Tag: reading

Our Next Book

Calypso by Oliver K. Langmead (224 pages)

7 – 9pm (UK time) virtual meeting. Please follow/toot or email us for the link to join the discussion. We look forward to seeing you!

Book Description:

Calypso is the story of the arrival of a generational colony ship.

It covers a number of regular scifi themes, generational societal drift, fragmentation into tribes, dictatorships, terraforming and much more.

It does all this in lyrical blank verse and artistic typography.

It is one of those books that takes some work, but repays it.

Definitely better on paper than as an e-book (where the typography doesn’t work quite as well).

(Credits: text and image Tim Panton)

MANCHESTER #SCIFI BOOK CLUB: NEXT BOOKS

Title	Author	Pages	Published in	Discussion Date
Calypso	Oliver K. Langmead	224	2024	Sep 15, 2026
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy	Douglas Adams	216	1979	Oct 20, 2026
The Dervish House	Ian McDonald	480	2010	Nov 17, 2026

Contact Us

Keep up to date with us in the fediverse @mcrscifi@wandering.shop (Mastodon) or by using the #mcrsf . If you would like to contact us, our e-mail address is mcrsf.madlab@gmail.com

Our Next Book

Slow Gods by Claire North (432 pages)

7 – 9pm (UK time) virtual meeting. Please follow/toot or email us for the link to join the discussion. We look forward to seeing you!

Book Description:

My name is Mawukana na-Vdnaze, and I am a very poor copy of myself.

In telling my story, there are certain things I should perhaps lie about. I should make myself a hero. Pretend I was not used by strangers and gods, did not leave people behind.

Here is one truth: out there in deep-space, in the pilot’s chair, I died. And then, I was reborn. I became something not quite human, something that could speak to the infinite dark. And I vowed to become the scourge of the world that wronged me.

This is the story of the supernova event that burned planets and felled civilizations. This is also the story of the many lives I’ve lived since I died for the first time.

Are you listening?

Discover this thrilling and breathtakingly imaginative space opera from the multi-award-winning Claire North, perfect for fans of Ann Leckie, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Iain M. Banks and Arkady Martine.

(Credits: text and image from www.clairenorth.com)

MANCHESTER #SCIFI BOOK CLUB: NEXT BOOKS

Title	Author	Pages	Published in	Discussion Date
Slow Gods	Claire North	432	2025	Aug 18, 2026
Calypso	Oliver K. Langmead	224	2024	Sep 15, 2026
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy	Douglas Adams	216	1979	Oct 20, 2026
The Dervish House	Ian McDonald	480	2010	Nov 17, 2026

Contact Us

Keep up to date with us in the fediverse @mcrscifi@wandering.shop (Mastodon) or by using the #mcrsf . If you would like to contact us, our e-mail address is mcrsf.madlab@gmail.com

Our Next Book

Hyperion by Dan Simmons (481 pages)

7 – 9pm (UK time) virtual meeting. Please follow/toot or email us for the link to join the discussion. We look forward to seeing you!

Book Description:

Hyperion is a 1989 science fiction novel by American author Dan Simmons. The first book of his Hyperion Cantos series, it won the Hugo Award for best novel.^[1] The plot of the novel features multiple time-lines and is told from the points of view of many characters. It follows a similar structure to The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. A framing narrative serves as a means to present the tales of a group of pilgrims sent to Hyperion’s Time Tombs, to make a request of the Shrike, a metallic creature that is said to grant one wish to each pilgrim. The story is continued in The Fall of Hyperion, published in 1990.

(Credits: text from wikipedia.org image from osiander.de)

MANCHESTER #SCIFI BOOK CLUB: NEXT BOOKS

Title	Author	Pages	Published in	Discussion Date
Hyperion	Dan Simmons	481	1989	Jul 21, 2026
Slow Gods	Claire North	432	2025	Aug 18, 2026
Calypso	Oliver K. Langmead	224	2024	Sep 15, 2026
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy	Douglas Adams	216	1979	Oct 20, 2026
The Dervish House	Ian McDonald	480	2010	Nov 17, 2026

Contact Us

Keep up to date with us in the fediverse @mcrscifi@wandering.shop (Mastodon) or by using the #mcrsf . If you would like to contact us, our e-mail address is mcrsf.madlab@gmail.com

Our Next Book

Autonomous by Annalee Newitz (320 pages)

7 – 9pm (UK time) virtual meeting. Please follow/toot or email us for the link to join the discussion. We look forward to seeing you!

Book Description:

Earth, 2144. Jack is an anti-patent scientist turned drug pirate, traversing the world in a submarine as a pharmaceutical Robin Hood, fabricating cheap scrips for poor people who can’t otherwise afford them. But her latest drug hack has left a trail of lethal overdoses as people become addicted to their work, doing repetitive tasks until they become unsafe or insane.

Hot on her trail, an unlikely pair: Eliasz, a brooding military agent, and his robotic partner, Paladin. As they race to stop information about the sinister origins of Jack’s drug from getting out, they begin to form an uncommonly close bond that neither of them fully understand.

And underlying it all is one fundamental question: Is freedom possible in a culture where everything, even people, can be owned?

(Credits: images and text from techsploitation.com)

MANCHESTER #SCIFI BOOK CLUB: NEXT BOOKS

We will pick more books from our suggestions list at this meeting.

July 21st 2026 – Hyperion by Dan Simmons (481 pages)

20th Oct 2026 – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (216 pages)

Contact Us

Keep up to date with us in the fediverse @mcrscifi@wandering.shop (Mastodon) or by using the #mcrsf . If you would like to contact us, our e-mail address is mcrsf.madlab@gmail.com

Our Next Book

Monk and Robot Novellas by Becky Chambers (304p)

7 – 9pm (UK time) virtual meeting. Please follow/toot or email us for the link to join the discussion. We look forward to seeing you!

Book Description:

A story for seekers of small comforts.

It’s been centuries since the robots of Panga gained self-awareness and laid down their tools; centuries since they wandered, en masse, into the wilderness, never to be seen again; centuries since they faded into myth and urban legend.

One day, the life of a tea monk is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of “what do people need?” is answered.

But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how. They’re going to need to ask it a lot.

Becky Chambers’ new series asks: in a world where people have what they want, does having more matter?

(Note: we will be discussing both novellas. They are available in a combined edition.)

 

(Credits: images and text from otherscribbles.com)

MANCHESTER #SCIFI BOOK CLUB: NEXT BOOKS

TBD – we will pick more books from our suggestions list at this meeting.

20th Oct 2026 – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (216p)

Contact Us

Keep up to date with us in the fediverse @mcrscifi@wandering.shop (Mastodon) or by using the #mcrsf . If you would like to contact us, our e-mail address is mcrsf.madlab@gmail.com

Our Next Book

The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham (304p)

7 – 9pm (UK time) virtual meeting. Please follow/toot or email us for the link to join the discussion. We look forward to seeing you!

Book Description:

The Day of the Triffids is a 1951 post-apocalyptic novel by the English science fiction author John Wyndham. After most people in the world are blinded by an apparent meteor shower, an aggressive species of plant starts killing people. Although Wyndham had already published other novels using other pen name combinations drawn from his real name, this was the first novel published as “John Wyndham”.

The story has been made into the 1963 feature film of the same name, three radio drama series (in 1957, 1968 and 2001) and two TV series (in 1981 and 2009).^[1] It was nominated for the International Fantasy Award in 1952, and in 2003 the novel was listed on the BBC‘s survey The Big Read.^[2][3] It is the inspiration for the 2002 film 28 Days Later.^[4] In 2021, the novel was one of six classic science fiction novels by British authors selected by the Royal Mail to feature in a series of UK postage stamps.^[5]

(Credits: text from wikipedia)

MANCHESTER #SCIFI BOOK CLUB: NEXT BOOKS

19th May 2026 – Monk and Robot by Becky Chambers (304p)
20th Oct 2026 – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (216p)

Contact Us

Keep up to date with us in the fediverse @mcrscifi@wandering.shop (Mastodon) or by using the #mcrsf . If you would like to contact us, our e-mail address is mcrsf.madlab@gmail.com

Our Next Book

17th March – Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky (400p)

7 – 9pm (UK time) virtual meeting. Please follow/toot or email us for the link to join the discussion. We look forward to seeing you!

Book Description:

Condemned to a labour camp on a distant exoplanet, scientist Artin Daghdev is thrown into a brutal prison camp run by a police state that holds the bodies and minds of its citizens in a ruthless grip. Beyond, he discovers a planet that doesn’t play by his rules of biology, ecology or evolution. On Kiln, Arton will learn that no law is inviolable, and no border can be relied upon, not even that between human and alien. Who were the ancient Builders who littered Kiln with their ruins, where did they go, or are they still here…?

(Credits: partial text and image from adriantchaikovsky.com )

MANCHESTER #SCIFI BOOK CLUB: NEXT BOOKS

21st April 2026 – The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham (304p)
19th May 2026 – Monk and Robot by Becky Chambers (304p)
20th Oct 2026 – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (216p)

Contact Us

Keep up to date with us in the fediverse @mcrscifi@wandering.shop (Mastodon) or by using the #mcrsf . If you would like to contact us, our e-mail address is mcrsf.madlab@gmail.com