We’re in the final stages of our mission now, seeing how many planets and space stations we can visit before we regretfully turn for home. Time for our weekly round-up of what’s been going on…

Giveaways

• Take the Deanna Reads Guess the SF Book quiz – the winner will receive a book of their choice (up to $30) from the Book Depository.
  • Closing date: 1st December
• Avada Kedavra is offering one lucky winner the choice of any one of John Scalzi’s The Collapsing Empire, Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Signal to Noise or Connie Willis’s The Doomsday Book – get on over to Bookish Muggle and leave a comment to enter the draw
  • Closing date: 4th December
• Watch out for an announcement from Tammy at Books, Bones, Buffy this week for one last end of month giveaway!
• And the winner of Watching Skies: Star Wars, Spielberg and Us by Mark O’Connell is Lucille of A Dragon in Space!

Reviews and features

I’ll gush a bit more next week, but OH MY STARS you are the best SciFiMonth Fleet! I know, I know, I get to do this one more time, but every week I compile the round up I’m blown away by all the SF love. Keep flying the flag, folks!

Regular Features

No matter how far we go, our weekly round of regular posts gives us something to familiar to hang on to:

• Music Monday – Lauren at Always Me is closing our her SciFiMonth playlist with the haunting soundtrack from Ex Machina
• Teaser Tuesday – Maria at A Night’s Dream of Books wants to reread Bio of Space Tyrant in her slight tweak to the Purple Booker’s weekly meme, while S J Higbee shared an excerpt from Star Nomad (check out the review, too)
• Top Ten Tuesday (now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl) was a Thanksgiving freebie, so we had all sorts of interesting things to be grateful for: Annemieke at A Dance with Books shared some great sites for SF recommendations once SciFiMonth is over; while Lynn of Lynn’s Books celebrated her favourite SF movies and I banged the drum for SF written by women that you might enjoy even if you’re not wild about SF. Mogsy at The Bibliosanctum got serious with her Top Ten SF Reads of 2018, and Lauren looked ahead to SF coming out in 2019.
• Waiting on Wednesday / Can’t Wait Wednesdays – now hosted by Wishful Endings – had us all focused on the future! Lynn called our attention to C A Fletcher’s post-apocalyptic A Boy And His Dog At The End of The World; Tammy of Books, Bones, Buffy banged the drum for Max Gladstone’s upcoming space opera Empress of Forever; Maria at A Night’s Dream of Books is excited about Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner’s Unearthed sequel Undying and Mogsy has no fear of spiders as she looks forward to Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Ruin.
• Thursday is an irregular day, but Friday is all about Friday 56/Book Beginning/Friday 50-50. Lauren spotlighted Melissa Landers new series Starflight, while Sassy Brit at Alternative Read got alphabetical with the Star Wars Geektionary.

Special Features

Annemieke kicked us off with a look at biopunk (not sure what it is? Don’t worry, she’ll explain!), while Deanna rued all the SF games she hasn’t yet played (but if you’ve got some suggestions of others she should play, she’d love to hear about them).

Caitlin of Realms of My Mind wrote about a favourite trope : the ragtag ship’s crew (YAAAAAS) and Alexandra Wolfe wondered whether alien invasion was the most likely form of first contact (yes, this is a sly gambit to share some excellent recommendations. Well played). Kaleena of Reader Voracious and Norrie of Reading Under the Blankie took the Genre Tag (tag yourself and play along!). I persuaded my co-host Lisa of Dear Geek Place and regular co-conspirator Misforawesome to join me for a discussion of the merits of Syfy’s The Expanse vs James S A Corey’s excellent books.

Time for a few last recommendations! Alexandra Wolfe had an epic set of SF books by subgenre. Got an interest in Futuristic Disasters or Alt Timelines? She’s got you covered. Meanwhile, Annemieke covered SF by age to check out adult vs YA vs middle grade titles.

Book Reviews

Your weekly recap by author of reviews from the SciFiMonth fleet this week:

• Dan Abnett – Torchwood: Border Princes | Always Me
• Margaretha van Andel – In Transit | A Dance With Books
• J M Anjewierden – The Long Black | S J Higbee
• K A Applegate – Animorphs: The Invasion | Absolute Shannonigans
• James Blish – Spock Must Die!A Night’s Dream of Books |
• Rob Boffard – Adrift | The Bibliosanctum
• Pierce Brown – Golden Son | Deanna Reads
• Pierce Brown – Morning Star | Always Me
• Lindsey Buroker – Star Nomad | S J Higbee
• Justin Cronin – The Passage | Hibernator’s Library
• Frank Herbert – Dune | Elena Square Eyes
• Dave Hutchinson – Europe at Dawn | There’s Always Room for One More
• Lydia Kang – Toxic | The Bibliosanctum
• Amie Kaufmann & Jay Kristoff – Obsidio | Always Me
• Mur Lafferty – Six Wakes | Book Forager
• B V Larson – Battle Cruiser | S J Higbee
• Matt Maxwell – Empress of No Tomorrows | Bones, Books, Buffy
• Tim Meyer – Sharkwater Beach | Chuckles Book Cave
• Nnedi Okorafor – Binti | Realms of My Mind
• Alastair Reynolds – Revenger | A Dance With Books
• Justin Richards – Doctor Who: Apollo 23 | Always Me
• Rebecca Roanhorse – Trail of Lightning | Absolute Shannonigans
• Neal Shusterman – Unwind | Always Me
• Emily Skrutskie – The Abyss Surrounds Us | Deanna Reads
• Corey J White – Killing Gravity | There’s Always Room for One More
• Rick Yancey – The Last Star | Deanna Reads

…plus a movie review of Gattaca by Elena Square Eyes.

Photo Challenge / Book Tag

Annemieke took the #RRSciFiMonth Book Tag this week (and oh heck yes,  Rackmore is a great choice for BAE – that epic library!)

On November 22nd, Serena got right to the point:

Can’t argue with that! And can anyone resist zooming in to read the spines on #ShelfieSunday? I know I can’t…

Check out the photo stream for #RRSciFiMonth on Twitter to see all the photos or check the tag on Instagram or Litsy.

Read-along

The SciFiMonth read-along of The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet is finished, but we’ll be BACK in January for A Closed and Common Orbit, continuing on to Record of a Spaceborn Few in March!

Week 1 recaps: Jorie’s first impressions | Lisa’s thoughts

Week 2 recaps: Jorie | Lisa

Watch out for the week 3 recaps coming later this week…

Right. To your stations, crew! There’s a few days left in our epic journey, so let’s make the most of them!