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Hi everyone,

It's time to start taking nominations for our March 2011 Books of the Month! As always, you can make 1 SF and/or 1 fantasy nomination, by posting a reply to this post with the title and author of the book(s). Adding a note about why you're nominating the book will help people decide whether they want to read it. Please feel free to re-nominate a book from previous months if it didn't win the polls.

I'll take nominations until December 19th and set up the first round of polls on December 20th.

Stefan

NOMINATIONS SO FAR:

FANTASY:

Black Sun Rising by C.S. Friedman (shel)
The Magicians by Lev Grossman (dawn)
The Stepsister Scheme by Jim C. Hines (chris)
The Enchantment Emporium by Tanya Huff (kerry)
Book of Secrets by Chris Roberson (stefan)
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

SCIENCE FICTION:

Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler (shel)
Archangel by Sharon Shinn (kerry)
Dragon's Egg by Robert L. Forward (random)
When Gravity Fails by George Alec Effinger (candiss)

I'm going to re-nominate Black Sun Rising by C.S. Friedman for fantasy.

For SF, I'll nominate Fledgling by Octavia Butler, which looks like a totally unique take on a vampire book!

For fantasy I'd like to nominate The Magicians by Lev Grossman. I don't think I've tried nominating it here before, but I've tried in other groups and it hasn't won yet. But I think it would make for a really interesting discussion! You love it or you hate it, there's not much in between. That always makes for a nice debate :)

For fantasy I would like to nominate The Stepsister Scheme by Jim C. Hines.

What the heck, I'm going to keep on with nominating Archangel by Sharon Shinn for SF. It keeps getting so close to being picked and never quite making it.

For fantasy I'd like to nominate The Enchantment Emporium by Tanya Huff.

Looks like its keep trying month, so I'm going to toss out Dragon's Egg by Robert L. Forward for Science Fiction . . . again :)

Dawn wrote: "For fantasy I'd like to nominate The Magicians by Lev Grossman. I don't think I've tried nominating it here before, but I've tried in other groups and it hasn't won y..."

Well, Dawn, I happened to stumble on a copy of this in a Goodwill store, so - picked it up on the chance it may win. I also have Archangel on the TBR stack - along with a mound of other stuff.

I'm going to add a fantasy nomination - Book of Secrets by Chris Roberson. While it's not perfect, it's a fun conspiracy/secret history novel that might spark some interesting discussion. I'm rating it 3.5 stars mainly because the ending annoyed me a bit, but up to the end it was a solid 4 star read for me. If it doesn't end up winning, I'd still recommend it to people who are into conspiracy or secret history of the world type novels.

Stefan wrote: "I'm going to add a fantasy nomination - Book of Secrets by Chris Roberson. While it's not perfect, it's a fun conspiracy/secret history novel that might spark some i..."

Stefan, what do you think of Roberson's writing in this book? I've read a couple of science fiction novels of his and, while the ideas and set-up are interesting (Imperial Chinese vs. Aztecs in space), his plotting seemed predictable and his prose was, well, not sparkling. (You know the Truman Capote line? "That's not writing, that's just typing..."? That's what I mean.)

His writing isn't bad for most of the book, but there's a scene towards the end that was ridiculously over the top, and the actual ending is a huge deus ex machina. It's a great book up to page 250 or so.

(I really enjoyed The Magicians and look forward to the sequel, which is due in 2011.)


For Science Fiction, I'd like to nominate When Gravity Fails by George Alec Effinger. Everyone I talk to seems to say they intend to read this one, yet so few people seem to have actually read it - myself included. (I have all three of Effinger's Budayeen novels on my home shelf, yet I've not read any of them. Incidentally, they are stand-alone books in the same universe.) I've been told Effinger's world is both exotic and gritty, yet perhaps less... extreme in its grittiness than, say, Morgan's Altered Carbon, and that his characters are complex and interesting and his vision of a possible future nuanced and believable.

I don't have a Fantasy nom this month.

Oooo! When Gravity Fails is one I just picked up! We should totally read that! Plus, plus, and its SF set in the Middle East!

I'm new to the group, but was wondering if there might be interest in reading The Name of the Wind in preparation for the March release of The Wise Man's Fear. Fantasy nomination.

Welcome to the group, Kara. You can definitely nominate it, but it has been our Book of the Month before (http://www.goodreads.com/group/show_b...). That doesn't disqualify it, but it may not get as many votes as a book we haven't read yet. So let me know what you want to do!

Sunday's the last day to send in nominations, so if anyone else wants to add books, do it soon!

Hi everyone,

The polls deciding our Books of the Month for March are up. Because we didn't get a ton of nominations (and because of the holidays), I'm only running one round of polls this time. The polls will be up until December 30th. You can vote here:

Fantasy poll: http://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/42...

SF poll: http://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/42...

The Name of the Wind was our Book of the Month in the past (in 2008, before we moved to GoodReads), but that doesn't disqualify it so I included it in the poll.

Thanks!

Stefan

Last day to vote in the polls! If you haven't had the chance to vote yet, please do so as soon as possible.