If you are a member of the Fantasy-Faction Forums you may have heard us talking about our Fantasy Book Club. On a monthly basis (starting January 2011) we are going to read a book as a community and openly discuss it in our forums.
Book Club Rules
Rule 1: We don’t talk about Fantasy Book Club. Oh, sorry that’s a different club. You are actually welcome to invite friends and tweet this link about everywhere. We want as many readers as possible!
So…How does it really work?
Choosing a Book
What we do is take suggestions from our forum members throughout the month and then open a poll about 2 weeks before the month’s end. Then our members vote on which book they would like to read. A week before the end of the month we close the poll and users have a week to obtain the book – either borrow it, buy it, find it and pull it out from your collection, etc.
Spoiler Free Discussion
Next, we want discuss our books in a way that will not spoil the story, so we limit how much you can discuss and when.
Week 1 – You may only discuss the first 1/4 of the book
Week 2 – You may only discuss the first 1/2 of the book
Week 3 – You may only discuss the first 3/4 of the book
Week 4 – Anything goes
We are going to go based on page count. So for example, if a book has 500 pages then week one you can discuss up to page 125 and then week two 250 and so on. Each week will have a seperate thread, so as not to spoil the story for people who fall behind or come in late.
What if you want to read faster than that?
Not a problem at all. You are more than welcome to read ahead, but when discussing things just remember to post in the appropriate thread. And if you’re not sure when something happened, you can always use the spoiler tag to hide your post.
Should you not want any spoilers or discussion during the reading process, then just come after the end of week three and start discussing the book once you have finished. (This is how most book clubs operate anyway.)
Fantasy Book Club is something we are very excited about and we really hope you join in. It will certainly be a way to read some books on your reading list, and find some new ones and talk with a like minded community of fantasy fans!
If you would like to join in you can visit the book club section of our forums here.
If you would like to vote on January’s book you can visit this thread. So far Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson is looking the hot favourite!
Title image by Yuri_B.
Richard Marpole
Jennie Ivins