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Book Guild Poll 30

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Announcement

I have to postpone our Meetings for All Systems Red until December. I have come down with something could just be a head cold, could be a flu, or could be Covid 3.0.

It is a particularly bad time for me to be getting sick as I am moving, packers literally arrive on Monday and we're driving out the Monday after that. I'm just out of time. I still have pre-packing things to do and as we said in the Navy, I'm getting short.

I will pick up the Meetings in December after I've moved and unpacked some. I'll be sure to keep the book on hand during moving so that I can resume meetings when it's most convenient.

Apologies for the delay! We won't be finishing before December but we will be finishing before January.

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Book Guild Poll 29

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Book Guild Meeting #1—All Systems Red

Meeting Date: 01 Nov 2024 Book Stats: Author: Martha Wells Page Count: 149 Genre: Science Fiction—Thriller Section Read: Chapters 1-2

Questions for Discussion:

How does the author convey humor?

How effective do you think the narration would be if it had been done in third person rather than first person?

What unique features did you notice about the author’s execution of worldbuilding (meaning what sets it apart from other sci-fi worldbuilds)?

Why do you think the author doesn’t physically describe Murderbot in more defined details?

What have you noticed so far about Murderbot’s persona?

Quote(s) & Excerpt(s):

I don’t think I have anything in particular this week to point out specifically about the chapters we read. I can say I don’t normally care for first person narration; it often sounds very shallow and childish. I don’t really want the protagonist narrating everything going on, it gets irritating and yet in this work it’s downright delightful.

Murderbot does a solid job of giving only the absolute essentials in narration; it doesn’t go into nitty gritty details when describing anyone or anything, just gives enough to paint the bare minimum of the picture. All personal quips are still informative, like we know that Murderbot isn’t contractually required to understand why things are bad for people or not (17).

And even when the Murderbot is talking about how it hacked its own governor module, it isn’t bragging so much as explaining what it did and why that is technically an issue and that now it has to cover its tracks on the job.

This novella has a mystery within a mystery. We haven’t really hit the mystery of the book yet, that comes to light in chapter 3 but the overarching mystery is: why did Murderbot hack its governor module?

I’ll check in with the discussion questions throughout the weekend and I’ll include my own answers first thing with next week’s meeting.

My answers will be the first thing under the cut and then any additional discussion from me will follow that. See you next week!

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Book Guild Poll 28

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All Systems Red Book Guild Meetings

Our first book is All Systems Red by Martha Wells which is a novella of 149 pages across 8 chapters. It's not a hard read so we'll tackle it two chapters a week. Starting this Sunday* with reading; our first meeting will occur November 1st. Our last meeting should be (pending any unforeseen circumstances on my end) November 22nd.

We should be done with the book before Thanksgiving!

Some quick reminders:

Next Sunday (Nov. 3) is Daylight Savings here in the USA and we'll be falling back one hour at 2am. Set your clocks accordingly.

Meetings are not live, we don't meet over Zoom or Skype or YouTube or even Discord or anything of the like.

Meetings are posted at 3:00pm Friday EST via the queue function of tumblr.

They are currently only hosted here on tumblr so don't expect to see these on Wattpad or AO3 or anywhere else for that matter. If you do see them anywhere else, please let me know because it means my meetings have been stolen.

You are not required to read at the same speed I do! If you join late that's totally fine even if late means next year. Everything will be tagged and you just filter the tags by meeting number when searching.

This book will take us through four meetings total so filter by bgm1-bgm4 if you join late and don't want to be spoiled. I will put a Keep Reading break before I get to my own thoughts for each meeting BUT the discussion questions will be ahead of the break.

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Murderbot Wins!

Alright, you have all voted and our inaugural read together will be Martha Wells' All Systems Red the first of the Murderbot Diaries. I'll figure out the game plan today of how to approach the segmentation of the book for meetings.

Afterwards, I have a few ideas of what to do after we finish it. We could stick to Murderbot and tackle the whole series or we could go in order of the poll by voting percentages or we could read something completely different.

I don't know which path I will take but that's a problem for 2025 Book Guildmaster. For now, go forth and acquire All Systems Red (which I highly recommend anyway, it's a delightful book).

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Book Guild Poll 27

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Book Guild Meetings

I want to get the ball rolling on the first book read here in the guild but I've stumped myself with my choices. Since I cannot for the life of me pick between these works, I am posing it to all of you! Winner of the poll will be read as the inaugural book of the guild.

For the record, I have already read all of these and will be re-reading them. This way I can better guide the meetings since I will be the least bit familiar with them. These are all relatively short and we should be able to finish them before December.

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Book Guild Poll 26

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The Book Guild Entrance Hall

All Book Guild specific banners created by me with Canva's free version.

The Book Guild is the book club sideblog of @thecrimsonacademic. I won't be posting any reblogs; all material will be my own. Decade Challenge began 2021 in response to COVID-19 lockdowns.

Categories = Book organization Schedule = When things post Decade Challenge Themes = Masterlist to prevent repeats Reading Challenge = Goals, changes annually This Year's Reads = Monthly targeted reads, changes annually Book Guild Reviews = Masterlist of Guild Book Reviews Book Guild Polls = Masterlist of Guild Polls Book Guild Shelves = Masterlist of Guild Library Shelves Book Guild Meetings = Masterlist of Guild Meetings

Tagging System

#the book guild #book guild reviews #bgr #book guild polls #bgp #book guild shelves #bgs #book guild meetings #bgm

Antiquated = Books whose publication dates or whose authors lived/wrote pre-1000 AD/CE.

Decade Challenge = Books that align with the current year's theme.

Faith = Books relating to my faith. These could be straight from the Bible, topical, or arguments leveled against Christianity.

Fan Fiction = All works will be linked and authors tagged whenever possible. We don't steal in this Guild.

Mandatory = Books assigned for school. Some were assigned back in secondary education but most are from Harvard.

Non-Fiction/Prose = Books that are neither fiction nor poems nor plays.

Visual = Graphic novels, manga, illustrated editions, and comic books.

World = Books whose authors lived or wrote outside of the United States of America.

4:00pm Monday = Book Guild Reviews 4:30pm Tuesday = Book Guild Polls Wednesday has no scheduled postings 3:30pm Thursday = Book Guild Shelves 3:00pm Friday = Book Guild Meetings Saturday-Sunday have no scheduled postings

First Decade

2021 = Epics 2022 = Horror 2023 = Science Fiction 2024 = Fantasy 2025 = Non-Fiction 2026 = Literary Fiction 2027 = Series (5+ books) 2028 = Reference 2029 = Children's 2030 = Poetry & Plays 2031 = Theology

Second Decade—TBD

I commit myself to four reading challenges every year: Power of One, Goodreads, The StoryGraph, & Monthly Picks.

Power of One commits me to reading one specific book for the year. This way, if I fail all the other reading goals I still have a sense of accomplishment for reading one book that is often very difficult or long in the first place.

Goodreads commits me to reading a set amount of books for the year. Not every book I read can be found on Goodreads thus sometimes my success rate doesn't line up with the website.

Goodreads Goals

10 books = Completed 2015 12 books = TBD 24 books = Completed 2021, read 27 35 books = TBD 42 books = Ongoing 50 books = TBD 65 books = TBD 75 books = TBD 87 books = TBD 100 books = TBD

The StoryGraph commits me to reading one page a day for the entire month of January as part of their annual #January Pages Challenge. I started in 2024 and managed to read 6 books in one month.

Monthly Picks can be found immediately beneath this as This Year's Reads. I commit a book to each month, sometimes I get them done and sometimes I really don't. Depends on the year and how I'm holding up.

January = The Gilded Ones—Complete February = The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea—Complete March = Daughter of the Moon Goddess April = Warbreaker May = Inkheart June = Priory of the Orange Tree July = Lirael August = The Firekeeper's Daughter September = Skin of the Sea October = The Girl with Ghost Eyes November = Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor—Complete December = Elatsoe

The Book Guild Reviews will post at 4:00pm on Mondays as they are completed. This means there will be plenty of Mondays that don't have any reviews posted. Book Guild Reviews are only for books that have been read in the current year. Each entry in this section links to its corresponding masterlist.

Reviews 2024 Reviews 2025

The Book Guild Polls will post at 4:30pm on Tuesdays as they are queued. There will be plenty of Tuesdays that don't have polls posted, I sometimes forget to queue them up or life gets in the way. Book Guild Polls will only cover books I either personally own or have actually read/am currently reading. Each entry in this section links to its corresponding masterlist.

I will not be linking to 2024's previous Book Guild Polls (bgp 1-25) unless I reread them in following years. They were an experiment during the early stages of creating this blog. They can be found under Polls on my main blog.

Polls 2024 Polls 2025

The Book Guild Shelves will post at 3:30pm on Thursdays as they are completed. This means there will be plenty of Thursdays that don't have any shelves posted. Book Guild Shelves are just like the reviews except they cover all of the books I've read within my lifetime (whereas reviews only cover the current year).

Unlike reviews or polls, shelves 2020 (for example) doesn't mean books read in 2020 it just means those are the shelves I posted to the blog in 2020. Each entry in this section links to its corresponding masterlist.

Shelves 2024 Shelves 2025

The Book Guild Meetings will post at 3:00pm on Fridays as they are queued. There will be plenty of Fridays that don't have meetings posted, I sometimes forget to queue them up or life gets in the way. Book Guild Meetings are essentially why this blog even exists, these are my book club meetings.

The beauty of a Book Guild Meeting is that it's not live! Meetings are numbered and tagged and the corresponding book & author is also always tagged. Just filter the meetings you're looking for if you join late.

A meeting will consist of key identifying information regarding the book and the meeting's date. There'll be question(s) section and then a keep reading break. The only thing after the line break is my own discussion based on a quote or excerpt.

All Book Guild Meeting books will be pulled from my categories identified further up. Here's a very basic example of the moving parts for a meeting:

Book ~ Author Section read for meeting Meeting date Questions for discussion Quote or excerpt Book Guildmaster wishes to discuss further

And that's it!

Meetings 2024 Meetings 2025

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Meetings 2024 (Masterlist)

All Systems Red—Martha Wells (Intro Post)

All Systems Red—bgm1 (Nov. 1 at 3pm)

All Systems Red—bgm2 (Nov. 8 at 3pm)

All Systems Red—bgm3 (Nov. 15 at 3pm)

All Systems Red—bgm4 (Nov. 22 at 3pm)

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Shelves 2024 (Masterlist)

Coming soon

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Polls 2024 (Masterlist)

Book Guild Poll #26: A Doll's House Book Guild Poll #27: The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin Book Guild Poll #28: Bartleby, the Scrivener Book Guild Poll #29: The Communist Manifesto Book Guild Poll #30: The Protestant Ethic and the "Spirit" of Capitalism Book Guild Poll #31: The Hairy Ape Book Guild Poll #32: RUR (Rossum's Universal Robots) Book Guild Poll #33: The Principles of Scientific Management

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Reviews 2024 (Masterlist)

The Gilded Ones

Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor

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Book Guild Polls 25

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Book Guild Polls 24