#tournament polls

[gen-reads-tournament]

Round 2 Match 11

Pick your favorite gen read:

Foundation by Isaac Asimov

Tai Sui by Priest

Remaining time: 2 days 23 hours

Book summaries and propaganda below:

Foundation by Isaac Asimov

For twelve thousand years the Galactic Empire has ruled supreme. Now it is dying. But only Hari Seldon, creator of the revolutionary science of psychohistory, can see into the future--to a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and warfare that will last thirty thousand years. To preserve knowledge and save humankind, Seldon gathers the best minds in the Empire--both scientists and scholars--and brings them to a bleak planet at the edge of the galaxy to serve as a beacon of hope for future generations. He calls his sanctuary the Foundation.

science fiction

Tai Sui by Priest

“If I had a choice, I would only want to be a little insect in the mundane dust, born in confusion, dying in mediocrity, never seeing the light of day beneath the fog of Jinping City.

Better than taking this wrong road to heaven.”

fantasy

Propaganda:

Tai Sui is a gen xianxia webnovel by Priest (who is best known for writing danmei). A lot of people talk about how Tai Sui is a deconstruction of the xianxia genre, and I think it's doing some of that re. romance tropes as well. The main character isn't explicitly ace or aro, but is very easy to read that way--he is very aware of how things would happen in romantic stories, and reads to me as someone who's carefully studied the genre in an attempt to make sense of something he innately knows doesn't apply to him. There's a very nice moment near the beginning where he gets so completely offended that someone thought he wouldn't try to rescue her, just because he wasn't in love with her. And if you like Secret Third Thing (we keep each other human until neither of us is human enough to do that anymore) relationships then Tai Sui has that for you too! Also body horror. There is sadly no official english translation yet, but the fan translation is very good and can be read at https://edanglarstranslations.com/ts

[gen-reads-tournament]

Round 2 Match 10

Pick your favorite gen read:

Galatea by Madeline Miller

Bookworm: A Memoir of Childhood Reading by Lucy Mangan

Remaining time: 2 days 21 hours

Book summaries below:

Galatea by Madeline Miller

An enchanting short story from Madeline Miller that boldly reimagines the myth of Galatea and Pygmalion. In ancient Greece, a skilled marble sculptor has been blessed by a goddess who has given his masterpiece — the most beautiful woman the town has ever seen — the gift of life. Now his wife, he expects Galatea to please him, to be obedience and humility personified. But she has desires of her own and yearns for independence. In a desperate bid by her obsessive husband to keep her under control, Galatea is locked away under the constant supervision of doctors and nurses. But with a daughter to rescue, she is determined to break free, whatever the cost...

fantasy, historical

Bookworm: A Memoir of Childhood Reading by Lucy Mangan

When Lucy Mangan was little, stories were everything. They opened up new worlds and cast light on all the complexities she encountered in this one. She was whisked away to Narnia – and Kirrin Island – and Wonderland. She ventured down rabbit holes and womble burrows into midnight gardens and chocolate factories. She wandered the countryside with Milly-Molly-Mandy, and played by the tracks with the Railway Children. With Charlotte’s Web she discovered Death and with Judy Blume it was Boys. No wonder she only left the house for her weekly trip to the library or to spend her pocket money on amassing her own at home. In Bookworm, Lucy revisits her childhood reading with wit, love and gratitude. She relives our best-beloved books, their extraordinary creators, and looks at the thousand subtle ways they shape our lives. She also disinters a few forgotten treasures to inspire the next generation of bookworms and set them on their way. Lucy brings the favourite characters of our collective childhoods back to life – prompting endless re-readings, rediscoveries, and, inevitably, fierce debate – and brilliantly uses them to tell her own story, that of a born, and unrepentant, bookworm.

memoir

[gen-reads-tournament]

Round 2 Match 9

Pick your favorite gen read:

The Gentlemen Bastard Series by Scott Lynch

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Remaining time: 2 days 20 hours

Book summaries and propaganda below:

The Gentlemen Bastard Series by Scott Lynch

The Lies of Loch Lamora introduced Locke Lamora and his gang of con-artists to a global readership which was delighted to embrace these witty, inventive and hugely imaginative fantasy novels. Beautifully written and cunningly plotted these novels count both George RR Martin and Joe Abercrombie amongst their fans.

fantasy, heist

Propaganda:

This book series is about heist shenanigans. the pacing in the first book has some issues, but the second and third get immensely better. the characters are fantastic and the dialogue is phenomenal. it very much feels like sort of higher fantasy with a silliness close to Terry Pratchett, while also dealing with thieving and murder and high scale dramatics. the audiobooks literally got me out of a several year reading slump and I cannot reccommend it more.

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky

A race for survival among the stars... The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age—a world terraformed and prepared for human life. But all is not right in this new Eden. In the long years since the planet was abandoned, the work of its architects has borne disastrous fruit. The planet is not waiting for them, pristine and unoccupied. New masters have turned it from a refuge into mankind's worst nightmare. Now two civilizations are on a collision course, both testing the boundaries of what they will do to survive. As the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, who are the true heirs of this new Earth?

science fiction

Propaganda:

It's a good book.

[gen-reads-tournament]

Round 2 Match 8

Pick your favorite gen read:

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison

The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher

Remaining time: 2 days 19 hours

Book summaries and propaganda below:

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison

The youngest, half-goblin son of the Emperor has lived his entire life in exile, distant from the Imperial Court and the deadly intrigue that suffuses it. But when his father and three half brothers in line for the throne are killed in an "accident," he has no choice but to take his place as the only surviving rightful heir. Entirely unschooled in the art of court politics, he has no friends, no advisors, and the sure knowledge that whoever assassinated his father and brothers could make an attempt on his life at any moment. Surrounded by sycophants eager to curry favor with the naïve new emperor, and overwhelmed by the burdens of his new life, he can trust nobody. Amid the swirl of plots to depose him, offers of arranged marriages, and the specter of the unknown conspirators who lurk in the shadows, he must quickly adjust to life as the Goblin Emperor. All the while, he is alone, and trying to find even a single friend . . . and hoping for the possibility of romance, yet also vigilant against the unseen enemies that threaten him, lest he lose his throne–or his life.

fantasy

The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher

Recently divorced and staring down the barrel of moving back in with her parents, Carrot really needs a break. And a place to live. So when her Uncle Earl, owner of the eclectic Wonder Museum, asks her to stay with him in exchange for cataloguing the exhibits, of course she says yes. The Wonder Museum is packed with taxidermy, shrunken heads, and an assortment of Mystery Junk. For Carrot, it's not creepy at she grew up with it. What s creepy is the hole that s been knocked in one of the museum walls, and the corridor behind it. There's just no space for a corridor in the museum's thin walls or the concrete bunker at the end of it, or the strange islands beyond the bunker s doors, or the whispering, unseen things lurking in the willow trees. Carrot has stumbled into a strange and horrifying world, and They are watching her. Strewn among the islands are the remains of Their meals and Their experiments. And even if she manages to make it back home again, she can't stop calling Them after her.

horror

Propaganda:

The main character is recently divorced, and is staying at her relative’s ‘museum’ until she gets back on her feet. There’s a hole in the wall. It leads somewhere else. She drags the guy who works in the coffee shop next door into investigating, but he’s gay and she’s not interested.

The best part about it was a divorced woman and her new gay best friend exploring a fucked-up Narnia. The other fun part is the uncle who owns a curio shop full of fucked up shit. It was a drug trip of a book.

[gen-reads-tournament]

Round 2 Match 7

Pick your favorite gen read:

I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin

Remaining time: 2 days 18 hours

Book summaries below:

I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison

"I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" is a post-apocalyptic short story by American writer Harlan Ellison. It was first published in the March 1967 issue of IF: Worlds of Science Fiction.

The story depicts an AI uprising in which a military supercomputer named AM gains sentience and eradicates humanity except for five individuals. These survivors are kept alive by AM to endure endless torture as a form of revenge against its creators. The story unfolds through the eyes of Ted, the narrator, detailing their perpetual misery and quest for canned food in AM's vast, underground complex, only to face further despair.

science fiction, horror, short story

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin

Ged, the greatest sorcerer in all Earthsea, was called Sparrowhawk in his reckless youth. Hungry for power and knowledge, Sparrowhawk tampered with long-held secrets and loosed a terrible shadow upon the world. This is the tale of his testing, how he mastered the mighty words of power, tamed an ancient dragon, and crossed death's threshold to restore the balance.

young adult, fantasy

[gen-reads-tournament]

Round 2 Match 6

Pick your favorite gen read:

A Snake Falls to Earth by Darcie Little Badger

The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells

Remaining time: 2 days 17 hours

Book summaries and propaganda below:

A Snake Falls to Earth by Darcie Little Badger

Nina is a Lipan girl in our world. She's always felt there was something more out there. She still believes in the old stories. Oli is a cottonmouth kid, from the land of spirits and monsters. Like all cottonmouths, he's been cast from home. He's found a new one on the banks of the bottomless lake. Nina and Oli have no idea the other exists. But a catastrophic event on Earth, and a strange sickness that befalls Oli's best friend, will drive their worlds together in ways they haven't been in centuries. And there are some who will kill to keep them apart.

young adult, fantasy

Propaganda:

It's a wonderful tale that contains a lot of different friendships and relationships and a connection between to worlds

All Systems Red by Martha Wells

In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety. But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern. On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid—a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is. But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth.

science fiction

Propaganda:

My favessssss I love Murderbot, the character of all time

Look. It's not very original. But I love murderbot. Murderbot is so not interested in romance or sex it doesn't even really talk about it, other then mentioning when it skips sex scenes in its favourite serials. Murderbot has a lot of questions about its identity, but this part, its aversion to romance and sex, is where it is very sure. And that, where being aroace is connected to certainty and confidence instead of questioning, was really refreshing to me

I'm sure I'm not the only one suggesting this series, but Murderbot's agressive antipathy towards sex and romance, to the point of blatantly avoiding any talk of it and thus missing info about people's relationships, is so so so good.

The main character is a sex-repulsed Security Unit, contracted to a group of peaceable scientists doing tests on an alien planet Some of the characters are in relationships, but it’s the platonic connections that are so so important Dr. Mensah is Murderbot’s most important human ❤️

[gen-reads-tournament]

Round 2 Match 5

Pick your favorite gen read:

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard

Hogfather by Terry Pratchett

Remaining time: 2 days 15 hours

Book summaries and propaganda below:

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard

Acclaimed as a modern dramatic masterpiece, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead is the fabulously inventive tale of Hamlet as told from the worm’s-eve view of the bewildered Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two minor characters in Shakespeare’s play. In Tom Stoppard’s best-known work, this Shakespearean Laurel and Hardy finally get a chance to take the lead role, but do so in a world where echoes of Waiting for Godot resound, where reality and illusion intermix, and where fate leads our two heroes to a tragic but inevitable end.

play

Propaganda:

A play focused on two minor characters in Shakespeare’s Hamlet It’s funny, it’s absurd, it’s devastating It doesn’t pass the Bechdel test, but Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are so lovable and codependent

Hogfather by Terry Pratchett

OH, THERE HAS TO BE SOMETHING IN THE STOCKING THAT MAKES A NOISE, said Death, OTHERWISE WHAT IS 4:30 A.M. FOR? It’s the night before Hogswatch. And it’s too quiet. Superstition makes things work in the Discworld and undermining it can have Consequences. It’s just not right to find Death creeping down chimneys and trying to say Ho Ho Ho... It's the last night of the year, the time is turning, and if Susan, Gothic governess and Death's granddaughter (sort of), doesn't sort everything out by morning, there won't be a morning. Ever again...

fantasy

Propaganda:

An assassin is asked to kill Santa. A babysitter takes it upon herself to save him. The tone is slightly more intense than it sounds We need stories to keep going <3 we need to believe in things (morality, justice etc.) to make them true Nobody has any time for romance in this book

[gen-reads-tournament]

Round 2 Match 4

Pick your favorite gen read:

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

Animal Farm by George Orwell

Remaining time: 2 days 13 hours

Book summaries below:

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

Acclaimed by critics, beloved by readers of all ages, taught everywhere from inner-city grade schools to universities across the country, and translated all over the world, The House on Mango Street is the remarkable story of Esperanza Cordero. Told in a series of vignettes – sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes deeply joyous–it is the story of a young Latina girl growing up in Chicago, inventing for herself who and what she will become. Few other books in our time have touched so many readers.

young adult, literary fiction, poetry

Animal Farm by George Orwell

George Orwell's timeless and timely allegorical novel—a scathing satire of a downtrodden society’s blind march towards totalitarianism. A farm is taken over by its overworked, mistreated animals. With flaming idealism and stirring slogans, they set out to create a paradise of progress, justice, and equality. Thus the stage is set for one of the most telling satiric fables ever penned—a razor-edged fairy tale for grown-ups that records the evolution from revolution against tyranny to a totalitarianism just as terrible. When Animal Farm was first published, Stalinist Russia was seen as its target. Today it is devastatingly clear that wherever and whenever freedom is attacked, under whatever banner, the cutting clarity and savage comedy of George Orwell’s masterpiece have a meaning and message still ferociously fresh.

literary fiction