of the disparate people-a computer technician, a vigorous young female agitator, and an elderly academic -- who become the rebel movement's leaders. And it is the story of Mike, the supercomputer whose sentience is known only to this inner circle, and who for reasons of his own is committed to the revolution's ultimate success.
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is one of the high points of modern science fiction, a novel bursting with politics, humanity, passion, innovative technical speculation, and a firm belief in the pursuit of human freedom. (synopsis ganked from Barnes & Noble)
Lauren Beukes: Moxyland
What's really going on? Who's really in charge? You have NO. F***KING. IDEA.
A frighteningly persuasive, high-tech fable, this novel follows the lives of four narrators living in an alternative futuristic Cape Town, South Africa. An art-school dropout, and AIDS baby, a tech-activist and an RPG-obsessed blogger live in a world where your online identity is at least as important as your physical one. Getting disconnected is a punishment worse than imprisonment, but someone's got to stand up to Government Inc. - whatever the cost. Taking hedonistic trends in society to their ultimate conclusions, this tale paints anything but a forecasted utopia, satirically undermining the reified idea of progress as society's white knight.
File Under: Science Fiction [ Digital Natives | Corporate Wars | Future | Teenage Riot ] (synopsis ganked from Barnes & Noble)
Remember, pick the book that interests you the most. Even if this isn't your genre of choice, the idea is to challenge yourself. Read something new. You never know, you might like it. :)
And while this might be obvious, consider the following before making your selection:
1) Does the premise interest you?
2) Do the first couple of pages (if available) interest you?
3) Do any of the reviews on Amazon (or elsewhere) make you reconsider?
Don't vote solely on the prettiest cover (tempting as it might be), and that's especially true if you don't plan on reading the book, because your vote dictates what others (like me!) are going to read for the challenge. And don't let the three questions above scare you out of a book, and don't let them convince you that you won't like any of them. The trick IS to challenge yourself, but I hope you're giving each book a fair shake before voting. :) I want you to know what you're getting into if your selection wins!
Know what you want to read? Then it's time to vote!
Poll April Challenge
Please note, I will not vote unless it is to break a tie.
You've got until midnight, Friday February 11th to make your decision. Vote for the book that YOU want to read the most, and if you're torn, tough. You gotta pick one. :) If you've already read ALL of the books, pick the one you'd most like to re-read. If you're not participating, then maybe next month will bring something more to your liking. :)
I'll announce the official winner on February 12th, so don't pick up your copy (whether you buy or borrow) until I make it official. Unless, of course, all of these books are so appealing to you that you must have them all. In that case, have fun and start reading! :)