Announcing the Kevin's Watch Book Club

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Post by I'm Murrin »

In June, the Kevin's Watch Book Club will be reading A Shadow in Summer, first volume of the Long Price Quartet by Daniel Abraham.
The powerful city-state of Saraykeht is a bastion of peace and culture, a major center of commerce and trade. Its economy depends on the power of the captive spirit, Seedless, an andat bound to the poet-sorcerer Heshai for life. Enter the Galts, a juggernaut of an empire committed to laying waste to all lands with their ferocious army. Saraykeht, though, has always been too strong for the Galts to attack, but now they see an opportunity. If they can dispose of Heshai, Seedless's bonded poet-sorcerer, Seedless will perish and the entire city will fall. With secret forces inside the city, the Galts prepare to enact their terrible plan.

In the middle is Otah, a simple laborer with a complex past. Recruited to act as a bodyguard for his girlfriend's boss at a secret meeting, he inadvertently learns of the Galtish plot. Otah finds himself as the sole hope of Saraykeht, either he stops the Galts, or the whole city and everyone in it perishes forever.
*

In May, the Book Club read Wool by Hugh Howey. You can now discuss the book here.
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Post by I'm Murrin »

This time we only received two votes in our monthly poll, which were evenly split between Shirley Jackson and Nnedi Okorafor.

Click here to vote in the tiebreaker poll, and decide what we'll read in July.

*

Meanwhile, discssion of A Shadow in Summer is ongoing, and I'm still interested in your feedback.
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Post by I'm Murrin »

Less than two days remain in the tiebreaker poll, which is currently tied two votes to two.

If we don't get a winner I'm going to flip a coin.
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Took care of that for you. ;)

--A
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Post by I'm Murrin »

The members have spoken: In July, the Kevin's Watch Book Club will be reading The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson.
The best-known of Shirley Jackson's novels, and the inspiration for writers such as Neil Gaiman and Stephen King, The Haunting of Hill House is an immaculate examination of how fear can make us our own worst enemy.

Four seekers have arrived at the rambling old pile known as Hill House: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of psychic phenomena; Theodora, his lovely and light-hearted assistant; Luke, the adventurous future inheritor of the estate; and Eleanor, a friendless, fragile young woman with a dark past. As they begin to cope with chilling, horrifying occurrences beyond their control or understanding, they cannot possibly know what lies ahead. For Hill House is gathering its powers - and soon it will choose one of them to make its own.
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Post by I'm Murrin »

The Kevin's Watch Book Club will be reading Adiamante by L. E. Modesitt, Jr in August.
After gaining amazing power over genetics and technology, three sects of humanity have developed and split, after a civil war on earth forced them apart. Now, far into the future, the deported sect has returned to force their rule on the remaining citizens of earth.
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Post by I'm Murrin »

In September we'll be reading thr World Fantasy Award-winning Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor.
An award-winning literary author presents her first foray into supernatural fantasy with a novel of post- apocalyptic Africa. In a far future, post-nuclear-holocaust Africa, genocide plagues one region. The aggressors, the Nuru, have decided to follow the Great Book and exterminate the Okeke. But when the only surviving member of a slain Okeke village is brutally raped, she manages to escape, wandering farther into the desert. She gives birth to a baby girl with hair and skin the color of sand and instinctively knows that her daughter is different. She names her daughter Onyesonwu, which means "Who Fears Death?" in an ancient African tongue. Reared under the tutelage of a mysterious and traditional shaman, Onyesonwu discovers her magical destiny-to end the genocide of her people. The journey to fulfill her destiny will force her to grapple with nature, tradition, history, true love, the spiritual mysteries of her culture-and eventually death itself.
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Post by I'm Murrin »

Discussion of September's read, Who Fears Death, has now started.


There will be no new book pick in October - with most of us reading Donaldson's latest next month, and the low participation in the book club anyway, I figured it made sense to skip one.
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Post by deer of the dawn »

Good call. I haven't had time for the Book Club reads anyway. :(
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle. -Philo of Alexandria

ahhhh... if only all our creativity in wickedness could be fixed by "Corrupt a Wish." - Linna Heartlistener
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Post by I'm Murrin »

Reminder: The book club is taking a break this month, but you can still join many of us here discussing Stephen Donaldson's latest book, The Last Dark, in the dedicated forum.

The Last Dark is out 15th October in the US and 17th October in the UK.
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Post by I'm Murrin »

The people have (or rather, a person has) spoken! In November, the Kevin's Watch Book Club will be reading The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi.
Jean le Flambeur is a post-human criminal, mind burglar, confidence artist and trickster. His origins are shrouded in mystery, but his exploits are known throughout the Heterarchy - from breaking into the vast Zeusbrains of the Inner System to steal their thoughts, to stealing rare Earth antiques from the aristocrats of the Moving Cities of Mars.

Except that Jean made one mistake. Now he is condemned to play endless variations of a game-theoretic riddle in the vast virtual jail of the Axelrod Archons - the Dilemma Prison - against countless copies of himself.

Jean's routine of death, defection and cooperation is upset by the arrival of Mieli and her spidership, Perhonen. She offers him a chance to win back his freedom and the powers of his old self - in exchange for finishing the one heist he never quite managed . . .
If the book sounds interesting to you, please do pick it up and join in the discussion in a few weeks.
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Post by I'm Murrin »

Discussion is now open for The Quantum Thief, the Kevin's Watch Book Club's pick for November.

*

Voting is open now for our pick in December.

*

And finally, an announcement:

When I began the Book Club in December last year, I was determined to keep it going throughout 2013, and possibly beyond. Participation was good in the first few months, and things seemed to be going well with it, but after that it declined significantly. Lately there's been very little participation in either the polls or the discussion.

I've stuck with my determination to see out a full year of the Kevin's Watch Book Club, but as it currently stands, I do not intend to keep it going into 2014. December 2013's book will be the final KWBC pick.

Thanks to those who did participate in any way during the past year.

(And if anyone else wants to volunteer to pick up running the Book Club and keep it going in my place, they are very welcome to.)
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It is unfortunately the the nature of things, here and on the wider internet.

Thanks nonetheless Murrin. I didn't participate much, but it was fun, and I got some good recommendations that I fully plan to follow up on some day. :D

Hopefully some other Watcher will be interested in picking up from where you leave off.

--A
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Post by I'm Murrin »

The Kevin's Watch Book Club pick for December is Blackbirds, by Chuck Wendig.
Miriam Black knows when you will die. Still in her early twenties, she's foreseen hundreds of car crashes, heart attacks, strokes, suicides, and slow deaths by cancer. But when Miriam hitches a ride with truck driver Louis Darling and shakes his hand, she sees that in thirty days Louis will be gruesomely murdered while he calls her name. Miriam has given up trying to save people; that only makes their deaths happen. But Louis will die because he met her, and she will be the next victim. No matter what she does she can't save Louis. But if she wants to stay alive, she'll have to try.
Pick up the book during the month - heck, ask for it for christmas! - and please join in the discussion at the end of December.

(It's a quick read!)
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