Search Results for: book club

Wise in the Ways of Procrastination: James Davis Nicoll on the Science Fiction Book Club, and Five Great Books He Never Meant to Read

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Ursula K. Le Guin’s Three Hainish Novels (SFBC, 1978), John Brunner’s The Sheep Look Up (Del Rey, 1981), and Triplicity (SFBC, 1980) by Thomas M. Disch. Covers: Jack Woolhiser, Murray Tinkelman, and Ron Logan Over at Tor.com, occasional Black Gate contributor James Davis Nicoll has penned a charming look back at the way the Science Fiction Book Club introduced him to some terrific science fiction. While but a callow youth, I subscribed to the Science Fiction Book Club. The club, wise…

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Future Treasures: The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

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Grady Hendrix knows horror. His Paperbacks from Hell, which Goth Chick said “takes readers on a tour through the horror paperback novels of the 1970s and ’80s… I couldn’t have found a more perfect beach read,” won the Stoker Award, and is one of the most talked-about nonfiction genre books of the last decade. His novels include Horrorstör (2011) and My Best Friend’s Exorcism (2016). His latest is The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, which is already getting a TV adaptation….

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Black Gate Book Club, Downbelow Station, Final Discussion

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Welcome to the final round of the Black Gate Book Club, where we hash out or feelings and impressions on C.J. Cherryh’s 1981 classic Downbelow Station (DbS).  We also give DbS our final score– and things get contentious! Need to catch up on the discussion?  Easily done with these convenient links to the first, second, third, and fourth rounds. Adrian S. I finished DbS last week. Third time was on the money!  Since I appeared to be the slow elephant I assume…

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Black Gate Book Club, Downbelow Station, Fourth Discussion

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Welcome back to the Black Gate Book Club! We are rapidly closing in on C.J. Cherryh’s Downbelow Station (DbS).  You can get to speed with the first, second, and third rounds. Adrian S. Fourth round! Okay, page 285 and Fletcher, you are right that things are (finally) happening quick. The Union Fleet has dropped into the system, and the Company Fleet and the militia go out to meet them.  I like the idea that all the ships look the same…

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Black Gate Book Club, Downbelow Station, Third Discussion

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Welcome to the second round of discussion on C.J. Cherryh’s classic 1981 novel Downbelow Station. New to the program? Check out the first and second rounds. We lose Chris on this one, perhaps a casualty of a bad Jump from the Beyond. Fletcher and myself carry the standard of the Black Gate Book Club as best we can! Adrian S. Third round! And it is appropriate that I just started book 3 of DbS.  I’m on page 190, so I have surpassed…

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Black Gate Book Club, Downbelow Station, Second Discussion

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Welcome to the second round of discussion on C.J. Cherryh’s classic 1981 novel Downbelow Station. New to the program? The first discussion can be found here. Chris Hocking gets the ball rolling this time around. Chris Hocking Hi people, I had business travel to do and took Downbelow Station on the plane for some serious reading. I came away from it realizing that I had developed an unusual (for me at least) attitude toward the book. This is an intense…

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Black Gate Book Club, Downbelow Station, First Discussion

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Welcome to the very first post of the Black Gate Book Club!  What are we up to?  As Fletcher Vredenburgh said in his introduction to the Book Club: The plan is to read Downbelow Station over the month of June and post a discussion of it each Monday afternoon. This time around, the Book Club participants will include Adrian Simmons, Charlene Brusso, Chris Hocking, and me. We’d love it if you’d read along with us and join in the conversation….

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Announcing the Black Gate Book Club: Downbelow Station by C.J. Cherryh

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Last year, when I reviewed C.J. Cherryh’s The Pride of Chanur, Adrian Simmons mentioned he had been thwarted by her Hugo-winning Downbelow Station (1981). That led to him suggesting another go at it, but this time with the impetus of a reading group to spur him on and to discuss it. Thus the idea of the Black Gate Book Club was born. It’s taken a year to actually get around to getting this off the ground, but here we are. For forty…

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Vintage Treasures: The Science Fiction Book Club Original Anthologies

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Last month I had a look back at one of my favorite Best of the Year series, Jonathan Strahan’s Best Short Novels, a delightful four-volume set collecting the best novellas of 2004-07 and published exclusively through the Science Fiction Book Club. SFBC did many exclusives, but that was the one that got me to excitedly rejoin the club for the first time in over a decade. It was a great time to be a member. In addition to the Strahan…

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Short Speculative Fiction: “The Karen Joy Fowler Book Club” by Nike Salway

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This is the marvelous sort of story that never quite allows you to form a picture in your head, because it’s always contradicting itself. It seems to exist on three (or more?) levels at once, strange images super-imposed on each other. On the one hand it seems a story of everyday modern life, Facebook and all, told with keen emotional resonance. There’s for instance, this passage from a mother’s perspective when her daughter has an abortion: “And afterwards, her daughter…

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