[Reading Group] Voting Open for February 2014

[Philip Overby]

If you want to view more details about each nomination, check out this thread. http://mythicscribes.com/forums/novels-stories/10740-%5Breading-group%5D-nominations-open.html

Please only vote for your top 3 books. Let's close the voting by January 12th, 2014 (this weekend) Also please only vote if you intend to participate in the group. Don't vote just to vote.

Since GeekDavid started the group but hasn't posted in several weeks, I decided to take the initiative and move this forward. If he comes back, I'll be happy to relegate direction of the group back to him. Here was his original plan:

Looking at the calendar, and bearing in mind the holiday season, I'm gonna suggest this time frame... we'll accept nominations until the end of the year, then we'll take the first couple of weeks of January to vote. The book discussion will start February 1st, so you'll have a little over a month to read it. After the January vote is over we'll also open up new nominations for books be discussed during March.

The theme for the first set of nominations is... stories that mix magic and technology. Those of us who have limited means and who have e-readers would like to ask everyone to consider price, general availability in libraries, and availability in e-book format when making your nominations.

So let's keep this in mind when voting. Instead of doing a poll, just comment your choice below.

Stormdancer by Jay Kristoff
Only in Death by Dan Abnett (Warhammer 40K)
Clockwork Angels by Kevin J. Anderson
Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence
The Black Company by Glen Cook (I think this is what is being nominated?)
Into the Darkness by Harry Turtledove
The Iron Dragon's Daughter by Michael Swanwick
Empire of the East by Fred Saberhagen
Dune by Frank Herbert
Seduction of a Wanton Dreamer by Richard Beeson

Note: If you vote for 3 books, this will increase the chance of overlap in votes so we can come to a consensus more quickly.

 

[Philip Overby]

I'm voting for two I nominated, and one I didn't.

1. Stormdancer
2. Dune
3. Clockwork Angels

 

[Steerpike]

1. Only in Death
2. The Iron Dragon's Daughter
3. Prince of Thorns

Ah well, at least the chance of overlap was higher I admit I wouldn't mind re-reading Dune if it came to it.

 

[Philip Overby]

If we don't get any consensus, we can always offer up alternatives as you did. I'll see what the other votes come out to first before offering any other alternatives myself.

 

[Steerpike]

If we don't get any consensus, we can always offer up alternatives as you did. I'll see what the other votes come out to first before offering any other alternatives myself.

True. And I posted my preferences only. I'm happy to read anything and contribute to the reading group, so whatever book is chosen is just fine by me.

 

[Philip Overby]

Need some more votes everyone! If we're going to keep this alive, come here and vote!

 

[Ginger Bee]

I'll vote for just one. Seduction of a Wanton Dreamer.

 

[Caged Maiden]

#1 Prince of Thorns
#2 The Black Company
and since you asked for three...
#3 The Iron Dragon's Daughter

It took me all day to read reviews and I didn't even get through all the titles, but those sound most interesting to me.

 

[Ankari]

1. Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence
2. The Black Company by Glen Cook
3. Only in Death by Dan Abnett

 

[Caged Maiden]

this is a good idea rather than poll, where people might simply vote based on the previous votes. Are the only peopel allowed to vote the ones who are reading? Because it would be a shame if a bunch of people voted and then backed out because they didn't like the book that was chosen. I'm pretty okay reading anything, but that would sour the deal for me. How many more votes are we waiting for? Do we have the names of everyone who signed up?

 

[Philip Overby]

Since this looks to be a rather small group, I don't suspect anyone would back out if one of their choices wasn't selected. At least of those who have posted so far, you, Steerpike, and me are fine with whatever is chosen. I presume others might be as well.

Anytime you do votes for book clubs, however, there are going to be people who back out either because they already read the book or a book they didn't want to read is chosen. Either that or suddenly they don't have time to read it or whatever the case may be. I think as long as we have a core group that read the books and participate in discussion it'll be fine.

The only people who posted in the originally thread who haven't voted are:

GeekDavid
Svrtnsse
Sparkie
Quillstine

So I figure we'll wait until January 12th to see if anyone else has votes, I'll tally them up and then we'll have our book for February discussion. I've seen other book clubs like Fantasy-Faction's (which is also good if you want to check it out) separate the discussions into multiple weeks. Meaning they'd give one week for Chapters 1-6 or something like that. That way if some people want to read ahead, they can, but they have to wait until the following weeks to discuss the books.

Of course, I'm just saying what I think would work. I've sort of spearheaded this in lieu of GeekDavid since he hasn't been on the site in a while. If he returns, like I've mentioned before, I'll turn it back over to him to decide how he wants to organize certain things.

 

[Philip Overby]

Votes so far:

1 Stormdancer
1 Dune
1 Clockwork Angels
2 Only in Death
2 The Iron Dragon's Daughter
3 Prince of Thorns
2 The Black Company
1 Seduction of a Wanton Dreamer.

So far Prince of Thorns is in the lead. Let's see if anyone else chimes in.

 

[Caged Maiden]

Yeah, so the discussion will cover the whole book and be a sort of general one I'm assuming? Plot, writing style, readability, characters... just an overview and in depth where we have more to say?

 

[Philip Overby]

I figure it can be as in-depth or casual as each member cares to make it. I find that groups that have too many rules tend to get ignored, while ones that don't have any rules may suffer the same. As long as we have some sort of guidelines (discuss Chapters 1-6 in Week 1, etc.) I guess it should move along smoothly. That said, I don't know a lot about how most book clubs work, so if someone has a good way to keep it organized and moving along, that would be great.

Let's give a couple of more days to vote and then we'll have our book up for discussion in February.

 

[Caged Maiden]

Would you like me to give a sort of short form a stab? I could shoot it to you for perusal, but sort of like the crit forms we used to use for the Mythic Scribes Crit group. Just a few key things to inspire conversation?

 

[Philip Overby]

Maybe post something here and see what other members think. I don't want to force anything on members if they prefer a more casual discussion.

 

[Philip Overby]

Well, let's get our last votes in today so we can pick the book for February. Hope people are still on board!