imyril @ There's Always Room For One More Giveaways, SciFiMonth, SciFiMonth 2020

#SciFiMonth Mission Log: week one

#SciFiMonth: 1-30 November 2020

Hailing all channels: it’s time for your weekly SciFiMonth round-up! With more crew aboard than ever before, it’s been a busy week and given the events happening in meatspace (my poor refresh button, it is quite worn out) it was easy to miss something. Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Grab a cuppa, and let’s take a tour of the fun so far.

Lisa and I are once again hosting half the weekly Mission Log each: check out the first half of this week’s log at Dear Geek Place for a round-up of introductions, TBRs, read-alongs, memes, tags and more. I’m here to take you through the reviews, lists, discussions and giveaways – and we’ll both be picking some favourite entries in the SciFiMonth challenge…

Housekeeping

Before we get started, a gentle reminder from your impressed but slightly overwhelmed co-hosts… please please please add a link to your posts to the Navigation Chart (master schedule spreadsheet). We do our best to keep an eye out for new posts, but with a crew this big it’s easy to miss things when work and other real life nonsense rears their mundane head.

Right, on to the fun!

Crew update

Three new crew signed up as we jetted off, so say hello to Calypte of Little Frog Scribbles, Rin of The Thirteenth Shelf and returning crewmate Michael, the Nashville Bookworm. Flying on our wing are some more familiar faces – tip your hats to Beth and Ryan at Before We Go. Welcome along for the ride, folks 🚀

Book Reviews

TV & Movie Reviews

Discussions

For day 4, our SciFiMonth prompt was celebrate a sub-genre. JonBob flew the flag for cyberpunk while Alex gave us a round-up along with her reasons for loving milSF (she’s not so keen on time travel, tho). If you love fantasy as much as Anouk, she recommends dipping into science fantasy for the best of both worlds. Arina couldn’t pick just one sub-genre (and there’s always room for one more, as you know) so gave us a selection of the greatest sci-fi sub-genres.

Lists and recommendations

Get a crew of geeks together and encourage them to enthuse about what we love best and you bet there will be enough recommendations to wreck your no-buy plans for a year. Proceed with caution. We make no apologies.

Books out now

Crini got in early with a round-up of her Top 10 Queer SF Books of 2020. Dianthaa picked 12 recommendations based on her 2020 reading so far. New crewmate Joanna considered some classic Sci-Fi Faves, while Amanda took a look at all the SF on her TBR.

Susy hasn’t always had the best relationship with scifi, but had no problem picking 10 SF Books you can’t go past. Sammie had some recommendations for fantasy readers who want to give SF a spin. Mogsy homed in (sorry not sorry) on top Colonization Sci-Fi. Alex featured two recent releases she can’t wait to read and revisited two great series from the 70s.

Prefer audio books? Don’t worry – Amanda rounded up some really great sci-fi narrations.

If you’re looking for something shorter, Rin has you covered with 5 SF short stories you might like to explore.

Settings phasers to tantalise, I rounded up ten of my favourite SF opening lines as the best way to get sucked in to a book.

Coming to a shelf near you soon

Needless to say, we got just as excited about releases headed our way over the next few months. Lauren profiled 10 upcoming releases she can’t wait to read at Always Me.

Over at Books, Bones & Buffy, Tammy took an in-depth look at future fiction by Nino Cipri, David Ebenbach, Elly Bangs and Neil Sharpson – and treated us to a round-up for 14 SF titles heading our way in 2021.

Lorraine went the whole nine yards with a 2021 SF Book Masterlist – catch up on Part One and brace your TBR for Part Two!

Movies and TV

Who doesn’t love curling up with a movie or a mainlining a boxset? If you’re wondering what to watch next, the crew shared some favourites this week to add to your watchlists:

Gaming

Mass Effect was front and centre this week, with a flash giveaway from Kirsten at Video Games as Lit and Lorraine sharing 5 reasons to play the Mass Effect trilogy at Geeky Galaxy. Other games are available: Molly’s Book Nook shared 5 favourite sci-fi games for you to explore.

Giveaways

  • UK Early Bird: Nicky the Bibliophibian won a copy of Unconquerable Sun by Kate Elliott
  • International All Hands: Jess of Jessticulates wins a copy of Seven Devils by Laura Lam & Elizabeth May
  • The Dear Geek Place giveaway: Lisa will be arranging for a book from The Portal Bookshop to wing its way to Calypte of Little Frog Scribbles
  • The Video Games As Lit flash giveaway of a copy of Mass Effect: Revelation by Drew Karpyshyn is now closed, winner to be announced

Don’t worry, there are more giveaways coming up…

  • SciFiMonth alumnus and author EM Harding is celebrating the first birthday of Moon Sitting with an impromptu giveaway: enter via Twitter before November 12 for a chance to win a proof of Moon Sitting, bookmark, sketch or face mask
  • …and as I’ve just realised that There’s Always Room For One More will be celebrating it’s 5th blogiversary on Thanksgiving, watch out for a birthday giveaway announcement next week!

The SciFiMonth Challenge

The SciFiMonth challenge has (historically at least) been lower-key than the Wyrd and Wonder event. I’m just picking a handful to showcase this week, but rest assured I’m loving the pics on the feed each day!

Let’s start with a perfect set-up for the month from Annemieke:

Shout out to Jake for an epic stack and on-topic sartorial choices!

Last up, hats off to Ollie for posting every day so far!

Made a post we haven’t mentioned? Add a link to the Navigation Chart, and we’ll be sure to include it next week. The cut-off for adding to the schedule is an arbitrary time on Sunday afternoon UK time, depending on what life has thrown at us.

Right – time to set our course for another week and see what delights SciFiMonth has in store…