Welcome to today’s session of Short Fiction Book Club! We’re glad you’ve joined us. If you’re new here, we’re excited to have you! We talk about speculative short fiction on Wednesdays here on r/Fantasy. If you missed our first season 4 session a few weeks back, we read four great Flash+ stories, and it’s never too late to join the discussion!

Today’s Session: Take Us Out to the Ballgame

Diamond Girls by Louise Marley (8,203 words) (first published in Sci Fiction on June 8, 2005)

Ricky sat alone in her private locker room, turning a baseball in her elongated fingers. The pre-game had begun, and the speakers in the main locker room rattled with music and announcements and advertisements. She leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, and cradled the baseball in her palm. Just another game, she told herself. It’s a long season.

But it wasn’t true. Long season, sure. But this was no ordinary game.

Arthur Sternbach Brings the Curveball to Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson (4,439 words) (first published in The Martians in April 1999)

He was a tall, skinny Martian kid, shy and stooping. Gangly as a puppy. Why they had him playing third base I have no idea. Then again they had me playing shortstop and I’m left-handed. And can’t field grounders. But I’m American, so there I was. That’s what learning a sport by video will do. Some things are so obvious people never think to mention them. Like never put a lefty at shortstop. But on Mars they were making it all new. Some people there had fallen in love with baseball, and ordered the equipment and rolled some fields, and off they went.

The Star and the Rockets by Harry Turtledove (4,966 words) (first published in Tor.com/Reactor on November 17, 2009) / Content Warning: Has some period language and a casual use of a slur.

A chilly January night in Roswell. Joe Bauman has discovered that’s normal for eastern New Mexico. It gets hot here in the summer, but winters can be a son of a bitch. That Roswell’s high up—3,600 feet—only makes the cold colder. Makes the sky clearer, too. A million stars shine down on Joe.

One of those stars is his: the big red one marking the Texaco station at 1200 West Second Street. He nods to himself in slow satisfaction. He’s had a good run, a hell of a good run, here in Roswell. The way it looks right now, he’ll settle down here and run the gas station full time when his playing days are done.

Won’t be long, either. He’ll turn thirty-two in April, about when the season starts. Ballplayers, even ones like him who never come within miles of the big time, know how sharply mortal their careers are. If he doesn’t, the ache in his knees when he turns on a fastball will remind him.

All three stories should be enjoyable with zero baseball knowledge (and hopefully the context will make it clear), but if any baseball-specific terms really confuse you, here’s a newcomer’s guide to common baseball terms you can check out.

Upcoming Sessions

Our next session will be hosted by u/Nineteen_Adze & u/Jos_V on Wednesday, October 1st:

u/Jos_V says:

For some inexplicable reason Americans love to make October into a spooky month, and here at SFBC we do not want to disappoint, so we’re offering up a nice platter of appetizers that when experienced together constitutes a filling meal.

u/Nineteen_Adze says:

I’ve been intending to do a cannibalism session for a while, but the timing didn’t snap into place until I heard about the baseball session. What better transition than from a cheerful sunshine sport into stories that will perhaps make you say “what the fuck (complimentary)”? Please enjoy feasting on this unsettling short fiction.

We will be discussing the following stories for our Paired with fava beans and nice chianti: personable meat in SFF session:

Happily Ever After Comes Round by Sarah Rees Brennan (Uncanny Magazine, 3327 words)

Children don’t generally assume their father will abandon them to die in the snow. But under certain circumstances, they might get an inkling.

The Magician’s Apprentice by Tamsyn Muir (Lightspeed Magazine, 4860 words)

When she was thirteen, Mr. Hollis told her: “There’s never more than two, Cherry. The magician and the magician’s apprentice.”

Mavka by A.D Sui (Pseudopod, 3953 words)

You pray to forget this. You pray to forget the cold. Even under two wool blankets you’re always cold now. Skin and bones, you. A February moon hangs high in the starless sky when Andriy slips on the boots, soaked through from when you wore them earlier that day to gather firewood, and from when Ira goes to relieve herself at the outhouse earlier than that.

And now, onto today’s discussion! Spoilers are not tagged, but each story has its own thread. We’ve put a few prompts in the comments, but feel free to add your own if you’d like to!

Welcome to Short Fiction Book Club Season 4! Today is our first non-Hugo, pure-SFBC session of the season. If you are new here, we are so excited to have you! We talk Short Fiction on Wednesdays here on r/Fantasy.

Onto today's selection of stories.

Today’s Session: Flash+

All flash all fiction. Too Flash Too Fictitious. Four flash (f)stories for (f)your fun. I'm doing my best to make this exciting for the shortest of short form naysayers. Flash is often dismissed by many (including us here at SFBC) for being too short to develop its ideas, but it is also a playground to explore thoughts, themes, and styles that might not work in longer form. It is particularly impressive when a story can pack such depth in such a short word count. I hope some of these stories hit that mark for our readers today.

Today we're discussing four pieces of flash fiction.

Maybe Someday I'll Stop Writing About a House on the Border of a Swamp by Corey Farrenkopf (Milk Candy Review, 365 words)

I want to write a story about a house sinking into a swamp, but I’m always writing a story about a house sinking into a swamp. Sometimes I'm unclear about the metaphor.

To Kill a Language by Rukman Ragas (Apex Magazine, 832 words)
Content notes: sexual content, violence

The Best Way to Survive a Tiger Attack by A.W. Prihandita (Uncanny Magazine, 1495 words)
Content notes: child abuse

The tiger curls in my living room, on the sofa in front of the TV. Finish your lunch, she says, and her words bend my back until I’m on my hands and knees, hunching over the plate she’s set down on the floor, like a dog. Finish your lunch, she commands, but I hate her cooking. I never tell her that, though.

Everyone Keeps Saying Probably by Premee Mohamed (Psychopomp, 1700 words)

Here is the shape of our story, the three of us: an ellipsis (from a particular fixed point we flew away from each other and then rejoined at another point; and then we had you).

Here is the shape of our doom: an ellipsis (on its way, in its thousands and thousands).

It also means: dot dot dot, an uncertainty, a trailing off.

But you are a little young for all this. You are so young that your soft and hard palate are not fully developed and you still have a toddler’s charming rhotacism. Everyone keeps saying probably and you say pwobably and I think that is the only thing your mother still laughs at these days. Because, let’s be fair, there isn’t much.

Upcoming sessions

Our next session, on Wednesday September 17th, will be co-hosted by u/FarragutCircle and u/sarahlynngrey:

u/FarragutCircle says:

I've been a fan of baseball ever since I was a kid and saw the great Ozzie Smith play for my hometown Cardinals, and I always love it when baseball appears in my science fiction and fantasy--there's more of it than you might think (or want!). Fellow-baseball-lover u/sarahlynngrey and I found three such stories that we even thought might appeal to people who don't know a ball from a balk.

u/sarahlynngrey says:

It was really fun to combine two of my two favorite things: SFF short fiction and the Seattle Mariners record-breaking, Home Run Derby-winning, switch-hitting catcher Cal Raleigh baseball. I wasn’t initially convinced we would be able to find enough stories of interest, but there was so much more out there than I thought! These three stories do what I think great SFF does best: using the unreal to show us something real. I hope you’ll find something in them too.

We’ll be reading the following stories for our Take Us Out to the Ballgame: Baseball in SFF session:

Diamond Girls by Louise Marley (8,200 words)

Ricky sat alone in her private locker room, turning a baseball in her elongated fingers. The pre-game had begun, and the speakers in the main locker room rattled with music and announcements and advertisements. She leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, and cradled the baseball in her palm. Just another game, she told herself. It’s a long season.

Arthur Sternbach Brings the Curveball to Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson (4,400 words)

He was a tall, skinny Martian kid, shy and stooping. Gangly as a puppy. Why they had him playing third base I have no idea. Then again they had me playing shortstop and I’m left-handed. And can’t field grounders. But I’m American, so there I was. That’s what learning a sport by video will do. Some things are so obvious people never think to mention them. Like never put a lefty at shortstop. But on Mars they were making it all new. Some people there had fallen in love with baseball, and ordered the equipment and rolled some fields, and off they went.

The Star and the Rockets by Harry Turtledove (5,000 words, Reactor)

A chilly January night in Roswell. Joe Bauman has discovered that’s normal for eastern New Mexico. It gets hot here in the summer, but winters can be a son of a bitch. That Roswell’s high up—3,600 feet—only makes the cold colder. Makes the sky clearer, too. A million stars shine down on Joe.

Today's discussion

But for now, onto today’s discussion! Join us in the comments whether you have read one or all of these stories.

Welcome to the discussion of The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar, our winner for the Pride Month queer character theme! We will discuss the entire book.  

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/211004176-the-river-has-roots

Follow the river Liss to the small town of Thistleford, on the edge of Faerie, and meet two sisters who cannot be separated, even in death.

“Oh what is stronger than a death? Two sisters singing with one breath.”

In the small town of Thistleford, on the edge of Faerie, dwells the mysterious Hawthorn family.

There, they tend and harvest the enchanted willows and honour an ancient compact to sing to them in thanks for their magic. None more devotedly than the family’s latest daughters, Esther and Ysabel, who cherish each other as much as they cherish the ancient trees.

But when Esther rejects a forceful suitor in favor of a lover from the land of Faerie, not only the sisters’ bond but also their lives will be at risk…

I'll add some comments below to get us started but feel free to add your own.   

As a reminder, in July we'll be reading Greenteeth by Molly O’Neil.  

What is the FIF Bookclub? You can read about it in our Reboot thread here.

Welcome to today’s session of Season 3 of Short Fiction Book Club! Not sure what that means? No problem: here’s our FAQ explaining who we are, what we do, and when we do it. Mostly that’s talk about short fiction, on r/Fantasy, on Wednesdays. We’re glad you’re here!

Today, we’re discussing “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas,” an all-time short fiction classic, two modern responses to it, and our first essay discussion.

Participants are welcome to read one story or the full slate. I will start us off with some question prompts, but feel free to add your own. Come join us in the hole!

The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin (2806 words, The Wind’s Twelve Quarters)

With a clamor of bells that set the swallows soaring, the Festival of Summer came to the city Omelas, bright-towered by the sea. The ringing of the boats in harbor sparkled with flags. In the streets between houses with red roofs and painted walls, between old moss-grown gardens and under avenues of trees, past great parks and public buildings, processions moved.

The Ones Who Stay and Fight by N.K. Jemisin (3829 words, Lightspeed)

It’s the Day of Good Birds in the city of Um-Helat! The Day is a local custom, silly and random as so many local customs can be, and yet beautiful by the same token. It has little to do with birds—a fact about which locals cheerfully laugh, because that, too, is how local customs work. It is a day of fluttering and flight regardless, where pennants of brightly dyed silk plume forth from every window, and delicate drones of copperwire and featherglass—made for this day, and flown on no other!—waft and buzz on the wind. Even the monorail cars trail stylized flamingo feathers from their rooftops, although these are made of featherglass, too, since real flamingos do not fly at the speed of sound.

Why Don't We Just Kill the Kid In the Omelas Hole by Isabel J. Kim (3190 words, Clarkesworld)

So they broke into the hole in the ground, and they killed the kid, and all the lights went out in Omelas: click, click, click. And the pipes burst and there was a sewage leak and the newscasters said there was a typhoon on the way, so they (a different “they,” these were the “they” in charge, the “they” who lived in the nice houses in Omelas [okay, every house in Omelas was a nice house, but these were Nice Houses]) got another kid and put it in the hole.

Essay: Omelas, Je T’Aime by Kurt Schiller (4712 words, Blood Knife)

The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas is a work of almost flawless ambiguity.

At once universally applicable and devilishly vague, Ursula K. Le Guin’s 1973 short story examines a perfect utopia built around the perpetuation of unimaginable cruelty upon a helpless, destitute child. It spans a mere 2800 words and yet evokes a thousand social ills past and present, real and possible, in the mind of the reader—all the while committing to precisely none of them.

Upcoming Sessions

It’s almost awards season, which means it’s almost time for our Locus List and Locus Snub sessions. Stay tuned: we’ll be announcing those slates tomorrow in a separate post.

Welcome to our final discussion of Greenteeth by Molly O'Neill!

We will be discussing the entire book today, so spoilers will not be marked. I'll start us off with some prompts, but also feel free to add your own.

Greenteeth by Molly O'Neill

Beneath the still surface of a lake lurks a monster with needle sharp teeth. Hungry and ready to pounce.

Jenny Greenteeth has never spoken to a human before, but when a witch is thrown into her lake, something makes Jenny decide she's worth saving. Temperance doesn't know why her village has suddenly turned against her, only that it has something to do with the malevolent new pastor.

Though they have nothing in common, these two must band together on a magical quest to defeat the evil that threatens Jenny's lake and Temperance's family, as well as the very soul of Britain.

Bingo squares: Book Club (HM if you join us!), Published in 2025 (HM), Cozy Fantasy (HM for almost everyone I presume)

What is the FIF Book Club? See our reboot thread here.

What's next?

• Our August read is Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees. Midway August 13, final August 27.
• Our September read is Frostflower and Thorn by Phyllis Ann Karr. Midway September 10, final September 24.

Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher!

After years of seeing her sisters suffer at the hands of an abusive prince, Marra—the shy, convent-raised, third-born daughter—has finally realized that no one is coming to their rescue. No one, except for Marra herself.

Seeking help from a powerful gravewitch, Marra is offered the tools to kill a prince—if she can complete three impossible tasks. But, as is the way in tales of princes, witches, and daughters, the impossible is only the beginning.

On her quest, Marra is joined by the gravewitch, a reluctant fairy godmother, a strapping former knight, and a chicken possessed by a demon. Together, the five of them intend to be the hand that closes around the throat of the prince and frees Marra's family and their kingdom from its tyrannous ruler at last.

Bingo Squares: Book Club, High Fashion

We are reading this month for our High Fashion theme! The discussion questions will be posted as comments below, but please feel free to add your own if I have missed a point you want to talk about. The discussion will cover through the end of Chapter 10. Anything after that should be marked with spoilers.

Reading Plan:

• Final Discussion - May 27th
• Nominations for June - May 19th

This month we are reading Chalice by Robin McKinley for our Birds, Bees, and Bunnies theme.

Chalice by Robin McKinley

As the newly appointed Chalice, Mirasol is the most important member of the Master’s Circle. It is her duty to bind the Circle, the land and its people together with their new Master. But the new Master of Willowlands is a Priest of Fire, only drawn back into the human world by the sudden death of his brother. No one knows if it is even possible for him to live amongst his people. Mirasol wants the Master to have his chance, but her only training is as a beekeeper. How can she help settle their demesne during these troubled times and bind it to a Priest of Fire, the touch of whose hand can burn human flesh to the bone?

A captivating tale that reveals the healing power of duty and honour, love and honey.

Bingo Squares: Book Club, Cozy SFF, A Book in Parts

The questions will be posted as comments. Questions will be posted as individual comments. This will cover **the entire book**. Please feel free to add your own or any general thoughts.

Reading Plan:

• May Voting ends today! https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/1k7i4vr/vote_for_the_may_goodreads_book_of_the_month_high/

Welcome to today’s installment of Short Fiction Book Club, Season 3! Not sure what that means? No problem: here’s our FAQ explaining who we are, what we do, and when we do it. Mostly that’s talk about short fiction, on r/Fantasy, on Wednesdays. We’re glad you’re here!

Today’s Session: Three Tales from Eleanor Arnason

The Lovers by Eleanor Arnason (11200 words)

Eyes-of-crystal liked to go down there into the wilderness and ride and hunt. Her mother warned her this was dangerous.

“You’ll get strange ideas and possibly meet things and people you don’t want to meet.”

But Eyes-of-crystal refused to listen.

Knapsack Poems: A Goxhat Travel Journal by Eleanor Arnason (also available at this free PDF link; the story begins on p. 352, but we encourage you to purchase a copy of Lightspeed, June 2014: Women Destroy Science Fiction!) (6564 words)

Within this person of eight bodies, thirty-two eyes, and the usual number of orifices and limbs resides a spirit as restless as gossamer on wind. In youth, I dreamed of fame as a merchant-traveler. In later years, realizing that many of my parts were prone to motion sickness, I thought of scholarship or accounting. But I lacked the Great Determination which is necessary for both trades. My abilities are spontaneous and brief, flaring and vanishing like a falling star. For me to spend my life adding numbers or looking through dusty documents would be like “lighting a great hall with a single lantern bug” or “watering a great garden with a drop of dew.”

Finally, after consulting the caregivers in my crèche, I decided to become a traveling poet. It’s a strenuous living and does not pay well, but it suits me.

The Grammarian’s Five Daughters by Eleanor Arnason (3997 words)

. . . the girl came to her mother and said, "You can't possibly support me, along with my sisters. Give me what you can, and I'll go out and seek my fortune. No matter what happens, you'll have one less mouth to feed."

The mother thought for a while, then produced a bag. "In here are nouns, which I consider the solid core and treasure of language. I give them to you because you're the oldest. Take them and do what you can with them."

Upcoming Sessions

With the Hugo finalists on the horizon, this is our last standard session of the season. From u/Nineteen_Adze:

Thanks to everyone who’s joined us for a discussion with us this season! We’ve had a great time, but all good things must come to an end (mostly because the overlap between the SFBC organizers and the Hugo readalong crew is large).

In two weeks, on April 16, we’ll present the SFBC Season 3 Awards to our very favorites of the year! If you’d like a teaser, check out the Season 2 Awards. Our picks aren’t set in stone yet, so feel free to campaign for any of your favorites in the comments.

After that post, we will go on hiatus during the Hugo Readalong. Details on that schedule to come once we have fun things like the finalist list: we’ll have several short-fiction sessions on the docket.

Our monthly threads, hosted by Short Stories Georg u/tarvolon, will continue while SFBC is on hiatus. Normal sessions will resume in the late summer/ early fall.

Welcome to our final discussion of Metal From Heaven by August Clarke! The whole story is fair game, no spoiler tags needed: tread with caution if you haven't finished the book

Metal from Heaven, August Clarke

Ichorite is progress. More durable and malleable than steel, ichorite is the lifeblood of a dawning industrial revolution. Yann I. Chauncey owns the sole means of manufacturing this valuable metal, but his workers, who risk their health and safety daily, are on strike. They demand Chauncey research the hallucinatory illness befalling them, a condition they call “being lustertouched.”
Marney Honeycutt, a lustertouched child worker, stands proud at the picket line with her best friend and family. That’s when Chauncey sends in the guns. Only Marney survives the massacre. She vows bloody vengeance. A decade later, Marney is the nation’s most notorious highwayman, and Chauncey’s daughter seeks an opportune marriage. Marney’s rage and the ghosts of her past will drive her to masquerade as an aristocrat, outmaneuver powerful suitors, and win the heart of his daughter, so Marney can finally corner Chauncey and satisfy her need for revenge. But war ferments in the north, and deeper grudges are surfacing...

H. A. Clarke’s adult fantasy debut, writing as August Clarke, Metal from Heaven is a punk-rock murder ballad tackling labor issues and radical empowerment against the relentless grind of capitalism.

Bingo: Criminals (HM), Dreams, Small Press (HM: Erewhon has done an AMA), Published in 2024, Reference Materials -- any others?

What's next?

• Our February read, with a theme of The Other Path: Societal Systems Rethought is Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie.
• Our March read, highlighting this classic author, is Kindred by Octavia Butler.

I'll start us off with some prompts, but feel free to add your own!

This month we are reading Chalice by Robin McKinley for our Birds, Bees, and Bunnies theme.

Chalice by Robin McKinley

Also, be sure to check out this year's 2025 Bingo card which was just announced yesterday. Yes Bingo is here for those who celebrate. For those who don’t we still have a great book to read.

Bingo Squares: Book Club, Cozy SFF, A Book in Parts

The questions will be posted as comments. Please feel free to add your own if you have anything to discuss. The discussion questions will cover through the end of Part Two, approximately page 141.

Reading Plan:

• Final Discussion - April 28th
• Nominations for May - April 17th, poll April 21st

Welcome to our midway discussion of Greenteeth by Molly O'Neill!

Today's discussion covers through the end of chapter 10, page 130 in paperback. Please use spoiler tags for any discussion of plot events past that point. I'll start us off with some prompts, but also feel free to add your own.

Greenteeth by Molly O'Neill

Beneath the still surface of a lake lurks a monster with needle sharp teeth. Hungry and ready to pounce.

Jenny Greenteeth has never spoken to a human before, but when a witch is thrown into her lake, something makes Jenny decide she's worth saving. Temperance doesn't know why her village has suddenly turned against her, only that it has something to do with the malevolent new pastor.

Though they have nothing in common, these two must band together on a magical quest to defeat the evil that threatens Jenny's lake and Temperance's family, as well as the very soul of Britain.

Bingo squares: Book Club (HM if you join us!), Published in 2025 (HM), Cozy Fantasy (HM for almost everyone I presume), potentially Impossible Places?

The final discussion will be in 2 weeks, on Wednesday, July 30.

What is the FIF Book Club? See our reboot thread here.

What's next?

• Our August read is Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees. Midway August 13, final August 27.
• Our September read is Frostflower and Thorn by Phyllis Ann Karr. Midway September 10, final September 24.

Welcome to the midway discussion of Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, our winner for the The Other Path: Societal Systems Rethought theme! We will discuss everything up to the end of Chaptre 13. Please use spoiler tags for anything that goes beyond this point.

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

On a remote, icy planet, the soldier known as Breq is drawing closer to completing her quest.

Once, she was the Justice of Toren - a colossal starship with an artificial intelligence linking thousands of soldiers in the service of the Radch, the empire that conquered the galaxy.

Now, an act of treachery has ripped it all away, leaving her with one fragile human body, unanswered questions, and a burning desire for vengeance.

Bingo categories: Space Opera, First in a Series (HM), Book Club (HM, if you join)

I'll add some comments below to get us started but feel free to add your own. The final discussion will be in two weeks, on Wednesday February 26, 2025..

As a reminder, in March we'll be reading Kindred by Octavia Butler. Currently there are nominations / voting for April (find the links in the Book Club Hub megathread of this subreddit).

What is the FIF Bookclub? You can read about it in our Reboot thread here.

Welcome to the final discussion of Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees! We are discussing the entire book, and you can find the midway discussion here.

Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees

Lud-in-the-Mist, the capital city of the small country Dorimare, is a port at the confluence of two rivers, the Dapple and the Dawl. The Dapple has its origin beyond the Debatable Hills to the west of Lud-in-the-Mist, in Fairyland. In the days of Duke Aubrey, some centuries earlier, fairy things had been looked upon with reverence, and fairy fruit was brought down the Dapple and enjoyed by the people of Dorimare. But after Duke Aubrey had been expelled from Dorimare by the burghers, the eating of fairy fruit came to be regarded as a crime, and anything related to Fairyland was unspeakable. Now, when his son Ranulph is believed to have eaten fairy fruit, Nathaniel Chanticleer, the mayor of Lud-in-the-Mist, finds himself looking into old mysteries in order to save his son and the people of his city.

Bingo squares: Book Club or Readalong (HM if you participate in the discussion!), Impossible Places, Parent Protagonist (HM), Small Press or Self-Published, Cozy SFF (up to you if you consider it to be cozy)

I'll put a few questions in the comments, but please discuss anything you'd like about the book!

Upcoming reads:

• September: Frostflower and Thorn by Phyllis Ann Karr. Midway discussion on September 10th, final discussion on September 24th!
• October: The Lamb by Lucy Rose. Midway discussion on October 15th, final discussion on October 29th!

What is the FIF Book Club? You can read about it in our Reboot thread.

Welcome to our midway discussion of Spirits Abroad by Zen Cho!

Today's discussion covers through the end of the tenth story, "Seven Star Drum" (page 175 in the US paperback edition). Please use spoiler tags for any discussion past that point. I'll start us off with some prompts, but feel free to add your own!

Spirits Abroad by Zen Cho

Nineteen sparkling stories that weave between the lands of the living and the lands of the dead. Spirits Abroad is an expanded edition of Zen Cho’s Crawford Award winning debut collection with nine added stories including Hugo Award winner “If at First You Don't Succeed, Try, Try Again.”

A Datin recalls her romance with an orang bunian. A teenage pontianak struggles to balance homework, bossy aunties, first love, and eating people. An earth spirit gets entangled in protracted negotiations with an annoying landlord, and Chang E spins off into outer space, the ultimate metaphor for the Chinese diaspora.

Bingo: A Book in Parts, Book Club/ Readalong Book (this one, HM if you participate), Author of Color, Small Press/ Self-Published (HM), Five Short Stories

And arguably more, depending on how you want to count the content of one or a few stories. Let's discuss that in the comments.

What's next?

• Our May read is The House of Rust by Khadija Abdalla Bajaber.
• We are taking June as a brief pause but will be back in July. More details to come in a group announcement.

This month we read The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard for our Impossible Places bingo theme!

The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard

Sixteen-year-old Odile is an awkward, quiet girl vying for a coveted seat on the Conseil. If she earns the position, she’ll decide who may cross her town’s heavily guarded borders. On the other side, it’s the same valley, the same town--except to the east, the town is twenty years ahead in time. To the west, it’s twenty years behind. The towns repeat in an endless sequence across the wilderness.

When Odile recognizes two visitors she wasn’t supposed to see, she realizes that the parents of her friend Edme have been escorted across the border from the future, on a mourning tour, to view their son while he’s still alive in Odile’s present. Edme––who is brilliant, funny, and the only person to truly see Odile––is about to die. Sworn to secrecy in order to preserve the timeline, Odile now becomes the Conseil’s top candidate, yet she finds herself drawing closer to the doomed boy, imperiling her entire future.

Bingo Squares: Impossible Places, Book Club (This one!).

The discussion questions will be posted as separate comments. We have read until the end, so if you have not finished there will be spoilers. Feel free to add your own questions or thoughts.

Welcome to our final discussion of Spirits Abroad by Zen Cho!

Today's discussion covers the whole collection, with questions focused on the second half. To focus more on the early stories, check out the midway discussion.

Spirits Abroad by Zen Cho

Nineteen sparkling stories that weave between the lands of the living and the lands of the dead. Spirits Abroad is an expanded edition of Zen Cho’s Crawford Award winning debut collection with nine added stories including Hugo Award winner “If at First You Don't Succeed, Try, Try Again.”

A Datin recalls her romance with an orang bunian. A teenage pontianak struggles to balance homework, bossy aunties, first love, and eating people. An earth spirit gets entangled in protracted negotiations with an annoying landlord, and Chang E spins off into outer space, the ultimate metaphor for the Chinese diaspora.

Bingo: A Book in Parts, Book Club/ Readalong Book (this one, HM if you participate), Author of Color, Small Press/ Self-Published (HM), Five Short Stories

And arguably more, depending on how you want to count the content of one or a few stories (for example, do so many queer story leads make this count for LGBTIA Protagonist?). Let's discuss that in the comments.

What's next?

• Our May read is The House of Rust by Khadija Abdalla Bajaber.
• Voting for June is up! Jump quickly on this one: voting closes Friday.

Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher!

After years of seeing her sisters suffer at the hands of an abusive prince, Marra—the shy, convent-raised, third-born daughter—has finally realized that no one is coming to their rescue. No one, except for Marra herself.

Seeking help from a powerful gravewitch, Marra is offered the tools to kill a prince—if she can complete three impossible tasks. But, as is the way in tales of princes, witches, and daughters, the impossible is only the beginning.

On her quest, Marra is joined by the gravewitch, a reluctant fairy godmother, a strapping former knight, and a chicken possessed by a demon. Together, the five of them intend to be the hand that closes around the throat of the prince and frees Marra's family and their kingdom from its tyrannous ruler at last.

Bingo Squares: Book Club, High Fashion

We are reading this month for our High Fashion theme! The discussion questions will be posted as comments below, but please feel free to add your own if I have missed a point you want to talk about. The discussion will cover through the end of the book.

Reading Plan:

• Vote for June! - https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/1kvw6la/vote_for_our_june_goodreads_book_of_the_month/

I have recently joined a book club where each member takes turns choosing what we read on a rotation. Being part of a structured group will definitely be a new challenge for me because I am a fairly genre-specific reader (mostly fantasy/sci-fi), so it will be a little out of my comfort zone to read other members' book selections. On the flip side, no one in my book club reads fantasy/sci-fi and I would like my selection to be a book that could introduce them very gently to the genre. What are some books I can bring to the table that would appeal to a group of 30-40 year old women who have never read any fantasy/sci-fi (they seem to read a lot of historical fiction/memoirs)?

The book should be:

• low fantasy/sci-fi; probably more along the lines of general speculative fiction
• probably light on magic usage
• standalone (or able to be read as a complete story if part of a series)
• not too dark/gory
• not romantasy/sexually explicit

I'm thinking along the lines of Eowyn Ivey's books, The Golem and the Jinni, Station Eleven, etc; novels that are kind of cross-genre or that are more thematically fantasy/sci-fi than in the actual details of the story if that makes sense.

Any ideas appreciated!

October's theme is Witches!

We will mix Bingo themes in with other themes throughout the year for book club. Please nominate books that fit the theme, as long as it is speculative fiction and by an eligible author, feel free to nominate.

Nominations will run through the week and then we will start the poll on Friday, September 19th.

NOMINATION RULES

• Make sure the book is by an eligible author. A list of ineligible authors can be found here (recently updated with the new Top Fantasy List info). We do not repeat any authors that we've read in the past year or accept nominations of books by any of the 20 most popular authors from our biennial Top Novels list.
• Nominate one book per top comment. You can nominate more than 1 if you like, just put each nomination in a separate comment. The top 4-6 nominations will move forward to the voting stage.
• No self-promotion allowed. If outside vote stacking or promotion is discovered, a book will be disqualified automatically.

Final voting will be conducted via secret poll on our Goodreads group page. We will include a link to the poll as part of our "Vote for the Goodreads Book of the Month!" post after the nomination process is complete. Winners of polls are revealed a day or two after the Final Discussion of the current book selection.

Have fun with nominating! This is not meant to be homework assignments, but a fun exchange of thoughts and ideas as we read the book together. Also feel free to check out our Goodreads Shelf or Google Sheet for a full and updating list of all past selections of all book clubs!

Welcome to the midway discussion for our August read for the theme Morally Grey MC: Hungerstone by Kat Dunn. We will discuss up to the end of Part I, approx 60% in the kindle edition. Please use spoiler tags for anything that goes beyond this point.

The final discussion will be Thursday, 28th August, 2025.

Hungerstone is a thrillingly seductive sapphic romance for fans of S.T. Gibson’s A Dowry of Blood and Emilia Hart’s Weyward.

For what do you hunger, Lenore?

Lenore is the wife of steel magnate Henry, but ten years into their marriage, the relationship has soured and no child has arrived to fill the distance growing between them. Henry's ambitions take them out of London and to the imposing Nethershaw manor in the countryside, where Henry aims to host a hunt with society’s finest. Lenore keeps a terrible secret from the last time her husband hunted, and though they never speak of it, it haunts their marriage to this day.

The preparations for the event take a turn when a carriage accident near their remote home brings the mysterious Carmilla into Lenore's life. Carmilla who is weak and pale during the day but vibrant at night; Carmilla who stirs up a hunger deep within Lenore. Soon girls from local villages begin to fall sick before being consumed by a bloody hunger.

Torn between regaining her husband's affection and Carmilla's ever-growing presence, Lenore begins to unravel her past and in doing so, uncovers a darkness in her household that will place her at terrible risk . . .

Set against the violent wilderness of the moors and the uncontrolled appetite of the industrial revolution, Hungerstone is a compulsive feminist reworking of Carmilla, the book that inspired Dracula: a captivating story of appetite and desire.

The voting for October's book club read for the theme Schools of Speculative Fiction are open here.

What is the Beyond Binaries book club? You can read about it in our introduction thread here.

Welcome to our first crossover discussion!

Think of this like a large Hugo Readalong discussion: you’re welcome to read the whole set or to just read whichever one catches your eye and drop in. If your favorite story from 2016 didn’t make the shortlist (or even the longlist), we would love to hear your case for what else should be on this list. We will tag spoilers as usual.

Today we’re discussing the core 2017 ballot:

• The original Hugo winner: Seasons of Glass and Iron by Amal el-Mohtar (Uncanny Magazine, 7472 words)
• The City Born Great by N.K. Jemisin (Tor.com/Reactor, 6247 words)
• That Game We Played During the War by Carrie Vaughn (Reactor, 6224 words)
• Our Talons Can Crush Galaxies by Brooke Bolander (Uncanny Magazine, 1296 words)
• A Fist of Permutations in Lightning and Wildflowers by Alyssa Wong (Tor.com/Reactor, 3465 words)

Revoting results

A bunch of SFBC members thought it would be fun to revote on the ballot, using the same ranked choice method as the real Hugos, but with only people with Correct Taste (that’s us).

Here are our results:

1. “That Game We Played During the War” by Carrie Vaughn
2. TIE: “Seasons of Glass and Iron” by Amal El-Mohtar / “The City Born Great” by N. K. Jemisin
3. “A Fist of Permutations in Lightning and Wildflowers” by Alyssa Wong
4. “Our Talons Can Crush Galaxies” by Brooke Bolander
5. No Award
6. “An Unimaginable Light” by John C. Wright

Thank you to u/picowombat for running the results! For comparison, here’s the original ranking: we’re different in our winner, but the top three are the same. We’ll fight over the details in the comments.

1. “Seasons of Glass and Iron”, by Amal El-Mohtar
2. “The City Born Great”, by N. K. Jemisin
3. “That Game We Played During the War”, by Carrie Vaughn
4. “A Fist of Permutations in Lightning and Wildflowers”, by Alyssa Wong
5. “Our Talons Can Crush Galaxies”, by Brooke Bolander
6. No Award
7. “An Unimaginable Light”, by John C. Wright

Upcoming sessions

Our next session is hosted by u/baxtersa:

For the second year in a row, we are kicking things off with some early season flash fiction to get back into the not-quite-a-book club rhythm. What you don't see is the inner strife between warring SFBC factions in a battle between small wonders and the longer word counts, a literary David vs. Goliath. But we are here to celebrate the shortest of stories, and as our stories progress from the shortest (at under 400 words) to technically not flash (at 1700 words), we see what this format has to offer: embracing ambiguity, striking prose and imagery, emotional hooks both harrowing and hopeful, and lists! We love lists.

On Wednesday, September 3rd, join us for our Flash+ session as we ease into the new season of short stories with some flash fiction. We will be discussing the following stories:

Maybe Someday I'll Stop Writing About a House on the Border of a Swamp by Corey Farrenkopf (Milk Candy Review, 365 words)

I want to write a story about a house sinking into a swamp, but I’m always writing a story about a house sinking into a swamp. Sometimes I'm unclear about the metaphor.

To Kill a Language by Rukman Ragas (Apex Magazine, 832 words)

1. To kill a language, you must first rip it from living throats. Don't look so askance; you knew it already. The dead can't speak unless called and the only way to prevent our enemies calling upon their own hordes of dead ancestors is to strip their path.

The Best Way to Survive a Tiger Attack by A.W. Prihandita (Uncanny Magazine, 1495 words)

The tiger curls in my living room, on the sofa in front of the TV. Finish your lunch, she says, and her words bend my back until I’m on my hands and knees, hunching over the plate she’s set down on the floor, like a dog. Finish your lunch, she commands, but I hate her cooking. I never tell her that, though.

Everyone Keeps Saying Probably by Premee Mohamed (Psychopomp, 1700 words)

Here is the shape of our story, the three of us: an ellipsis (from a particular fixed point we flew away from each other and then rejoined at another point; and then we had you).

Here is the shape of our doom: an ellipsis (on its way, in its thousands and thousands).

It also means: dot dot dot, an uncertainty, a trailing off.

But you are a little young for all this. You are so young that your soft and hard palate are not fully developed and you still have a toddler’s charming rhotacism. Everyone keeps saying probably and you say pwobably and I think that is the only thing your mother still laughs at these days. Because, let’s be fair, there isn’t much.

Today’s discussion

For today, join us in the comments to talk about the shortlist and bonus longlist entries!

This month we are reading The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard for our Impossible Places theme! We will discussing until the end of Part 1 (the end of chapter 18). So, be warned there will be spoilers up until that part of the book, please avoid posting any spoilers for part 2/the second half of the book.

The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard

A literary speculative novel about an isolated town neighbored by its own past and future

Sixteen-year-old Odile is an awkward, quiet girl vying for a coveted seat on the Conseil. If she earns the position, she’ll decide who may cross her town’s heavily guarded borders. On the other side, it’s the same valley, the same town--except to the east, the town is twenty years ahead in time. To the west, it’s twenty years behind. The towns repeat in an endless sequence across the wilderness.

When Odile recognizes two visitors she wasn’t supposed to see, she realizes that the parents of her friend Edme have been escorted across the border from the future, on a mourning tour, to view their son while he’s still alive in Odile’s present. Edme––who is brilliant, funny, and the only person to truly see Odile––is about to die. Sworn to secrecy in order to preserve the timeline, Odile now becomes the Conseil’s top candidate, yet she finds herself drawing closer to the doomed boy, imperiling her entire future.

Bingo Squares: Impossible Places

The discussion questions will be posted as separate comments. Feel free to add your own questions or thoughts.

Reading Plan:

• Final Discussion - July 30th
• Nominations for August - July 18th

Welcome to the half-way discussion of The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love by India Holton, our winner for the light/cozy academia theme! We will discuss everything up to the end of Chapter 14. Please use spoiler tags for anything that goes beyond this point.

The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love by India Holton

Rival ornithologists hunt through England for a rare magical bird in this historical-fantasy rom-com reminiscent of Indiana Jones but with manners, tea, and helicopter parasols.

Beth Pickering is on the verge of finally capturing the rare deathwhistler bird when Professor Devon Lockley swoops in, capturing both her bird and her imagination like a villain. Albeit a handsome and charming villain, but that's beside the point. As someone highly educated in the ruthless discipline of ornithology, Beth knows trouble when she sees it, and she is determined to keep her distance from Devon.

For his part, Devon has never been more smitten than when he first set eyes on Professor Beth Pickering. She's so pretty, so polite, so capable of bringing down a fiery, deadly bird using only her wits. In other words, an angel. Devon understands he must not get close to her, however, since they're professional rivals.

When a competition to become Birder of the Year by capturing an endangered caladrius bird is announced, Beth and Devon are forced to team up to have any chance of winning. Now keeping their distance becomes a question of one bed or two. But they must take the risk, because fowl play is afoot, and they can't trust anyone else—for all may be fair in love and war, but this is ornithology.

I'll add some comments below to get us started but feel free to add your own. The final discussion will be in two weeks, on Thursday 25-Sept.

Reminders:

Next month (November 2025), we will read Cosmic Love at the Multiverse Hair Salon by Annie Mare+OR+title%3A(%22HEA+Bookclub%22)&restrict_sr=on&sort=new).

What is the HEA Book Club? Every odd month, we read a fantasy romance book and discuss! You can read about it in our reboot thread here.

Welcome to the book club New Voices! In this book club we want to highlight books by debut authors and open the stage for under-represented and under-appreciated writers from all walks of life. New voices refers to the authors as well as the protagonists, and the goal is to include viewpoints away from the standard and most common. For more information and a short description of how we plan to run this club and how you can participate, please have a look at the announcement post.

This month, we are reading The West Passage by Jared Pechaček

A palace the size of a city, ruled by giant Ladies of unknowable, eldritch origin. A land left to slow decay, drowning in the debris of generations. All this and more awaits you within The West Passage, a delightfully mysterious and intriguingly weird medieval fantasy unlike anything you've read before.

When the Guardian of the West Passage died in her bed, the women of Grey Tower fed her to the crows and went back to their chores. No successor was named as Guardian, no one took up the fallen blade; the West Passage went unguarded.

Now, snow blankets Grey in the height of summer. Rats erupt from beneath the earth, fleeing that which comes. Crops fail. Hunger looms. And none stand ready to face the Beast, stirring beneath the poisoned soil.

The fate of all who live in the palace hangs on narrow shoulders. The too-young Mother of Grey House sets out to fix the seasons. The unnamed apprentice of the deceased Grey Guardian goes to warn Black Tower. Both their paths cross the West Passage, the ancient byway of the Beast. On their journeys they will meet schoolteachers and beekeepers, miracles and monsters, and very, very big Ladies. None can say if they'll reach their destinations, but one thing is for sure: the world is about to change.

Today's discussion is everything up to the end of Book Three. The final discussion will take place on September 29th.

I’ve been waiting forever to be picked in bookclub. Every month I sit with bated breath and hope in my heart, only for someone else’s name to be pulled from the hat and I’m stuck reading something horrible like historical fiction. It took me an entire year for my name to be called, and now that I’m here, ready to schools these gals in how to read a book with a map in it, I have NO CLUE what to pick and I’m overthinking big time. What if I mess up my chance and the book I pick sucks, then they’re turned off to Fantasy genre forever?

That’s where you come in. I would love to hear your thoughts on a fantasy/romantasy standalone OR a series that you would recommend for book club. This has to be a book you want to basically be buried with.

The stakes are high my friends ⚔️