Tuesday 20 January 2015

Cardiff Speculative Fiction Book Club 2.0

UPDATE (March 2015): If you'd like to get involved with the book club, please see the Book Club page for the latest details & to sign up!

UPDATE (1st February 2015): As Lock In got a convincing lead, it'll be the first book to be discussed. 

posted about the possibility of launching a Cardiff-based book club / reading group with a focus on speculative fiction, but probably made things a bit too complicated (and the time frame for a first meeting a bit too short)
I would still love to have a speculative fiction reading group around Cardiff, but to give it a proper shot, I decided to take a little more time to get this going. That way, I can make a half-decent stab at promoting the first meeting.

Over the next fortnight, I’ll produce a few promotional postcards and ask people to share this post around on Twitter etc.

If you'd be interested in joining, please fill in the form at the end of this post. 


Meeting Logistics

To keep things simple, I figured we could either meet on Tuesdays (early in the evening) or on Sundays (in the afternoon), once a month or so, with the first meeting around the end of February / the start of March

If you'd like to join but can't make it at those times, please don't be shy - let me know and I'll see if alternatives would be more popular!

Book Choice

I figured I'd suggest two books that we can choose from. I'll leave the poll open until 8th February - that way, there should be enough time to get and read the winning book. (I may post updates earlier - especially if there's a clear favourite early on).

Which of these books would you rather read and discuss?

  • The Invisible Library is a light read. A bibliophile has swashbuckling adventures featuring parallel dimensions, magic, vampires and a steampunky Victorian London! It's great fun - but not by any means a challenging read.

  • Lock In is a good science fictional whodunnit crime novel. It's set in a world where some people have suffered a debilitating disability - similar to lock in syndrome - but science enables them to control (and experience life through) avatar robots. It's a novel full of ideas and offers rich grounds for discussion - but it's accessible and not too challenging.

Update:


4 comments:

Federhirn said...

Curious about the results so far? You can find them here:
https://bastianbalthasarbooks.wufoo.com/reports/z1vxc1gm1z0codr/

Venue suggestions so far include:
A Shot in the Dark (City Road, Roath)
The Albany Pub (Donald Street, Roath)
Coffi House (Wellfield Road, Roath)
and a request for something within walking distance of the main train station.

I notice that Roath is certainly popular at the moment. For town centre options, I was thinking if we decide on Sunday afternoons, my vote would be for Waterstones Cafe, or the new Waterloo Gardens Teahouse in Wyndham Arcade...

I'll put up a new post with venue options around mid-February. Next week, I'll hopefully have fliers to place in booky places around town, so I'll post another update by the end of next week, with updated poll results!

Frances said...

a Cardiff speculative fiction meeting group has been meeting in the Rummer Tavern on Wednesday evenings for almost seven years. It started in Waterstones and eventually ended up in the Rummer. New readers are always welcome.

Federhirn said...

I had no idea! Thanks for letting me know. Do you have a website? Do you meet every week (and at what time on Wednesdays)? When are the next meetings taking place, and what's the book lineup? I'll make sure to mention this group in my next update!

PhilWal said...

We had a website, but our techy member moved away a few years ago. We meet monthly, around 7ish on the 1st Wednesday of the month. The next meeting is February 4th, and the book is "Ancillary Justice" by Ann Leckie.