(“Space” by Stephan Martiniere, used with the artist’s permission)
THIS is still true: Finding a renewed joy in reading science fiction stories during SFN, and having my hours to enjoy the stories grow a bit limited as November shifted into December, I was most delighted to find: the Sci-Fi Experience! (Review Site of the Experience!) As 2014/5 continues to move forward, science fiction & fantasy will both play a larger role on my blog as I am a member of The Classics Club, whereupon one of my focuses is specifically on: classic science fiction, classic fantasy, and classic/modern Magical Realism. (I tend to include the latter under this umbrella due to the elements which attach the sub-genre to the creativity of the former!)
*note: although I kept the paragraph intact from last year, I updated the links to reflect 2015!
To fully understand why I was so wicked happy last January during my 1st attempt to participate in the Sci Fi Experience, please direct your attention to my participation log from 2014! There is one component that I hadn’t realised was similar between 2014 & 2015’s #SciFiExperience, which is the fact I had the lovely pleasure of tweeting Ms. Elliott just ahead of embarking on my science fiction journey! Last year, I had the direct intention to read her Jaran series but this year, methinks as the boxes in which I have stored her High Fantasy series Crown of Stars is located somewhere out of sight and mind, I’ve decided to see if I can ILL the series which perked my interest originally for it’s uniqueness! I may or may not have mentioned this previously during Sci Fi November 2013 (although I’m sure I must have remembered to include on my essay about “From Seventeen to Seven”), I first picked up King’s Dragon when I was seventeen years old. I remember this quite well as it served as a turning point in my life; not just my reading adventures but my writing adventures. Up until that particular point, for whichever reason I hadn’t yet put the pieces together and realised I was a bonefide sci fi geek and a high fantasy appreciator!
The evidence was quite strong, I had begun writing my science fiction based on science fact novel three years earlier, and my dedicated passion for Star Trek (Gene Roddenberry’s vision of it), Star Wars (George Lucas’s vision of it) and Battlestar Galactica (the original series) were a good indication I had strong roots in the genre. However, reading science fiction & fantasy novels was a slower progression of mine, as I was always keeping my eyes peeled for a new motion picture and/or tv serial which would whet an interest for the fantastical as much as the science-based elemental explorations! I adore Space Opera the most because I love the interconnected elements it provides but truly, I’m still mapping together my wanderings within the Speculative Fiction genres!
This year, during the Sci Fi Experience I am going to keep a running list of books I am reading a few chapters at a time, as I want to see if I can discover new authors and stories to explore as the year progresses forward. I thought for the large batch of what I had borrowed from my local library (my dear librarians are used to me carting off more books than I can carry in a soft grocery bag that has become my ‘library book bag’!) whilst Sci Fi November was in-progress I will be reading 50 pages per novel to see if the style, the voice, and the tone of the writer’s vision sits well with me. Some of the novels were ones I picked up off the shelf based on visits within the book blogosphere either this year or last year during Sci Fi November and/or the in-between months leading up to this year’s events for Sci Fi November & the Sci Fi Experience!Read More
I, must admit, I am always quite curious about the books I gravitate towards reading time after time. Do I pick a specific genre to explore!? Is there a particular heart of depth to the stories I am selecting?! Is there any specifics that would stand out!? Setting?! Time preference!? Locale!? Or, could it be that I, Jorie of Jorie Loves A Story have a natural curiosity and eye bent towards falling in love with novels of hearty depth! What the rest of the world considers a ‘chunkser’ I consider “Now! That’s what I call a wicked sweet tome of a novel!”
Although I have seen posts attributed to this particular reading challenge over the past few years, I was always curious about the length requirements of the reader’s choices!? Apparently, any novel over the mark of 450 pages is considered a ‘chunkster’ by the broader readership! I consider anything under 750 pages to be a full-fledged novel of wickedly delightful sagas! Then, again, I happen to have a penchant for reading multi-generational sagas, of which cannot be fully contained in one singular volume! I oft find the sagas are separated into multiples; either in a running serial of the same family &/or spilt into trilogy installments. The odd quartet is thrown in for good measure as well!
I am a reader who envelops her mind, her heart, and her soul around the characters she meets inside the stories her mind illuminates for her as she reads. The main characters as well as the supporting characters all have equal footing in her heart because each of the characters mentioned may hold a piece of the evolving story. Or at the very least, provide a backdrop flow of continuity for the time, setting, and place of the novel! I love seeing the smaller details, the finer points of everyday hours which elapse at different intervals whilst your engrossed into a hearty historical inasmuch as you might be jettisoning into a time slip or time travel narrative! I like seeing the finite details because they in of themselves give a winking nod towards our own histories. How life was for those who came before us in the not-so-far-off past can be ruminated in a historical story.
Given the rate of probability of increasing my page counts as the months progress forward, I have decided to aim even higher than I originally felt I could achieve over the next 10 months, as I am beginning to count this challenge in the second month rather than the first! And, at the latter half of February, I might add! I originally felt only five novels of considerable length might be possible! Who knew!? I suppose this would fall under the ‘hidden talent’ category for performance artists!?
{Reading List} | Combination of Blog Tour Reviews & Personal Selections
IF a book is in italics I have bumped it into 2015 rather than reading it in 2014.
Crown of Vengeance {Book 1: Fires of Eden series} by Stephen Zimmer (612 pages)
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (1,215 pages)
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (643 pages)
Somerset by Leila Meacham {Prequel to Roses} (610 pages)
King’s Dragon {Book 1: Crown of Stars saga} by Kate Elliott (532)
The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher (530)
and continuing,.. as I sort out which books were of considerable length!
{*} reading in conjunction with scheduled book review of next in sequence
Already at the start of keeping track of the length of each novel I read, I am amazed at how the list begins with *13!* Curiously, I am fascinated to seeing which ‘length’ of book attracts me the most!? If spilt into 100 page increments, will it be the 400 mark? 500? I’ll have to continue this part of the discussion come New Year’s Eve, 2015!
*UPDATE (18FEB’14): As I read Christine’s note about how many actual pages I’d consume, I was curious, how many would that be!? I added the figures!
{SOURCE: Jorie Loves A Story Badge created by Ravven with edits by Jorie in PicMonkey.
(“Strength and Honor” by Stephan Martiniere, used with the artist’s permission)
Finding a renewed joy in reading science fiction stories during SFN, and having my hours to enjoy the stories grow a bit limited as November shifted into December, I was most delighted to find: the Sci-Fi Experience! (Review Site of the Experience!) As 2014 continues to move forward, science fiction & fantasy will both play a larger role on my blog as I am a member of The Classics Club, whereupon one of my focuses is specifically on: classic science fiction, classic fantasy, and classic/modern Magical Realism. (I tend to include the latter under this umbrella due to the elements which attach the sub-genre to the creativity of the former!)
When I first stumbled across this particular reading challenge, I was elated on the one level I wasn’t able to complete all of my SFN posts as scheduled originally! I wanted to take December & January during the Experience to stitch everything back together, and complete the journey I had taken during Rinn Reads most excellent month of sci-fi loveliness! This is prior to realising that my December 2013 would be blissfully full of holiday events, concerts, and the mirth of joy which surrounds the Christmas Season! My local community opened up their doors to such a beautiful celebration of joy this year, I was overtook by the festivities to where I lost hours to enjoy all the lovely reading adventures I had scheduled to partake in at the very same time! Therefore, January is my month of redemption, to where I can go back through my SFN Posts, tweak them, post them, and be confident in knowing that even if your original plans get a bit delayed from their original intentions, its okay to complete our goals at a later date which works better for us! Not only as book bloggers, but as readers! Our reading lives should never be stressful nor taxing, and in this way, I am always thankful the bookish community online is such a warm, engaging and adaptable group of people!
I wanted to select a few titles to read during the Experience, specific to this Challenge, which is why whilst engaged in a lovely conversation with an author (Kate Elliott) I have been keen to read since I was seventeen (i.e. when I was first introduced to “King’s Dragon”, part of the “Crown of Stars” series), via our serendipitously lovely Twitter chats, I was encouraged to seek out the following authors & their stories:
@JLovesAStory I would rec CJ Cherryh’s early sf but it is pretty dense. My own Highroad Trilogy or Jaran. Writers James Corey & Rachel Bach
Gate of Ivrel (Book One: Morgaine series) by CJ Cherryh {ILL REQ}
Jaran (Book One: Jaran series) by Kate Elliott {intrigued to read for eons!} {ILL REQ} UPDATE: The book came in by ILL late January
Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey {keep reading about it; the suspense of what’s inside is over!} {ILL REQ} UPDATE: The book came in by ILL late January
The Boy With the Cuckoo-Heart by Mathias Malzieu {I found this via Roof Beam Reader originally, grabbed it off a library display (featuring clocks & clockpunk titles) w/o realising my library had it in their catalogue!}
*NOTE: ILL REQ = inter-library loan request
You see, I took option #2 because originally she had made this suggestion:
@JLovesAStory Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie is pretty cool. Recent space opera/sf.
{SOURCES: The 2014 Sci-Fi Experience was granted permission to use the artwork by Stephen Martiniere in their official badge for all participants to show their solidarity during the event! Sci-Fi November Badge and Event Badge were provided by Rinn Reads for participants to advert the month-long event and to encourage people to follow along with those of us who are contributing! Tweets between Kate Elliott and Jorie of Jorie Loves A Story were made possible by embed codes via Twitter.}
