MobileRead May 2017 Book Club Vote

[WT Sharpe]

May 2017 MobileRead Book Club Vote

Help us choose a book as the May 2017 eBook for the MobileRead Book Club. The poll will be open for 5 days. There will be no runoff vote unless the voting results a tie, in which case there will be a 3 day run-off poll. This is a visible poll: others can see how you voted. It is You may cast a vote for each book that appeals to you.

We will start the discussion thread for this book on May 20th. Select from the following Official Choices with three nominations each:

• In Times Like These: A Time Travel Adventure by Nathan van Coops
Goodreads | Amazon US / Barnes & Noble / Kobo US
Print Length: 384 pages

Spoiler:

From Goodreads:

"We broke something. How do you break time? Can something so bad happen that you fracture the world?" Benjamin Travers has been electrocuted. What's worse, he and his friends have woken up in the past. As the friends search for a way home, they realize they're not alone. There are other time travelers, and some of them are turning up dead. When Ben meets an enigmatic scientist and his charming, time-traveling daughter, salvation seems at hand, but escaping the dangers of the past may lead to a deadly future. If he hopes to save his friends, Ben must learn to master space and time, and survive a journey where past and future violently collide.

• Balance of Trade (Liaden Universe #3) by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
Goodreads | Amazon US / Audible / Baen
Print Length:464 pages

Spoiler:

From Goodreads:

Assistant Trader Jethri Gobelyn was an honest, hardworking young man who knew a lot about living onboard his family's space-going trade ship; something about trade, finance, and risk-taking; and a little bit about Liadens. It was, oddly enough, the little bit he knew about Liadens that seemed like it might be enough to make his family's fortune, and his own, too. In short order, however, Jethri Gobelyn was about to find out a lot more about Liadens...like how far they might go to protect their name and reputation. Like the myriad of things one might say-intentionally or not-with a single bow. Like what it would take to make a Liaden trade-ship crew trash a bar. Like how hard it is to say "I'm sorry!" in Liaden. Pretty soon it was clear that as little as he knew about Liadens, he knew far less about himself. With his very existence a threat to the balance of trade, Jethri Gobelyn needed to learn fast, or else help destroy all he held dear.

• Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
Goodreads | Wikipedia
Print Length: 145 pages

Spoiler:

From Goodreads:

Red Schuhart is a stalker, one of those young rebels who are compelled, in spite of extreme danger, to venture illegally into the Zone to collect the mysterious artifacts that the alien visitors left scattered around. His life is dominated by the place and the thriving black market in the alien products. But when he and his friend Kirill go into the Zone together to pick up a “full empty,” something goes wrong. And the news he gets from his girlfriend upon his return makes it inevitable that he’ll keep going back to the Zone, again and again, until he finds the answer to all his problems.

• The Collapsing Empire (The Interdependency #1) by John Scalzi
Goodreads | Overdrive
Print Length: 334 pages

Spoiler:

Our universe is ruled by physics. Faster than light travel is impossible—until the discovery of The Flow, an extradimensional field available at certain points in space-time, which can take us to other planets around other stars.

Riding The Flow, humanity spreads to innumerable other worlds. Earth is forgotten. A new empire arises, the Interdependency, based on the doctrine that no one human outpost can survive without the others. It’s a hedge against interstellar war—and, for the empire’s rulers, a system of control.

The Flow is eternal—but it’s not static. Just as a river changes course, The Flow changes as well. In rare cases, entire worlds have been cut off from the rest of humanity. When it’s discovered that the entire Flow is moving, possibly separating all human worlds from one another forever, three individuals—a scientist, a starship captain, and the emperox of the Interdependency—must race against time to discover what, if anything, can be salvaged from an interstellar empire on the brink of collapse.

• Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Goodreads
Print Length: 194 pages

Spoiler:

From Goodreads:

Guy Montag is a fireman. In his world, where television rules and literature is on the brink of extinction, firemen start fires rather than put them out. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden.

Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television 'family'. But then he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people did not live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television.

When Mildred attempts suicide and Clarisse suddenly disappears, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known.

• Kirinyaga by Mike Resnick
Goodreads
Print Length: 306 pages

Spoiler:

From Goodreads:

Hailed for his grandeur of imagination and superb worldbuilding, winner of and nominee for more than fifty awards for his outstanding work, Mike Resnick has rightfully won a place as one of science fiction's master storytellers. Now, in Kirinyaga, Resnick presents the haunting and utterly compelling tale of one man's utopia.

By the twentieth second century in the African nation of Kenya, polluted cities sprawl up the flanks of sacred Mount Kirinyaga. Great animal herds are but distant memories. European crops now grow on the sweeping savannas. But Koriba, a distinguished, educated man of Kikuyu ancestry, knows that life was different for his people centuries ago--and he is determined to build a utopian colony, not on earth, but on the terraformed planetoid he proudly names Kirinyaga.

As the mundumugu--witch doctor--Koriba leads the colonists. Reinstating the ancient customs and stringent laws of the Kikuyu people, he alone decides their fate. He must face many challenges to the struggling colony's survival: from a brilliant young girl whose radiant intellect could threaten their traditional ways to the interference of "Maintenance" which holds the power to revoke the colony's charter. All the while, only Koriba--unbeknownst to his people--maintains the computer link to the rest of humanity.

Ironically, the Kirinyaga experiment threatens to collapse--not from violence or greed--but from humankind's insatiable desire for knowledge. The Kikuyu people can no more stand still in time than their planet can stop revolving around its sun.

Deeply moving, swiftly paced, and profound in its implications, Kirinyaga is Mike Resnick's most triumphant work to date. His Fable of Utopia is the book every science fiction reader will want to own and savor for years to come.

[PandathePanda]

The Collapsing Empire (The Interdependency #1) by John Scalzi would be a nice read (and it's in my tbr pile )

[Dazrin]

Originally Posted by PandathePanda

The Collapsing Empire (The Interdependency #1) by John Scalzi would be a nice read (and it's in my tbr pile )

My main problem is that the wait list is 18 people per copy at my library. I will try to get it if it wins but I doubt it will be in time.

I really enjoyed Roadside Picnic when I read it a few years ago and it could have some good discussion with it.

I have been meaning to read Fahrenheit 451 for a while so this would "force" me to do that.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Dazrin

I have been meaning to read Fahrenheit 451 for a while so this would "force" me to do that.

I've read this and force is a good word. It was a bit dry (imho).

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Dazrin

My main problem is that the wait list is 18 people per copy at my library. I will try to get it if it wins but I doubt it will be in time.

There is a thread on how to maybe get books from Kobo for 50% off. Have a go and see if you can get this at a reduced price.

[CRussel]

Come on, folks, give Balance of Trade a try. You'll like it. It's positive, non-distopian, and an excellent standalone book in one of the best SF series out there.

(On Fahrenheit 451 -- it's a great book. I've read it. I don't ever need to read it again, thank you. And on distopian books in general -- I have no interest whatsoever in reading any more of them. Full stop. )

[issybird]

Originally Posted by CRussel

Come on, folks, give Balance of Trade a try. You'll like it. It's positive, non-distopian, and an excellent standalone book in one of the best SF series out there.

(On Fahrenheit 451 -- it's a great book. I've read it. I don't ever need to read it again, thank you. And on distopian books in general -- I have no interest whatsoever in reading any more of them. Full stop. )

LOL! I'm not much for science fiction, as you know, but my exceptions are for time travel and dystopias. De gustibus, etc.

[issybird]

I figure if Fahrenheit 451 wins, I'll also watch the film, which I haven't seen in decades. And it's an idea which is current, as I see that HBO is in the early stages of a new film (which I would hope will be closer to the book than I remember the Oskar Werner/Julie Christie movie).

[GA Russell]

I usually vote on the first day, but this time I will wait till May 1!

[JSWolf]

I'd like it if we picked a book that most of us have not read.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by CRussel

Come on, folks, give Balance of Trade a try. You'll like it. It's positive, non-distopian, and an excellent standalone book in one of the best SF series out there.

It's Liaden Universe #3. Notice the 3? It's part of a series and it's not the first book or the book club has not read the first 2.

[CRussel]

NO, Jon. It's not #3. First, it's standalone. Doesn't require or need anything else in the _Universe_ (note, not Series, but Universe -- there's a difference. ) Second, it's the first chronologically that is actually part of that Universe. There are two books "from before" that are prequels, written later, and not really part of the any other storyline.

If you've not read the books, please try to avoid giving people misinformation, Jon. Because it really does no one any good. Even for someone as chronologically focused as you are, I wouldn't recommend starting with the two Crystal books. They're good books, but they are like most prequels. Written much later, and best read when you know what they're prequels to.

[JSWolf]

According to Sharon Lee, Balance of Trade is the third book in chronological order.

Internal Chronology:

Crystal Soldier, Crystal Dragon, Balance of Trade, Trade Secret, Local Custom, Scout’s Progress, Mouse and Dragon, Conflict of Honors, Agent of Change, Carpe Diem, Plan B, Fledgling, I Dare, Saltation, Ghost Ship, Necessity’s Child*, Dragon Ship*, Dragon in Exile*, The Gathering Edge*, Alliance of Equals*, Neogenesis*

_______

*Portions of these novels occur simultaneously. If we do this right, by the time we’re finished with the Five Book Dash, readers ought to have a 365º view of the action.

[CRussel]

Yes. But what that particular quote doesn't say, although they have said it elsewhere, is that the two Crystal books are prequels. Canon, but before Liad is Liad. And definitely before the elements of Liaden society are established.

[JSWolf]

Oh, just a quick note...

In Times Like These: A Time Travel Adventure by Nathan van Coops is FREE at Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, and Kobo.