MobileRead October 2009 Book Club Nominations

[pilotbob]

Help us select the next book that the Mobile Read book club will read for October 2009.

The nominations will run through Sep 27.
Voting (new poll thread) will run for 5 days starting Sep 27.

Book selection category for February per the "official" club opening thread is:

October
MobileRead Author

In order for a book to be included in the poll it needs THREE NOMINATIONS (original nomination, a second and a third).

How Does This Work?
The Mobile Read Book Club (MRBC) is an informal club that requires nothing of you. Each month a book is selected by polling. On the last week of that month a discussion thread is started for the book. If you want to participate feel free. There is no need to "join" or sign up. All are welcome.

How Does a Book Get Selected?
Each book that is nominated will be listed in a pool at the end of the nomination period. The book that polls the most votes will be the official selection.

How Many Nominations Can I Make?
Each participant has 3 nominations. You can nominate a new book for consideration or nominate (second, third) one that has already been nominated by another person.

How Do I Nominate a Book?
Please just post a message with your nomination. If you are the FIRST to nominate a book, please try to provide an abstract to the book so others may consider their level of interest.

How Do I Know What Has Been Nominated?
Just follow the thread. This message will be updated with the status of the nominations as often as I can. If one is missed, please just post a message with a multi-quote of the 3 nominations and it will be added to the list ASAP.

When is the Poll?
The poll thread will open at the end of the nomination period, or once there have been 10 books with 3 nominations each. At that time a link to the poll thread will be posted here and this thread will be closed.

The floor is open to nominations.


Official choices each with three nominations:

Flash Forward by Robert J. Sawyer
Description from Goodreads:
What would you do if you got a glimpse of your own personal future and it looked bleak? Try to change things, or accept that the future is unchangeable and make the best of it? In Flashforward, Nobel-hungry physicists conducting an unimaginably high-energy experiment accidentally induce a global consciousness shift. In an instant, everyone on Earth is "flashed forward" 21 years, experiencing several minutes of the future. But while everyone is, literally, out of their minds, their bodies drop unconscious; when the world reawakens, car wrecks, botched surgeries, falls, and other mishaps add up to massive death and destruction.
Slowly, as recovery efforts continue, people realize that during the Flashforward (as it comes to be called) they experienced a vision of the future. The range of visions is astounding--those who would be asleep in the future saw psychedelic dream landscapes, while others saw nothing at all (presumably they'd be dead). But those who saw everyday life 20 years hence have to come to grips with evidence of dreams forsaken (or realized). Soon, the physicists who caused the Flashforward are struggling to help the world decide whether the future is changeable--and whether the experiment is worth repeating. Robert J. Sawyer has captured a truly compelling idea with Flashforward, and he fully explores what such an event might mean to humanity. Fans will find this to be his best work to date, although the ending seems rushed after a detailed buildup. --Therese Littleton

The Tide Mill by Richard Herley
Synopsis here: http://www.richardherley.com/TM.html

The Moon and the Sun by Vonda McIntyre
1997 Nebula Award winner
Set in Versailles, France, in 1693, The Moon and the Sun tells the story of a Marie-Josephe, a lady-in-waiting to the niece of Louis XIV -- the Sun King. Marie-Josephe's brother, Father Yves de la Croix, is a Jesuit and also the King's natural philosopher and explorer. He has brought the King a living sea woman and a dead male, both captured on an ocean voyage. So begins a rich tale of conscience, politics, science, history, and love.
Available at http://www.vondanmcintyre.com/index-fiction.html

Verdant Skies by Steven Jordan
The summary is here: http://www.stevejordanbooks.com/novels/verdant.htm

Soul Identity by Denis Batchelder
You can't take it with you...but what if you could? Most people believe their souls outlive their bodies. Most people would find an organization that tracks their souls into the future and passes on their banked money and memories compelling. Scott Waverly isn't like most people. He spends his days finding and fixing computer security holes. And Scott is skeptical of his new client's claim that they have been calculating and tracking soul identities for almost twenty-six hundred years. Are they running a freaky cult? Or a sophisticated con job? Scott needs to save Soul Identity from an insider attack. Along the way, he discovers the importance of the bridges connecting people's lives.

[AnemicOak]

EDIT: Removed. Already been read by the club.

[lilac_jive]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

In the spirit of Halloween I'll nominate Dracula by Bram Stoker...

Unless he is undead like his most famous character, Bram Stoker isn't an MR author Plus I believe we've already read that in the bookclub.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by lilac_jive

Unless he is undead like his most famous character, Bram Stoker isn't an MR author Plus I believe we've already read that in the bookclub.

It also said any freely available books.


If it's already been read then that's fine, just though with Halloween and all it would be appropriate.

[lilac_jive]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

It also said any freely available books.


If it's already been read then that's fine, just though with Halloween and all it would be appropriate.

Oops, I missed that. I can't remember for sure if it was read in the past, maybe someone else will chime in.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

It also said any freely available books.

Sorry, that shouldn't have been in there.

And yes, Dracula was the August book I think.

BOb

[MelC]

I nominate Robert J. Sawyer's "Flash Forward" in honour of the series based on the book premiering on television this week.

Description from Goodreads:
What would you do if you got a glimpse of your own personal future and it looked bleak? Try to change things, or accept that the future is unchangeable and make the best of it? In Flashforward, Nobel-hungry physicists conducting an unimaginably high-energy experiment accidentally induce a global consciousness shift. In an instant, everyone on Earth is "flashed forward" 21 years, experiencing several minutes of the future. But while everyone is, literally, out of their minds, their bodies drop unconscious; when the world reawakens, car wrecks, botched surgeries, falls, and other mishaps add up to massive death and destruction.
Slowly, as recovery efforts continue, people realize that during the Flashforward (as it comes to be called) they experienced a vision of the future. The range of visions is astounding--those who would be asleep in the future saw psychedelic dream landscapes, while others saw nothing at all (presumably they'd be dead). But those who saw everyday life 20 years hence have to come to grips with evidence of dreams forsaken (or realized). Soon, the physicists who caused the Flashforward are struggling to help the world decide whether the future is changeable--and whether the experiment is worth repeating. Robert J. Sawyer has captured a truly compelling idea with Flashforward, and he fully explores what such an event might mean to humanity. Fans will find this to be his best work to date, although the ending seems rushed after a detailed buildup. --Therese Littleton

Mel

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by MelC

I nominate Robert J. Sawyer's "Flash Forward" in honour of the series based on the book premiering on television this week.

Is it available in a non-DRM'd format?

I think past discussions of book of the month established that a book didn't have to be available for free, but should be available for most ebook devices without having to crack DRM.

ebookprice.info shows it available at cyberread.com in ADE and LIT in addition to Mobi, but clicking on any of the links only took me to the Mobi page. With a bit of searching, I found the ADE-ePub version, available for $28 (!!) instead of the $14 of the Mobi edition. It's just under $8 for Kindle users.

[MelC]

It is not available DRM free that I know of. Just going from the category title and knew Sawyer was an MR author. If they all have to be DRM free that is news to me and I will try to follow that rule going forward.

Mel

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by MelC

It is not available DRM free that I know of. Just going from the category title and knew Sawyer was an MR author. If they all have to be DRM free that is news to me and I will try to follow that rule going forward.

Mel

I don't know if they need to be DRM free. I don't buy DRM'd ebooks, but that's a matter of personal choice; however, many MR readers can't (legally) purchase-and-use books that are only available in DRM'd formats.

Mobi, ePub and Kindle makes this one fairly broadly available (albeit at double price for the ePub), so it may be okay.

[tlrowley]

Be careful with FlashForward in the Kindle store - there are 2 versions, Topaz and AZW and they're both priced the same. Like all/most Topaz books, there is no file size listed for the Topaz version. I bought the Topaz version, not realizing that the mobi/azw existed *drat*

[JSWolf]

I'll second Flash Forward.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by MelC

It is not available DRM free that I know of. Just going from the category title and knew Sawyer was an MR author. If they all have to be DRM free that is news to me and I will try to follow that rule going forward.

Mel

Nope, they don't need to be DRM free... but easily available in multiple DRM formats is a bonus. For example. Kindle store only books probably won't get many nominations or votes.

BOb

[Andanzas]

Deleted.

Sorry, I misread the instructions.

[lilac_jive]

I'd lke to nominate The Tide Mill by Richard Herley

The setting is feudal Sussex in the thirteenth century, a landscape and society that have changed almost beyond recognition.

The power of the Church is at its zenith, and the bishop of Alincester is one of the richest men in England. He derives income from the watermills in his diocese: the forces of wind and rain are held to be divine.

Ralf Grigg is the only son of a master carpenter whose business fails when Ralf is small. The family go to live in the seaside village of Mape, where Ralf's mother was born.

Its lord, Baron Gervase de Maepe, is in debt. He hopes to make a strategic match for his elegant young daughter, Eloise - a match of great importance to the pacific faction at court, lessening the danger of war with France. An exorbitant dowry must be found.

Despite his lowly rank, Ralf makes a close friend of the Baron's youngest boy. Ralf regards Eloise as haughty; but her attraction to the good-looking carpenter's son is as strong as it is turbulent, and she must keep her feelings hidden.

At seventeen, still imagining that she despises him, Ralf falls headlong for his best friend's sister. By now she also is seventeen. Her marriage, sanctioned by the King, has been contracted. The wedding will take place in the autumn of the following year.

Learning of the Baron's forlorn wish that he could afford a mill, Ralf's father has the novel idea of a wheel driven not by the wind or rain, but by the tide. Dismissive at first, Gervase changes his mind when he finds that the Church apparently has no call upon such a mill. Here is the answer to his woes. He commissions Master Grigg to build it, and Ralf discovers his vocation: engineering.

The King rules by divine right. His sanction is likewise divine. To violate it is treasonable. The mill forms the focus not only of an intense and dangerous love-affair between Eloise and Ralf, but a legal dispute between baron and bishop which, spiralling out of control, turns into a ruthless power-struggle between Westminster and Rome.