MobileRead January 2010 Book Club Nominations

[Latinandgreek]

I'll second Radix

[MelC]

I will third Fire Upon the Deep - I have already read it (and enjoyed it) and would probably selfishly have nominated a Deepness in teh Sky which I have not yet read but in the interests of fleshing out the nominations this is a worthwhile full fledged space opera.

Mel

[John F]

I'll nominate Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan

From Booklist
In a society in which death has been rendered practically obsolete, suicide and murder take on different significances. After a particularly brutal offing, former UN envoy Takeshi Kovacs finds himself "resleeved"--that is, his consciousness has been put in a new body--and hired as a private investigator by Laurens Bancroft, one of twenty-fifth-century society's old rich in Bay City (formerly San Francisco). Bancroft claims he was murdered, but the police say it was a suicide. After Kovacs gets hit at his hotel within hours of being resleeved, he sees the possibility that Bancroft was, in fact, murdered, and that someone wants to keep it very hush-hush. As he investigates, he uncovers a far-reaching conspiracy with ties to the most unsavory characters in his generally unsavory military and criminal past. This far-future hard-boiled detective story is a lovely virtual-reality romp distinguished by a conspiracy whose strands have the potential to generate several successful sequels, which is just what its publicity promises. Regina Schroeder
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by alfatreze

And the three contestants are...

Time Enough for Love, by Robert A. Heinlein
Radix, A.A. Attanasio
Neuromancer, by William Gibson

I found Neuromancer, but can't find the others in (legit) ebook form.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

I am leaving on a week vacation tomorrow and won't have any Internet access.

Can some fine club member finish out the nominations here and start the poll? I usually try to wait until there are at least 5 nominations.. but that may happen tomorrow anyway as people come home from their holidays... or not.

BOb

I can start the voting no problem. Happy to help. I'll start the voting on Jan 1 for 1 week.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I can start the voting no problem. Happy to help. I'll start the voting on Jan 1 for 1 week.

Maybe we can talk Harry into editing it. When is the cut-off/poll start ?

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

I found Neuromancer, but can't find the others in (legit) ebook form.

and I'm not reading that even if it wins.....

[JSWolf]

These are so far the books with 3 nominations... I'll be updating this as needed.

Anathem by Neal Stephenson
Stephenson conjures a far-future Earth-like planet, Arbre, where scientists, philosophers and mathematicians—a religious order unto themselves—have been cloistered behind concent (convent) walls. Their role is to nurture all knowledge while safeguarding it from the vagaries of the irrational saecular outside world. Among the monastic scholars is 19-year-old Raz, collected into the concent at age eight and now a decenarian, or tenner (someone allowed contact with the world beyond the stronghold walls only once a decade). But millennia-old rules are cataclysmically shattered when extraterrestrial catastrophe looms, and Raz and his teenage companions—engaging in intense intellectual debate one moment, wrestling like rambunctious adolescents the next—are summoned to save the world.

Under the Dome by Stephen King
"The town of Chesters Mill (pop. approximately 2000) is suddenly cut off from the rest of the world by an invisible barrier, preventing anything other than a small amount of air from passing through. What follows is mostly told from the perspective of Dale "Barbie" Barbara, a former Army lieutenant. After "Dome Day" as it comes to be called, the town quickly collapses into anarchy, as a small war breaks out between the power-hungry second selectman James "Big Jim" Rennie, and a portion of the townsfolk. Resources quickly begin to dwindle, and many begin to resort to monstrous acts of violence to survive."

A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge
Subjects: Science Fiction, Science Fiction And Fantasy, General Fiction
Description: After a spaceship crashes on an unfamiliar world, a rescue ship races against time to rescue the downed ship's only survivors -- two children -- and retrieve the weapon required to prevent the destruction of the universe. This special eBook edition adds hundreds of annotations from Vinge which were written during the time of his original composition of this groundbreaking Hugo Award … more »winning novel. A Fire Upon the Deep won the prestigious Hugo Award when it was first published.

Inherit the Stars by James P. Hogan
The man on the moon was dead. They called him Charlie. He had big eyes, abundant body hair and fairly long nostrils. His skeletal body was found clad in a bright red spacesuit, hidden in a rocky grave. They didn't know who he was, how he got there, or what had killed him. All they knew was that his corpse was 50,000 years old—and that meant that this man had somehow lived long before he ever could have existed!

The Machine Stops by E. M. Forster
The Machine Stops is a science fiction short story by E. M. Forster. The story is about a world in which many humans have lost the ability to live on the surface, and live underground. The story predicted a few technological and social innovations, such as the cinematophote (television) and videoconferencing.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

These are so far the books with 3 nominations... I'll be updating this as needed.

Anathem by Neal Stephenson
Stephenson conjures a far-future Earth-like planet, Arbre, where scientists, philosophers and mathematicians—a religious order unto themselves—have been cloistered behind concent (convent) walls. Their role is to nurture all knowledge while safeguarding it from the vagaries of the irrational saecular outside world. Among the monastic scholars is 19-year-old Raz, collected into the concent at age eight and now a decenarian, or tenner (someone allowed contact with the world beyond the stronghold walls only once a decade). But millennia-old rules are cataclysmically shattered when extraterrestrial catastrophe looms, and Raz and his teenage companions—engaging in intense intellectual debate one moment, wrestling like rambunctious adolescents the next—are summoned to save the world.

Under the Dome by Stephen King
"The town of Chesters Mill (pop. approximately 2000) is suddenly cut off from the rest of the world by an invisible barrier, preventing anything other than a small amount of air from passing through. What follows is mostly told from the perspective of Dale "Barbie" Barbara, a former Army lieutenant. After "Dome Day" as it comes to be called, the town quickly collapses into anarchy, as a small war breaks out between the power-hungry second selectman James "Big Jim" Rennie, and a portion of the townsfolk. Resources quickly begin to dwindle, and many begin to resort to monstrous acts of violence to survive."

A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge
Subjects: Science Fiction, Science Fiction And Fantasy, General Fiction
Description: After a spaceship crashes on an unfamiliar world, a rescue ship races against time to rescue the downed ship's only survivors -- two children -- and retrieve the weapon required to prevent the destruction of the universe. This special eBook edition adds hundreds of annotations from Vinge which were written during the time of his original composition of this groundbreaking Hugo Award … more »winning novel. A Fire Upon the Deep won the prestigious Hugo Award when it was first published.

Thanks Jon!

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by A4-

I'll second "Inherit the Stars by J.P. Hogan" and "A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge".

I'll third those, and second "Blindsight" by Peter Watts--all three are in my list of "books I've heard about that I should get around to reading someday."

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

I'll third those, and second "Blindsight" by Peter Watts--all three are in my list of "books I've heard about that I should get around to reading someday."

Fire Upon the Deep is already in...

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Fire Upon the Deep is already in...

I *can* read forum threads. Really. Sometimes.

I blame the Yuletide fanfiction collection. Over 3000 stories in small fandoms, all gone live within the last week.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

I *can* read forum threads. Really. Sometimes.

I blame the Yuletide fanfiction collection. Over 3000 stories in small fandoms, all gone live within the last week.

Well, I just thought if you didn't want to waste your vote.

I do hope you can read, thats sorta kinda what this forum is about.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Well, I just thought if you didn't want to waste your vote.

I do hope you can read, thats sorta kinda what this forum is about.

A nomination for a book that's already been thirded doesn't count. So it's not wasted or lost.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

A nomination for a book that's already been thirded doesn't count. So it's not wasted or lost.

Well then I can 4th some things then!