MobileRead April 2016 Book Club Vote

[WT Sharpe]

April 2016 MobileRead Book Club Vote

Help us choose a book as the April 2016 eBook for the MobileRead Book Club. The poll will be open for 5 days. There will be no runoff vote unless the voting results a tie, in which case there will be a 3 day run-off poll. This is a visible poll: others can see how you voted. It is You may cast a vote for each book that appeals to you.

We will start the discussion thread for this book on April 20th. Select from the following Official Choices with three nominations each:

• Murphy by Samuel Beckett
Amazon US / Kobo

Spoiler:

This novel also made the Guardian's Best 100 Novels of All Time list. Quotes from the article:

“The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.” Samuel Beckett’s entry into this series with his characteristically bleak, nihilistic humour, marks another milestone: the first appearance since Shakespeare of a writer who will innovate as brilliantly in theatre as much as in poetry and prose. Beckett, indeed, is one of the giants of 20th-century literature, in any language.

Murphy is an absurdist masterpiece, a first novel that emerged from a long literary apprenticeship, mainly conducted in post-first world war Paris. It was the first substantial work by a young man – Beckett was born on Good Friday, 13 April, 1906 in Foxrock, just south of Dublin – who had been experimenting for years with poetry and prose, partly influenced by James Joyce, for whom he also worked as an unconventional secretary.

[quote]Murphy is a showcase for Beckett’s uniquely comic voice, his command of absurdist narrative, and fascination with existential, mind-body issues of being and nothingness.[quote]

• Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
Amazon UK / Amazon US / eBooks.com / Google Play / Kobo UK / Kobo US / Overdrive / Sainsbury's

Spoiler:

In his most ambitious project to date, award-winning author Kim Stanley Robinson utilizes years of research and cutting-edge science in the first of three novels that will chronicle the colonization of Mars.

For eons, sandstorms have swept the barren desolate landscape of the red planet. For centuries, Mars has beckoned to mankind to come and conquer its hostile climate. Now, in the year 2026, a group of one hundred colonists is about to fulfill that destiny.

John Boone, Maya Toitavna, Frank Chalmers, and Arkady Bogdanov lead a mission whose ultimate goal is the terraforming of Mars. For some, Mars will become a passion driving them to daring acts of courage and madness; for others it offers and opportunity to strip the planet of its riches. And for the genetic "alchemists, " Mars presents a chance to create a biomedical miracle, a breakthrough that could change all we know about life...and death.

The colonists place giant satellite mirrors in Martian orbit to reflect light to the planets surface. Black dust sprinkled on the polar caps will capture warmth and melt the ice. And massive tunnels, kilometers in depth, will be drilled into the Martian mantle to create stupendous vents of hot gases. Against this backdrop of epic upheaval, rivalries, loves, and friendships will form and fall to pieces--for there are those who will fight to the death to prevent Mars from ever being changed.

Brilliantly imagined, breathtaking in scope and ingenuity, Red Mars is an epic scientific saga, chronicling the next step in human evolution and creating a world in its entirety. Red Mars shows us a future, with both glory and tarnish, that awes with complexity and inspires with vision.

Red Mars won a Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel (1994, 1997).

• Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlan and the Great Depression by Alan Brinkley
Amazon US / B&N nook / Kobo

Spoiler:

1983 winner of the National Book Award for History.

Will readers of today will see parallels between the politics of the '30s and the politics of this year's presidential race?

• A Cold Day for Murder by Dana Stabenow
Amazon UK / Amazon US / Audible UK / Audible US / Kobo (US) / Stabenow.com

Spoiler:

This was an Edgar Award winner in 1992 as a paperback original, and a delightful read.

Originally Posted by Dana Stabenow:
It’s December in the Park, and a ranger is missing. It’s no great loss to the rest of the Park rats, they figure he’s stumbled into a snowbank and will re-emerge come breakup, just in time for the ground to thaw and them to bury him. But when the man sent to look for him also disappears, Kate Shugak, ex-investigator for the Anchorage D.A. and Park homesteader, is sent in search of them both.
First in the Kate Shugak series. Yes, this is the one that was lost for two years in my father’s garage and went on to win the Edgar award.

Originally Posted by Amazon:
Somewhere in the hinterlands of Alaska, among the millions of sprawling acres that comprise “The Park,” a young National Park Ranger has gone missing. When the detective sent after him also vanishes, the Anchorage DA’s department must turn to their reluctant former investigator, Kate Shugak. Shugak knows The Park because she’s of The Park, an Aleut who left her home village of Niniltna to pursue education, a career, and justice in an unjust world. Kate’s search for the missing men will take her from self-imposed exile back to a life she’d left behind, and face-to-face with people and problems she'd hoped never to confront again.

• The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu
Amazon Ca / Amazon UK / AmazonUS / B&N / Kobo / Overdrive

Spoiler:

The work was serialized in Science Fiction World in 2006, published as a book in 2008 and became one of the most popular science fiction novels in China. It received the Chinese Science Fiction Galaxy Award in 2006. A film adaptation of the same name is scheduled for release in July 2016.

An English translation by Ken Liu was published by Tor Books in 2014. It won the 2015 Hugo Award for Best Novel and was nominated for the 2014 Nebula Award for Best Novel.

1967: Ye Wenjie witnesses Red Guards beat her father to death during China's Cultural Revolution. This singular event will shape not only the rest of her life but also the future of mankind.

Four decades later, Beijing police ask nanotech engineer Wang Miao to infiltrate a secretive cabal of scientists after a spate of inexplicable suicides. Wang's investigation will lead him to a mysterious online game and immerse him in a virtual world ruled by the intractable and unpredictable interaction of its three suns.

This is the Three-Body Problem and it is the key to everything: the key to the scientists' deaths, the key to a conspiracy that spans light-years and the key to the extinction-level threat humanity now faces.

• Hominids (Neanderthal Parallax Book 1) by Robert J. Sawyer
Amazon Ca / Amazon US / Barnes & Noble / Kobo

Spoiler:

From Amazon:

Robert Sawyer's SF novels are perennial nominees for the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, or both. Clearly, he must be doing something right since each one has been something new and different. What they do have in common is imaginative originality, great stories, and unique scientific extrapolation. His latest is no exception. [NOTE: This is no longer his "latest" — Tom.]

Hominids is a strong, stand-alone SF novel, but it's also the first book of The Neanderthal Parallax, a trilogy that will examine two unique species of people. They are alien to each other, yet bound together by the never-ending quest for knowledge and, beneath their differences, a common humanity. We are one of those species, the other is the Neanderthals of a parallel world where they, not Homo sapiens, became the dominant intelligence. In that world, Neanderthal civilization has reached heights of culture and science comparable to our own, but is very different in history, society, and philosophy.

During a risky experiment deep in a mine in Canada, Ponter Boddit, a Neanderthal physicist, accidentally pierces the barrier between worlds and is transferred to our universe, where in the same mine another experiment is taking place. Hurt, but alive, he is almost immediately recognized as a Neanderthal, but only much later as a scientist. He is captured and studied, alone and bewildered, a stranger in a strange land. But Ponter is also befriended-by a doctor and a physicist who share his questing intelligence and boundless enthusiasm for the world's strangeness, and especially by geneticist Mary Vaughan, a lonely woman with whom he develops a special rapport.

Meanwhile, Ponter's partner, Adikor Huld, finds himself with a messy lab, a missing body, suspicious people all around, and an explosive murder trial that he can't possibly win because he has no idea what actually happened. Talk about a scientific challenge!

Contact between humans and Neanderthals creates a relationship fraught with conflict, philosophical challenge, and threat to the existence of one species or the other-or both-but equally rich in boundless possibilities for cooperation and growth on many levels, from the practical to the esthetic to the scientific to the spiritual. In short, Robert J. Sawyner has done it again.

Hominids is the winner of the 2003 Hugo Award for Best Novel.

• The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
Amazon Ca / Amazon US / Audible / Kobo US

Spoiler:

This book was on Benioff's top-10 list and won the Booker. From Wikipedia:

The White Tiger is the debut novel by Indian author Aravind Adiga. It was first published in 2008 and won the 40th Man Booker Prize in the same year.[1] The novel provides a darkly humorous perspective of India’s class struggle in a globalized world as told through a retrospective narration from Balram Halwai, a village boy.
<snipped for plotty points>
...the novel examines issues of religion, caste, loyalty, corruption and poverty in India.

• The Long Quiche Goodbye by Avery Aames
Amazon Ca / Amazon UK / Amazon US / Barnes & Noble / Google Play / Kobo / Overdrive

Spoiler:

Winner of the 2010 Agatha Award for Best First Novel.

From Amazon:
Welcome to the grand opening of Fromagerie Bessette. Or as it's more commonly known by the residents of small-town Providence, Ohio-the Cheese Shop. Proprietor Charlotte Bessette has prepared a delightful sampling of bold Cabot Clothbound Cheddar, delicious tortes of Stilton and Mascarpone, and a taste of Sauvignon Blanc-but someone else has decided to make a little crime of passion the piece de resistance. Right outside the shop Charlotte finds a body, the victim stabbed to death with one of her prized olive-wood handled knives.

[WT Sharpe]

I vote we scrap the rest of the year and read one of these a month. They all look good.

[CRussel]

Not the worst suggestion you ever had. They even span multiple genres and venues.

The only one I'm not interested in reading is Red Mars. I read it once, and it convinced me not to read the 2nd and 3rd books in the trilogy. Not that I didn't think it was a good book, just that I didn't enjoy it. Which is not my usual reaction to Robinson.

[JSWolf]

Can we please have the poll changed to not allow us to see the results?I think that can easily influence others unfairly.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Can we please have the poll changed to not allow us to see the results?I think that can easily influence others unfairly.

How do the rest of you feel about Jon's idea?

[issybird]

I'm against it. I'd have to see a cogent argument in favor, which Jon hasn't supplied. Unless bribery or threats are involved, I don't see the issue where influence could be seen as unfair.

On the other hand, I'd like to think that an open vote encourages people to vote for a book they'd be willing to read, as opposed to just the one(s) they'd like most. Voting isn't the problem right now as many are willing to vote; it's participation.

And I have to add that it's easy to lob around the words fair and unfair, but you've got to back them up. "I don't like it" isn't sufficient for "unfair."

[John F]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

How do the rest of you feel about Jon's idea?

Once upon a time there was a poll:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...highlight=Poll

[CRussel]

I see nothing to gain by that, Jon. There's no coercion here, though I admit to occasionally urging others to vote for my choice(s), but certainly you can't complain about that. This has been tried before (thanks for the link, John F)) and a wise decision was made to have open voting. There's nothing unfair about it - that's a claim that simply won't wash.

Now, back to the reason we're here. I'm disappointed to not see the Dana Stabenow book (A Cold Day for Murder) doing better. This is a superb book, the start of a series but completely standalone, that provides an interesting look into life in rural Alaska while giving us wonderful characters and an excellent mystery. Much more than YAM. Plus it's FREE, so no concerns about cost or library availability, and short, making it easy for folks to consume in time for the discussion, and it even has an excellent audio version for those who want to read it that way.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by John F

Once upon a time there was a poll:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...highlight=Poll

Thanks, John. I'd forgotten that.

[Dazrin]

It has been interesting to watch this vote as it has progressed. Early on The Three-Body Problem had a big lead with 67% of all voters choosing it, the next highest had ~40%. Now nothing has over 40% and there are three titles within 2 of the lead. With just over a day and a half left this could be an interesting finish.

[CRussel]

You're right, Dazrin, it's been an interesting progression. I'm still hoping for the only one of the leaders that is completely free (A Cold Day for Murder) to pull into the lead. Especially since I really want a good excuse for a re-read, and I expect to like it even more the second time around.

[JSWolf]

When we've had closed votes, we've gotten much closer results. One thing that does influence votes is the number of votes. Some won't vote for books they feel don't have a chance to win based on the current votes. This type of voting can be abolished by making the voting hidden.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

When we've had closed votes, we've gotten much closer results. One thing that does influence votes is the number of votes. Some won't vote for books they feel don't have a chance to win based on the current votes. This type of voting can be abolished by making the voting hidden.

With multiple votes, I don't see why that would be an issue at all. No one need feel a vote is "wasted," since he can vote for as many books as he'd like. I think it makes it more likely that a dark horse could win, in fact. People don't have to play it safe, as they might feel would be best if they could only vote for one.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

When we've had closed votes, we've gotten much closer results. One thing that does influence votes is the number of votes. Some won't vote for books they feel don't have a chance to win based on the current votes. This type of voting can be abolished by making the voting hidden.

Given that we have multiple choice, that's just not supportable, Jon. It doesn't matter which book is leading, or by how much, since I'm not wasting a vote. And even if it were true, strategic voting is a valid choice for people to make. (Notice, please, the use of subjunctive mood/case!)

Come on, folks, vote for one (or more) of the trailing books so that we can have a runoff again. I'm thinking a 4 book runoff would be fun.

[WT Sharpe]

As a fan of both cozy mysteries and cheese, I'd like to see a bit more love for The Long Quiche Goodbye by Avery Aames.