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January 2019
Special Event – Odd Bookclub Redux
The Cloven by Brian Catling Folks familiar with the store book club will know that we usually have our first meet of the year in February. That's still the case, and the normal book club will be meeting on the first Tuesday of February. In January however, we'll be doing something that throws back to the other book club we used to run. We called it the Odd Book Club and it was dedicated to really strange and peculiar works.…
Find out more »Book Launch – The Subjugate by Amanda Bridgeman
The Subjugate by Amanda Bridgeman I was hoping to do more events in 2019, so I'm thrilled to be involved with launching WA author Amanda Bridgeman's new book, The Subjugate. It's a science fiction / crime thriller set in a religious community where violent criminals are neurally 'edited' to remove their criminal tendencies and are then returned to serve the community as obedient servants called Serenes. It's also a community plagued by a recent spate of horrific murders. As the body…
Find out more »February 2019
Stefen’s Bookclub – February
Occupy Me by Tricia Sullivan This is a quirky mix of supernatural and science fiction ideas with the basic plot of a thriller and told in a peculiar style. It's about an angel, a killer, a mysterious briefcase and the fate of everything. It's also a book that there have been quite polarised reviews of, so I think it's something that will provide us with an interesting evenings conversation.
Find out more »March 2019
Stefen’s Bookclub – March
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman The last few book club books have been fairly recent ones, so I thought it was time to weave another old classic into the mix. This time it's Joe Haldeman's 1974 book, The Forever War. It's an interesting mix of futuristic war and time travel story and manages to fit a lot into its 240 odd pages. It's a highly regarded book and I'm looking forward to what the group makes of it.
Find out more »April 2019
Stefen’s Bookclub – April
The Subjugate by Amanda Bridgeman I've been eyeing this one off as a book club book since before we did the book launch for it. It's an interesting mix of crime and science fiction that engages with a variety of social and cultural issues, particularly to do with ideas of justice, crime and punishment. This is one of those books that crosses genres, so it's detective fiction and science fiction and I'm interested in seeing how folks respond to it.
Find out more »Books, Chocolate and Drinkies
Ok folkies, I've got some very cool news for you! On Tuesday the 23rd of April we'll be hosting not one but two of my favourite modern spec-fic writers, Charlie Jane Anders and Annalee Newitz. We'll be starting in the store about 3.30 pm where Annalee and Charlie will be signing books, maybe doing a reading and a little impromptu Q&A. But that's not all we're doing. Followers of Charlie's social media will be aware of her bookshop / chocolate…
Find out more »May 2019
Stefen’s Bookclub – May
The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders Charlie Jane Anders is coming to town, we're doing a store event, she has a new science fiction book out and loads of readers are talking about it. So I'm doing the obvious thing and setting it as the book club book. Truth be told, since it's a book that engages with different sorts of societies and identities as well as encounters with the other in the form…
Find out more »June 2019
Stefen’s Bookclub – June
Fools by Pat Cadigan I've always had a soft spot for the cyberpunk subgenre of science fiction, and we've read a few of them for the bookclub. Generally when people talk about the genre, names like William Gibson, Bruce Sterling and Neal Stephenson are usually mentioned. At the time however, there were quite a few writers exploring future possibilities and contemporary anxieties writ large. One of my favourites is the US author Pat Cadigan who wrote several books that I…
Find out more »July 2019
Stefen’s Bookclub – July
Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut This is another book that's been on my 'must do this for the book club at some point' list for quite a long time, but I've never gotten around to it. When I noticed that it had just had its fiftieth anniversary, I thought I might as well set it next. It's also a short book, and what with some folks telling me that June was going to be bit busy for them (and me…
Find out more »August 2019
Stefen’s Bookclub – August
Terra Nullius by Claire G Coleman To keep cost down for folks I try to make sure that the book I set for book club each month is in paperback. That means sometimes I have to wait for something to come down in format. I decided a year ago that Terra Nullius was going to be a book club book. The rest has just been waiting for the small format. It’s by Claire Coleman who is originally from WA but…
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