December Book Selection

GWC Community Book Club Winning Nominees and Polls
#1

After last month’s great choice, I’m really looking forward to what we’re going to read in December. Let’s choose!

As this is only the second time we’re choosing as a group, I’m still refining the process a bit. The system has trouble with more than 20 entries – and we probably would, too – so here’s how I’m going to handle it: I’ll start by taking the five highest vote-getters below the winner from the previous selection, then fill out the list with suggestions from the forum in order of most recently messaged until we reach 20.

(If this turns out to be a bad idea, I’ll adjust again next month, but it looks like there’s some great stuff on the list this time.)

A few things to remember:
[ul]
[li]You’re voting for the December book of the month. We’ll close the poll at the end of November and announce the winner here and on the blog and podcast Dec. 1.[/li][li]You can vote for more than one book, so please select all those you’d be interested in reading.[/li][li]Campaigning is recommended. We’re a friendly bunch, so don’t be afraid to plug a book (or books) you like a lot.[/li][*]Don’t worry if your favorites aren’t selected this time 'round. We’ll close the winning book’s thread and leave the rest open – so there’s no reason your fave couldn’t win next time 'round.[/ul]And finally, don’t forget this is all for fun. I personally plan on reading some of the ones that don’t win, too.

#2

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, people! It’s free online. Everyone can read it.

#3

Star Ship Troopers all the way! An excellent book that theoretically should have made an excellent movie. I stress “in theory”

#4

Chuck,

I think you have built a great system, thank you. The second part I have trouble with as books will fall off the face of the Earth given that method. I would suggest stacking the books by number of posts in a suggestion thread. You will need to institute a rule of 1 for 1 threads (no more threads with titles of “Here are my thoughts on some books”)

Otherwise…AWESOME. :smiley:

#5

I’m all for anything, but after Ender’s Game, I just don’t know if my heart can take it. That book broke my heart, and then swept up the shattered bits, glued them into a big messy ball, and then blew THAT up just to make sure I was forever broken…Maybe Starship Troopers would be the way to go!

#6

A nightmare with no end …

In AD2600 the human race is finally beginning to realise its full potential. Hundreds of colonised planets scattered across the galaxy host a multitude of prosperous and wildly diverse cultures. Genetic engineering has pushed evolution far beyond nature’s boundaries, defeating disease and producing extraordinary spaceborn creatures. Huge fleets of sentient trader starships thrive on the wealth created by the industrialisation of entire star systems. And thoughout inhabited space the Confederation Navy keeps the peace. A true golden age is within our grasp.

But now something has gone catastrophically wrong. On a primitive coloney planet a renegade criminal’s chance encounter with an utterly alien entity unleashes the most primal of all our fears. An extinct race which inhabited the galaxy aeons ago called it ‘The Reality Dysfunction’. It is the nightmare which has prowled beside us since the beginning of history.

:D… or Starship Troopers

#7

Free book? I am there.

#8

I think everybody should just vote for Watchmen, it’s one of the best books ever written…and it has pictures!!!

#9

I must be getting old. I voted in this poll a few days ago, and now I can’t remember how I voted. :frowning:

#10

That’s because there are so many good books listed there. I had to think to remember how I voted, too. :slight_smile:

#11

Aren’t the italic ones your choices?

#12

I’m going to have to start campaining, as I’m not a huge Starship Troopers fan, book or movie. Gotta push for Slaughterhouse Five, mostly because I haven’t read it, which qualifies me as an idiot.

And no love for Pern? It’s pretty clean and nice compared to most of the other choices (but I’d love to see 1984 rewritten for the Dragonrider universe) but I remember loving every book in the series.

#13

I don’t remember how I voted either, HOWEVER, after listening to podcast 65 or 66 (can’t remember which one) where both Sean and Chuck go on about how Starship Troopers was so much better as a book than a movie (I think they said something like it “frakking sucked” or something like that), I am intrigued. FWIW, I thought the movie was kind of fun BUT I didn’t think Dune was all that horrible either (I was like 8 when it came out though and haven’t seen it since - cool giant riding the worms scene!). At any rate, if ST caused such an emotional stir with the GWC guys, I would like to see what it’s all about.

#14

im starting dune :stuck_out_tongue:
Paradox by John Meanly(i believe)
actually IT, its my favroite stephen king ive read
also in case any of you care i alternate every 2 months on a scifi/ then stephen king book

#15

One good thing about Starship Troopers: it’s as short as Ender’s Game, and it’s a pretty light read. It also tends to piss people off, which is kinda fun.

One thing I’ve always enjoyed about Heinlein is that he’s really good at forcing the reader into a world where things he or she finds abhorrant make some sense. (Obviously the classic in this vein is Stranger in a Strange Land. Cannibalism? Check. Incest? Check. Wife-swapping? Yep, and in that environment only they make sense.) In 'Troopers, he addresses the idea of mandatory military service, treating citizenship not as a gift but as an earned right. Do I agree with this? Hell, no! But it’s an interesting treatment, and helps start some great discussions.

I can’t claim to be a huge Henlein fan, though, even after reading pretty much everything he’s written – including the post-death Grumblings From The Grave – mainly because he never makes it clear where he stands on these issues. If I had to guess, I’d say he sees himself as Lazarus Long (or maybe Jubal Harshaw), both of which are great characters, but not anyone you’d want to know personally.

Anyway, if Starship Troopers is selected, I’d guess we’re in for some heated (and hopefully fun) discussion.

All that said, I’d really like to see 1984 win. I read it back in high school, but it’s been far too long. And I’d love to see Douglas Adams get some love here on GWC eventually. Of course, Clarke is always a go in my book. Rama is a lot of fun. You know, we might want to consider Greg Bear’s Eon again at some point, too. It’s a similar asteroid-arrives-at-Earth-and-is-spaceship scenario, but carries a lot of personal drama. I think everyone’d get a big kick out of it.

#16

Nice thing about John Ringo’s A Hymn Before Battle is that it is available for free online in Baen’s Library.

#17

That’s why I voted Starship Troopers as one of my books.

I hope it wins. :smiley:

#18

Vote Vote !!