Showing posts with label november 2011. Show all posts
Showing posts with label november 2011. Show all posts

2011-10-10

The Shortlist

Please bookmark this permalink, because this entry should see considerable changes before the next meeting, as we whittle down the candidates to a shortlist of decent length.

Beginning with John Rennie's suggestion, The Companions, by Sheri S Tepper:

http://www.harpercollins.com/books/The-Companions-Sheri-S-Tepper/?isbn=9780061976322

And now, some other titles:-

Farmer in the Sky - Heinlein
Tunnel in the Sky - Heinlein
Mars series (Red Mars) - Robinson
The Deathworld trilogy - Harrison
Moving Mars - Bear
Mirabile - Kagan
Genesis Quest & Second Genesis - Moffet
Hainish Cycle (Rocannon's World) - LeGuin
The Legacy of Heorot - Niven
Destiny's Road - Niven
Helliconia trilogy - Aldiss
Mission of Gravity - Clement

40,000 in Gehenna by CJ Cherryh,

Ammonite by Nicola Griffiths

The Night's Dawn trilogy by Peter F Hamilton, starting with The Reality Dysfunction.

Elizabeth Moon's Remnant Population.

A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge *might* classify.

Some of Alastair Reynolds's novels might work, particularly Pushing Ice which is great for both its first contact and space exploration themes.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Expect this list to change considerably, so keep the permalink bookmarked.

Colonisation - the November '11 Theme

Okay, so we have "Colonisation" as next month's theme. That can cover all different kinds of stories - the establishment of a colony and survival against a planet's hostile environment; the exploration of a planet to locate a suitable spot for a colony; or things taking place within an established colony, usually political, where the remote colony itself serves as a "bottle" to isolate the protagonists and antagonists from any possible external aid.

Even a failed colony can have story potential - can a doomed colony's remnant population survive with all external support cut off?

The theme seems so broad in scope that, in truth, we need a shortlist of titles for the meeting, which exemplify the themes we wish to explore.

The process of working out a suitable shortlist will take a week, maybe two, in order to give everyone a chance to pick their title, chase it down and read it - if they haven't got it already.