We have started a Dicehaven Book Club where we select and read one Sci Fi or Fantasy book each month and then meet for about an hour via Zoom to discuss (and have a private GroupMe for off-line discussions of the books). I thought I’d share the structure of how we (at the moment anyway) plan to organize our club.

Book Club Structure
Here’s the assumptions behind the schedule and book club selections.

  • Book Types — I categorize books as either (1) Standalone [completely standalone novel], (2) Episodic Series [books that are in a series, but each book is self-contained enough such that if you read a given book in the series, it has an actual ending and doesn’t abruptly leave you on a cliff-hanger], and (3) Story-Arc Series [books like Lord of the Rings which have multiple volumes but tell once continuous story; if you read just one book you’ll not be happy].
  • Alternating Story-Arc and Member Selection Months –The odd Months (January, March, etc.) are focused on story-arc or episodic series books, and the even months (February, March, etc.) are non-story arc books.
  • Member Selections — We take turns selecting what we read in Member Selection months (the even months). You can pick anything you think the group would like.
  • Sci-Fi and Fantasy Only — Let’s narrow our book selections to Sci-Fi and Fantasy until further notice.
  • Avoiding Unfinished Story-Arc Novels — I am very anxious to read the Patrick Rothfuss Kingkiller Chronicles and Brandon Sanderson’s Skyward trilogy, but let’s hold off on tackling such story-arc novels until such time as there is a publication date for the final book in those trilogies.
  • Catch-up Months — If you get behind, you can always skip a month of reading. For example, if you don’t want to get behind on a story-arc series, then you’d just skip the standalone book for an odd month, get caught up, and be current for the next story-arc month.
  • Reasonable Book Lengths — We will try to stick with books that take about 8 to 15 hours to read (350 to 450 pages) to make sure folks have time to read the books. If we choose larger books we’ll budget more than one month to read them.

Current Book Club Schedule

  1. January’s Book: Firefly: The Magnificent Nine — https://www.amazon.com/Firefly-Magnificent-Nine-James-Lovegrove-ebook/dp/B07DZGRZQ2
  2. February’s Book: Star Trek Vanguard #1: Harbinger — https://www.amazon.com/Vanguard-Harbinger-Star-Trek-Original-ebook/dp/B000FCKBTI/
    Note: The Vanguard Series has 7 core books in the story arc, plus several other tie-in books, anthologies, or novellas. Read more about the series here:
    https://classictrek.org/star-trek-novels/taurus-reach-novels/
    I recommend either the eBooks or getting a used copy of the novel at Half Price Books, off Amazon, or AbeBooks.com.
  3. March’s Book: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress — https://www.amazon.com/Moon-Harsh-Mistress-Robert-Heinlein/dp/0575082410/
  4. April’s Book: Star Trek Vanguard #2: Summon the Thunder — https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000NY11QK
  5. May’s Book: TBD (selected by another member)