The Science Fiction Book Club is a CIC (Community Interest Company) founded to facilitate the reading, discussion, promotion, and celebration of written-word Science Fiction in the capital and beyond. We’ve been meeting twice monthly on the first and third Mondays of each month since mid-2010 to discuss each month's book choice. To date we've met over four hundred times, have a membership of over four thousand, and are very proud to say our President, in perpetuity, is none other than Mr Iain M. Banks.
What we read
We read, meet, and discuss character-led Sci-Fi novels for grown-ups at the more literate end of the Science Fiction spectrum.**
Anything from Atwood to Zelazny, that helps us become 'Well Read in SF'.
Our book choices are usually from the 50s onwards and can include anything from Alternate History, Biopunk Science Fiction, Cli-Fi (aka. Climate Science Fiction), Cyberpunk, Dystopian Sci-Fi, Feminist Science Fiction, "Literary" Science Fiction, Military Science Fiction, Modern Science Fiction Romance, Modern novels with an SF slant, Mundane Science Fiction, New Wave Science Fiction, Post-Apocalyptic novels, Proto-Science Fiction classics, Late 19th-century Scientific Romance, Short Story Collections, Slipstream Novels, Soft Science Fiction, Solarpunk, Space Opera, Utopian Science Fiction, the occasional (and we do mean the very occasional) Science Fantasy or even 'Speculative Fiction' (whatever TF that is).
As a general rule, we tend to stay away from books at the furthest ends of the gender reading spectrum. We don’t read a lot of hardcore-dugga-dugga Military Science Fiction and Science Fiction Romance, but if any of these books were sufficiently well-regarded, we’d be happy to consider them for our reading list.
While we understand that Science Fiction is more popular with men, we also try to pick books that are as likely to appeal to women as men. To date, approximately 47.2% of our members are women, so we think we've been pretty successful.
Our book choices are generally no more than 400 pages long and are something that a commuter will easily be able to finish within one calendar month, at least in theory.
We generally try to provide at least a few months' notice of our upcoming books to allow people plenty of time to get and read them.
Finally, and most importantly, book choices are made on the basis of how good a reading experience they're likely to provide and how rich a discussion they are likely to provoke, and nothing else. We’re as likely to pick Science Fiction novels written by a liberal, as a conservative, as a libertarian, as a communist, or as a completely apolitical author. We care about the richness of the novel and not the race, sex, sexuality, or personal lives of the authors. That said, there is a very short list of authors we won't read, and you can find an example of one such author here.
Our past, present, and future Reading List can be seen here, we're pretty happy with it and we think it showcases the breadth of books we're willing to read.
Who is the Science Fiction Book Club for?
We're a book club for everyone. Openly, enthusiastically, and very firmly for everyone, and everyone is just as welcome along as everyone else.
- If you've always loved literary Science Fiction but never had anyone else to read and discuss it with, we're for you.
- If you've always wanted to know more about Science Fiction, and didn't know who to ask about it, we're for you.
- If you're looking for a group of mature sensible grown-ups who love Science Fiction, then we're for you.
- If you read some Science Fiction when you were younger and really just want to get back into a regular reading habit, we're for you.
- We're for anyone and everyone, regardless of race, colour or creed, who wants to read and discuss Science Fiction! That's what we're for.
- But, if you're looking for a group that exactly matches your political outlook in every possible conceivable way, whatever your outlook happens to be, then sadly we're not for you. This probably means were for everyone from the reasonable central 90% of the population. Political extremists should look elsewhere.
- And if you're looking for something more Fantasy then we can recommend our sister book club, The FantasyBookClub.org. You'll be just as welcome with them as you'd be with us.
When we say we read Science Fiction, we really do only mean Science Fiction, not books pretending to be Science Fiction
When we say we read just Science Fiction, we don't mean YA, Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Romantasy, or Magical Realist fiction. So when we say we read Science Fiction, we really mean Science Fiction. We want to minimize the number of times someone will come along to one of our book discussions and say:
Yeah, I enjoyed tonight's book but was it really Science Fiction? I’m not sure.
Over the last five to ten years, there has been a trend to call books Science Fiction that really have nothing Science Fictional within them. As popular and well-regarded as The Underground Railroad is, there’s nothing Science Fictional about it, at all. It's magical realism at best.
What we don't read
We try to pick books that give a reader a full reading experience without needing to read additional works to enjoy them. So, sadly, that rules out multipart series, yes, even the first parts of series. We know everyone says:
Well, you can still read the first part of a series, that'll be self-contained.
The problem is the first parts of multipart series almost always have lots of plot threads left open which are designed to encourage you to read part two, and three and four or ideally more. Nobody really believes that the first parts of series are fully and completely self-contained works, so we're not going to pretend we do either.
We almost never read novels from media tie-ins such as Star-Trek / Star-Wars / RPG / TV or Movie novelisations***. We know media tie-in novels get a bad rap and that many of them are very good, but very often they require a high level of knowledge of the franchise to be fully appreciated, so we’d rather read full original novels that give you a self-contained reading experience with a beginning, middle, and end. If you absolutely need to read trilogies or multipart series, you're probably secretly a fantasy reader anyway 😜
Group size
So that each meeting doesn't get too busy, a maximum of 16 places per meeting has been set. Members are expected to make a booking before attending to allow us to control the numbers and provide the best experience for as many people as possible. Anyone simply turning up without a booking will be asked to leave and return with one.
Once Per Member, Per Book, Per Month
Due to the success of the book club, the large number of members, and the limited amount of spaces, members can only come to one meeting per book per month. Places get taken many months in advance and often have a waiting list of up to 8-10 people. This once per month restriction is not placed on any social events. Members who insist on booking more than one meeting per book per month will forfeit both places.
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How much is membership?
Membership is free but unless otherwise stated Book Club meetings are charge at £3 per meeting. This covers our costs, provides us a modest amount to advertise with and reduces 'tourists' taking all the places and never attending. Members have to pay their dues when they RSVP. Refunds will only be offered if the meeting is cancelled or rescheduled. Membership dues are made for named meetings and do not provide a form of credit that can be transferred between meetings. [Everything you need to know about Membership Dues is here].
Two strikes and you're out policy
Due to the success of the Book Club, and places being limited to each meeting, members who change their booking status to NO within two days of a meeting or those who simply don't turn up twice will forfeit their membership permanently. When people cancel at the last minute it means that someone else misses out on taking that place, which isn't cool.
After the first offense, offenders will be sent an email warning them that the next time, they will simply be forfeiting their membership. This email is sent with a 'delivery receipt request' so Your Glorious Leader ® knows the email was delivered to you.
Sadly, Your Glorious Leader ® is not in a position to judge whether people have a legitimate reason for pulling out of a meeting at the last minute and it would be foolish to try. What we do know from personal experience is that when people are aware of this type of policy, they tend to change their booking much earlier, which helps everyone.
Cherrypickers
Our priority is to run the book club for regular members to get to know each other, make friends, and have a good time. To this end, members, or so-called 'CherryPickers,' who only seem able to book a place for really famous or popular books may lose their place at these meetings if regular members look to be losing out. In this case, 'lose their place' would mean their booking being changed to No.
For the same reason as the two-strikes rule, Your Glorious Leader ® is not in a position to judge whether members/CherryPickers have a real reason for only attending famous/popular books.
This is not a judgement on these members/CherryPickers, their reading habits, or their ability to attend. It's very human to want the best of things, but if you want to be in this book club, join in.
"My god Jim, I'm a Book Club, not a billboard"
or absolutely no commercial or link building fake memberships
Any 'members' seen to place links or other advertising for any blogs/books/products/websites whatsoever, or spamming members, will be immediately removed from the group and banned from re-joining.
Unsolicited Commercial, Public Relations, Advertising, or "I thought you might be interested" emails will automatically be blacklisted and forwarded to Spamhaus and recorded as spam. You have been warned. We will also never provide our members' email addresses to a commercial company or email our members on anyone else's behalf, so please don't ask! It's embarrassing.
** Further to: What we read
When we say:
We read, meet, and discuss character-led Sci-Fi novels for grown-ups at the more literate end of the Science Fiction spectrum
we don't mean books that come from a particular part of the sociopolitical spectrum. We mean that we like to read books that will stimulate a 2-3 hour discussion rather than books that are designed to be read (and forgotten) quickly.
A good analogy is food: imagine a four-course meal that has been lovingly crafted over many, many hours with the best ingredients available, to be eaten over a three- to four-hour span. We like books like that.
Then there are other factory-made foods that are mass-produced to order. They're satisfying to eat but don't really have any nutritional value; they're designed to be filling but not nutritious. You could eat one occasionally, but if you made it your whole diet, you'd get ill and overweight pretty fast. Books of this type are a lot of fun to read, but we know they're not particularly good for us. A guilty pleasure, we all read them, but as book choices for a book club for grown-ups to stimulate discussion, they're really, really unsuitable.
*** Further to: Star-Trek / Star-Wars / RPG / TV or Movie novelisations
We know they are popular but they are the Sci-Fi equivalent of Mills and Boone.