Tuesday is the new Monday in some timeline or other: in this one, it’s time for a weekly SciFiMonth round-up! Grab a cuppa and settle in to catch up on what your our awesome crew have been talking about over the past seven(ish) days before we – gasp, already? – set a course for the second half of SciFiMonth…
Each week, Lisa and I split the logs between us to bring you a full update of everything that’s been going on. This week, you can head on over to Dear Geek Place for a round-up of reviews, discussions and read-alongs or keeping reading for a deep dive into the first half of the SciFiMonth challenge, giveaways and other fun posts that popped up this week.
Crew update
There’s a few new faces in the crew mess this week: welcome back to Lex at Lex Lingua and a warm welcome to first time fliers Reading Tonic and Priya of Crazy Kid Journal 🚀
Book Blurb is now know as The Dreadnought, featuring original short fiction along with reviews and discussion – good luck to Alex and team with the new direction.
The SciFiMonth Challenge
Each year we generate a list of prompts to keep you busy through the month – for tweets, pictures, recommendations, discussions or whatever else the crew choose to do with them. Last week I focused on blog posts, but there’s entries buzzing around Twitter too – I’ve pulled together a selection from the first half of the month:
Day 1: SciFiMonth TBRs
Day 2: Hello Dolly #TropeTuesday (clones)
Six Wakes and Peter F Hamilton get the nod from @HauntedReading
Day 3: Make way (recent debuts)
@HauntedReading has some recent space opera debuts
Day 4: #ThrowbackThursday – rated fresh (at least 2 years old)
Day 5: International author
It was Russian recs over at @HauntedReading
Day 6: #StackSaturday
Alastair Reynolds was a popular choice
Day 7: Fun and games
Day 8: Add to ship’s library
If you could add one SF book you’ve read since last November, what would it be?
- Alex went with Holmesian speculative fiction anthology Two Hundred And Twenty-One Baker Streets at The Dreadnought
- @HauntedReading recommends Adrian Tchaikovsky (always a SciFiMonth fave!)
Day 9: Sweet dreams #TropeTuesday (cryosleep)
- Alex has some classics at The Dreadnought
- Mervih found a stack of iconic books and movies at Mervi’s Book Reviews
Day 10: Books of a single hue
Grab your sunglasses!
Day 11: #ThrowbackThursday – modern classic (at least 10 years old)
Lauren picked some 2011 YA faves at Always Me
Day 12: Independent voices
James rose to the challenge with a heap of small presses to keep your eye on at Alligators and Aneurysms
Day 13: Teach an old dog new tricks (SFnal retelling)
…did I miss these? Guess I know what I need to post about this week!
Day 14: Book rainbow
Other Fun
The week in features always starts with Music Monday – Lauren at Always Me started SciFiMonth off by celebrating the music of Netflix’s Space Sweepers.
Wednesdays focus on upcoming releases: Tammy featured a star theme for her Future Fiction picks this week, with titles from Ren Hutchings, Gareth L Powell and Maurice Broaddus. The Bibliosanctum featured Paul Cornell’s Rosebud (a lock-room SF novella? Can’t wait!)
The Friday Face-Off hosted at Lynn’s Books ushers in the week-end. The second SciFiMonth prompt was a book with a star in the title – Tammy featured an epic line-up of different SF titles (stars feature quite often, whodathunk) while Mogsy featured The Stars Now Unclaimed at the Bibliosanctum.
In other Friday fun, Lauren focused on her current read Beautiful Chaos by Gary Russell for the Friday 56 (with Book Beginnings).
I’m running late, so it’s double the fun in weekly round-ups: Co-captain Lisa reviewed her Week in Geek and announced The 2021 Subjective Chaos Kind of Award Winners (sure they’re not all scifi, but we’re quite sure you should read them all) at Dear Geek Place. Over at Always Me, Lauren features weekly mini-reviews of her SciFiMonth reads and watching: week one includes thoughts on Eternals, Event Horizon and In The Shadow Of The Moon; week two features Rugal, Predator, Moon and Stowaway.
Book / Blog Tags
Who doesn’t love a tag? There’s some good ones circulating around the crew:
- (Another) Star Trek Book Tag (where is Zezee finding them all?) | Zezee With Books
- The Bookish Memory Check: SF Edition| There’s Always Room For One More
- The Intergalactic Book Tag | Classy X Book Reviews
Giveaways
- Last chance: The Bibliosanctum giveaway of Ready Player Two closes TODAY (US only)
- Book Bingo: those taking part in the SciFiMonth Book Bingo have a chance to win a book of their choice up to £20 (incl. delivery); full terms and conditions. Open internationally until end of day on Dec 1
- Crew members: co-captain Lisa is offering a chance to win a book of their choice up to £20 from the Book Depository. You must be signed up with SciFiMonth and have actively participated (by contributing blog post(s), regular tweets, and/or instagram posts etc). Open internationally until Nov 30
- SciFiMonth: Tammy will offer 2 winners a choice of 1 SF book at the end of the month – watch out for more details from Books, Bones & Buffy
…and watch out for another giveaway announcement from me later this week!
Housekeeping
Made a post I haven’t mentioned? Add the link to the Master Schedule and we’ll include it next week. The cut-off for adding to the schedule is usually an arbitrary time on Sunday, depending on what life has thrown at us. Don’t worry – if you add it later, we’ll include it in the following week’s log.
Time to set our course see what the second half of SciFiMonth has in store for us…
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