On Positron:
- Reviews up for Yoon Ha Lee's Ninefox Gambit and Kai Ashante Wilson's A Taste of Honey.
- Visited a couple new (to me) book clubs: Volumes Sci-Fi's discussion of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Reed's Local discussion of The City and The City, and the Chicago Feminism Book Club's discussion of Howl's Moving Castle.
- Recap of a very cool author event with Cuban SF star Yoss at City Lit.
- If you still need some spookiness, editor Scott G. Bruce is giving a talk on "The Penguin Book of the Dead", Thursday 11/3 at the Seminary Co-Op Bookstore in Hyde Park.
- Windycon is one of the main Chicagoland science fiction conventions; it runs November 11th-13th. In addition to the usual programming, you may also want to check out the book-clubs being hosted there: Chi-SF is discussing Ernest Clines' "Ready Player One", and Phandemonium is discussing "The Fifth Season" by N.K. Jemisin.
- The Chicago Book Expo is Sunday the 13th at Columbia College. Free to attend, and usually a good spread!
- There are a number of events celebrating the release of the new Harry Potter-verse film, "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them", including a celebration at the Fountaindale Public Library and "Build a Beast" workshops from the Columbia College Muggles Association.
- Tuesday, 11/15, Justine Larbalestier will be talking & signing at Anderson's Bookshop in La Grange.
- Wednesday 11/16, local SF authors Mary Robinette Kowal, Wesley Chu, and Dan Wells are doing a very cool-sounding reading at Volumes Book Cafe in Wicker Park. You may want to grab a (free) ticket before they fill up.
- It's a bit further off, but get this on your radar: the Chicago Review of Books Awards Ceremony, December 8th at Volumes. It's the first year for the new (and excellent) Chicago Review of Books, and features a surprising number of SF/F & related works by local authors:
- Jessica Chiarella's And Again
- Ada Palmer's Too Like The Lightning, which I reviewed and loved
- Martin Seay's The Mirror Thief
- T. Sean Steele's Tacky Goblin (Steele is the facilitator for the Weird & Wonderful book club)
- Wesley Chu's Time Siege
- Mary Robinette Kowal's Ghost Talkers, which the Chicago Nerds recently discussed
- The winners of the World Fantasy Award have been announced, with Best Novel going to Anna Smaill's "The Chimes". Smaill beat out big names like Jemisin, Novik, and Ishiguro, and the WFA, while often inducing face-palms with their convention, also has a history of picking unusual, worthy books, often from a bit outside the usual spotlights. So I'll have to pick that up.
- Some buzz going around about the Hugo "Best Series" experimental award. File 770 has a (long) list of eligible works for the first one, and Strahan & Wolfe discuss the project on a recent Coode St. Podcast.
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