New Haven Sci-Fi & Fantasy Book Club

New Haven, CT

163 members · Public group

Organized by David Martin and 3 others

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What we’re about

To all the sci-fi and fantasy readers in the New Haven area!

Reading is an inherently solitary endeavor, let's get together a group of people who love to read sci-fi and fantasy, then, have a discussion on whatever topics are provoked by our selection. This group was started with three ideas in mind: it would be great to be able to talk over books and ideas with others; it's good to be challenged to read a book you otherwise wouldn't; it's nice to spend time with people who are interested in the same things you are.

We've read over 100 books and our selection process is simple. Each month a different member will choose three entries for the next month's selection. Simple majority wins. There are no rules to what selection can be put up for a vote except we ask the member who chooses should have attended at least two consecutive meetups.

Check out all the BOOKS we've read. Looking forward to meeting you!
Founded Jun 26, 2013.

Upcoming events (2)

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Thu, May 16, 2024, 7:00 PM EDT#129 Expiration Date by Tim Powers
TBD, TBD, CT
This month's pick is: Expiration Date by Tim Powers - 534 pgs

Thanks to Chip for this month's picks!

Ghosts can be caught, and bottled, and sold by covert dealers to addicts who inhale the things—and when a young boy named Kootie accidentally inhales the ghost of Thomas Edison, he finds that all the factions of Los Angeles' occult underground are after him, determined to kill him and get Edison's powerful ghost for themselves.

Aided by Edison's confused and irascible ghost, Kootie flees—and finds himself dodging perils natural and supernatural in the gritty alleys and trainyards of a Los Angeles that tourists never see.

From the slums around the L.A. River, to the abandoned Houdini mansion in the Hollywood Hills, to a final dramatic confrontation on the haunted ocean liner Queen Mary docked in Long Beach, Expiration Date is a heart-stopping supernatural adventure from one of fantasy fiction's most original talents.
3 attendees
Thu, Jun 20, 2024, 7:00 PM EDTWhat should we read in June?
TBD, TBD, CT
Thanks to Joe for this month's picks!

Please vote using this link: https://strawpoll.com/05ZdW64dEg6

A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge - 775 pages - 1999
The prequel to A Fire Upon The Deep, this is the story of Pham Nuwen, a small cog in the interstellar trading fleet of the Queng Ho. The Queng Ho and the Emergents are orbiting the dormant planet Arachna, which is about to wake up to technology, but the Emergents' plans are sinister.

Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge - 381 pages - 2006
Robert Gu is a recovering Alzheimer's patient. The world that he remembers was much as we know it today. Now, as he regains his faculties through a cure developed during the years of his near-fatal decline, he discovers that the world has changed and so has his place in it. He was a world-renowned poet. Now he is seventy-five years old, though by a medical miracle he looks much younger, and he’s starting over, for the first time unsure of his poetic gifts. Living with his son’s family, he has no choice but to learn how to cope with a new information age in which the virtual and the real are a seamless continuum, layers of reality built on digital views seen by a single person or millions, depending on your choice. But the consensus reality of the digital world is available only if, like his thirteen-year-old granddaughter Miri, you know how to wear your wireless access—through nodes designed into smart clothes—and to see the digital context—through smart contact lenses.

The Peace War by Vernor Vinge - 384 pages - 1984
The Peace War is quintessential hard-science adventure. The Peace Authority conquered the world with a weapon that never should have been a weapon--the "bobble," a spherical force-field impenetrable by any force known to mankind. Encasing governmental installations and military bases in bobbles, the Authority becomes virtually omnipotent. But they've never caught Paul Hoehler, the maverick who invented the technology, and who has been working quietly for decades to develop a way to defeat the Authority. With the help of an underground network of determined, independent scientists and a teenager who may be the apprentice genius he's needed for so long, he will shake the world, in the fast-paced hard-science thriller that garnered Vinge the first of his four Hugo nominations for best novel.
1 attendee