Hailing all channels: it’s time to catch up with the rest of the crew! Grab a cuppa while we set our coordinates for last week and get ready to enjoy some features, discussions and Instagram delights…
Lisa has the first half of this week’s log at Dear Geek Place – head over for a round-up of reviews, read-alongs and interviews. I’m here to take you through the lists, memes, tags, discussions and giveaways – with a shout out for the SciFiMonth challenge!
Regular Features
Music Monday
Start the week with a musical number? Don’t mind if we do. Last week’s choice of listening:
- Last week…
- Lauren treated us to the cyberpunk sounds of the Melodicka Bros
- Maxine went to the Moon and back with a 90s favourite
- …this week
- Maxine gave us a proper SciFiMonth send-off with Space Oddity
- Saddle up! Lauren celebrated an 80s classic
- Ollie’s final book!music challenge for the month was to find a perfect partner for The Left Hand of Darkness
Top Ten Tuesday
We’ve got an eclectic bunch of Top Ten Tuesdays as the crew went off-topic and devised SFnal topics:
- Jess focused on SF by indigenous authors | Jessticulates
- Maddalena celebrated her favourite SF shows | Space and Sorcery
- Lauren picked favourite SF featuring found families | Always Me
- Maryam looked ahead to the most exciting SF heading our way in 2021 | The Curious SFF Reader
- I considered all the ways authors have ended the world | There’s Always Room For One More
On the scopes
Thanks to the efforts of Jill at Breaking the Spine back in the day, Wednesdays are all about featuring future releases
- Can’t-Wait Wednesday: SJ Higbee featured A Desollation Called Peace by Arkady Martine | Brainfluff
- Waiting on Wednesday: Mogsy featured Day Zero by C Robert Cargill | The Bibliosanctum
- Future Fiction: Tammy showcased upcoming (post)apocalypses from C Robert Cargill, Gene Doucette, Caroline Hardaker and JT Nicholas | Books, Bones & Buffy
Friday fun
- Friday Face-off: “Modern SF”
- SJ Higbee chose starships and explosions on the covers of Gareth L Powell’s Embers of War | Brainfluff
- Tammy picked an iconic Scalzi cover with Head On | Books, Bones & Buffy
- Mogsy went with Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty | The Bibliosanctum
- Book Beginnings
- Lauren shared the classic opening of the Total Recall novelisation by Piers Anthony | Always Me
Discussions and Special Features
- Jessticulates called out the SF novels she’d like to see on-screen
- Anouk blasted off with the Intergalactic Book Tag
- SJ Higbee featured the Serrano Legacy by Elizabeth Moon for her weekly cover art appreciation
- We Got To Know The SF Readers | A Dance with Books | Parsecs & Parchment
- Maxine has been Stacking the Shelves with surprising restraint!
- Joanna discussed the challenge of depicting aliens who have no common frame of reference
- Annemieke identified six things she’s thankful for in modern SF
Lists and recommendations
With a crew full of people encouraged to enthuse about what we love best, the recommendations continue to come thick and fast. Brace those TBRs, open those hearts:
- Sci-5 Alien Invasions | The Bibliosanctum
- Great SF Series I’ve Discovered This Year | Brainfluff
- Best SF of 2020 So Far | Books, Bones & Buffy
- Top Ten SF Reads of 2020 | The Bibliosanctum
- Upcoming SF I’m Excited About | Dear Geek Place
- If You Liked This, Try That | Classy X Book Reviews
Last but not least, it was the final weekly showcase of Self-Published SF at Books, Bones & Buffy – many thanks to Tammy for introducing us to so many exciting new voices.
SciFiMonth on Instagram
Hats off to Ollie for storming through the SciFiMonth Challenge (I totally failed to keep up, shame on me. Maybe I can play catch up through the winter?); plus some non-Challenge picks from the crew taking all things SciFiMonth to Instagram.
Day 29 | Book Rainbow – Ollie @ Infinite_Speculation
2020 debut – @Jakeisreading reviews The First Sister
Up next – @Cyborg_Book_Club gets excited for The Space Between Worlds
All the keen – @arrakistowesteros shared this gorgeous shot that encapsulates our enthusiasm for our genre!
Giveaways
- There’s Always Room For One More turned five last week – I’d like to celebrate by giving away one of the books I’ve reviewed in the past five years. Enter on the blogiversary post by December 3rd. Open internationally.
- Lauren is giving away one of her favourite 5 star SF reads to celebrate the end of SciFiMonth. Enter via Rafflecopter at Always Me by December 6th. US only.
And finally…
SciFiMonth is nearly over – but we’ll be back one last time at the end of the week to share your final posts…
…and hang onto your magboots – we’ll be BACK in the spring for an all-new SciFiMonth spin-off mini-event! All Systems Read will be a weekend of catching up on our SF TBRs. We plan to spend 4 days storming through more SFnal reads in a casual Easter weekend readathon. Will you join us?
onemore.org 