imyril @ There's Always Room For One More Giveaways, SciFiMonth, SciFiMonth 2021

#SciFiMonth Mission Log: it’s a wrap

SciFiMonth 2021 (1-30 November): Words full of hope and threat, like the stars

And suddenly it’s December, which means that SciFiMonth is over and we must all return to Earth (or other planet, universe or reality of choice). Before we do, there’s time for our final round-up of the crew’s adventures from the final week and a bit.

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 the final reviews, recommendations, read-along thoughts and other discussions – or stay with me for interviews, tags, giveaways, a deep dive into the second half of the SciFiMonth challenge and – sniff – wrap posts.

Book / Blog Tags

Tags are a blogger’s best friend and one of my great SciFiMonth delights – creative excuses for talking about some of our favourite books (and being prompted into talking about ones we don’t mention often enough). This week featured

Features

The week always starts with Music Monday – and it’s a double helping this time around as we waited a few days for our final SciFiMonth round-up. Lauren at Always Me brought us subgenre-inspired themes for the second half of SciFiMonth. First up, some cyberpunk-inspired synthwave sounds – then playing us out with some steampunk themes by Brandon Fiechter and Luis Humaiode.

Wednesdays focus on upcoming releases: Tammy’s Future Fiction picks at Books, Bones & Buffy included titles Rich Larson (SFnal Beowulf, no less), Christopher Rowe and Paul Cornell. The Bibliosanctum featured Rob Hart’s The Paradox Hotel – a time travelling murder mystery. Probably.

The Friday Face-Off hosted at Lynn’s Books was focused on black holes last week – at the Bibliosanctum, Mogsy featured the stellar covers of Broken Stars (a collection of Chinese SF translated and edited by Ken Liu). Lauren focused on Dauntless by Jack Campbell and Outpost by W Michael Gear for the Friday 56 (with Book Beginnings) at Always Me.

But not all features are moored in time. Alex handed over the keyboard at Dreadnought Press to Vincent H O’Neil for a guest post on what he’s learned about writing military SF. I interviewed British author Chris Farnell and invited him to talk about his inspirations and aspirations for novella series Fermi’s Progress.

Last up, a couple of last minute posts I couldn’t let slip past unmentioned: Lauren shared a Top Ten Tuesday of hidden gems at Always Me, while over at A Dance With Books, Annemieke has some recommendations for books to read if you loved Star Trek: Picard. And it is that time of year – make way for the first round-up of Best SF of 2021 at The Bibliosanctum.

Giveaways

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. Time to enjoy (some of? the cursed bird app makes retrospectives really hard) the second half of the challenge entries!

Day 7: Fun and games

A late entry from The Bibliosanctum for what proved to be one of the tougher prompts this year – Mogsy to the rescue with a Sci-5 of gaming and virtual worlds in SF.

Day 15: Current read

Day 16: I can kill you with my mind #TropeTuesday (psychic powers)

Day 17: Remote moon reads

Our SFnal spin on Desert Island Discs Books asked our crew to nominate 8 books, 1 tv show or movie and a luxury item to see them through the dark days until rescue after a solar flare knocked out their comms and other systems on a remote moon base (oops). Of course they rose to the challenge! I’m still not over the adorable reversible stuffed octopus…

Day 18: #ThrowbackThursday – well-matured (at least 30 years old)

Day 19: SF in translation

Day 20: Too old for this shit

Day 21: Spine poetry

Always one of the toughest prompts, and one of the most rewarding – I love seeing what our crew can craft from what’s on the shelf!

Day 22: Can’t wait to read

Day 23: Artificially yours #TropeTuesday (digital consciousness)

Day 24: We’ve come a long way baby

Day 25: #ThrowbackThursday – turn back time (at least 50 years old)

Day 26: Judge a book by its cover artist

Day 27: I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe (dramatisations)

Day 28: #ShelfieSunday

Day 29: Let’s do that again

Wrapping up

Sadly this is the end of our adventures for this year – some of the crew have been looking back on their journeys before we go:

Signing out

Sure I read scifi all year round as the mood takes me, but I take huge pleasure in spending a month each autumn revelling in one of my favourite genres with a bunch of like-minded geeks. A big thank you to all of our crew for your enthusiasm, insightful comments, TBR-devastating recommendations and playful posts.

Next year will be the TENTH SciFiMonth (AAAAAAAH) – so we’ll be making plans on how best to celebrate! Got some ideas? Want to plot something with us? Drop us a line, we’re all ears.