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Bsky Book Club
@bskybookclub.bsky.social
780 followers 130 following 110 posts
upcoming December book:

The Urth of the New Sun
by Gene Wolfe

As always please join us at #bskybc

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Bsky Book Club @bskybookclub.bsky.social · 15d
You heard it here first #bskybc

You loved* the adventures of Severian the Torturer

Now get ready for the adventures of Severian the Lame

IN

Gene Wolfe’s “Urth of the New Sun”

Coming 12/19-January something or other

Surprise!
minormobius.bsky.social Minor Mobius @minormobius.bsky.social · 15d
Ok let’s fucking go baby we run a minibskybc just on urth
bskybookclub.bsky.social
New pfp
December 19, 2025 at 12:14 AM
bskybookclub.bsky.social
@minormobius.bsky.social ok what’s our schedule for Urth do you think? Also #bskybc
December 18, 2025 at 7:51 AM
Reposted by Bsky Book Club
bskybookclub.bsky.social
You heard it here first #bskybc

You loved* the adventures of Severian the Torturer

Now get ready for the adventures of Severian the Lame

IN

Gene Wolfe’s “Urth of the New Sun”

Coming 12/19-January something or other

Surprise!
minormobius.bsky.social Minor Mobius @minormobius.bsky.social · 15d
Ok let’s fucking go baby we run a minibskybc just on urth
December 4, 2025 at 10:14 PM
bskybookclub.bsky.social
You heard it here first #bskybc

You loved* the adventures of Severian the Torturer

Now get ready for the adventures of Severian the Lame

IN

Gene Wolfe’s “Urth of the New Sun”

Coming 12/19-January something or other

Surprise!
minormobius.bsky.social Minor Mobius @minormobius.bsky.social · 15d
Ok let’s fucking go baby we run a minibskybc just on urth
December 4, 2025 at 10:14 PM
bskybookclub.bsky.social
Ok. With all this AI & sentience discourse flying around we definitely need to read Blindsight or a book about the fae next. I have a short list of fae stuff from some of you, feel free to toss in more here, or Blindsight-adjacent recommendations too #bskybc
August 10, 2025 at 10:38 PM
Reposted by Bsky Book Club
cyaneyed.lol
Destriers, am I right? #bskybc
vombavr.bsky.social vombavr @vombavr.bsky.social · Aug 5
absolutely normal horses
August 5, 2025 at 1:00 AM
bskybookclub.bsky.social
This is not an official selection but if anybody wants to read le Carre’s The Honourable Schoolboy with me now’s your chance #bskybc
July 30, 2025 at 4:34 PM
Reposted by Bsky Book Club
flicknow.xyz
somehow only just realized ansible was named after Le Guin's ansible #bskybc
June 25, 2025 at 3:49 AM
bskybookclub.bsky.social
#bskybc
The fancy cat reading the newspaper meme and it says WE SHOULD READ A BOOK ABOUT THE FAE
June 21, 2025 at 9:13 PM
bskybookclub.bsky.social
Appalling #bskybc
The First Mobile, if one is sent, must be warned that unless he is very self-assured, or senile, his pride will suffer. A man wants his virility regarded, a woman wants her femininity appreciated, however indirect and subtle the indications of regard and appreciation. On Winter they will not exist. One is respected and judged only as a human being. It is an appalling experience.
June 21, 2025 at 12:10 AM
Reposted by Bsky Book Club
rereadingwolfe.bsky.social
June 20, 2025 at 1:29 AM
Reposted by Bsky Book Club
unlox.bsky.social
she waive on my shifgrethor til I’m in kemmer
June 19, 2025 at 6:09 AM
bskybookclub.bsky.social
Ok I’ll bite. What the hell is shifgrethor #bskybc
June 19, 2025 at 5:50 AM
Reposted by Bsky Book Club
huwupy.kawaii.social
Man, the foretelling scene, wow! #bskybc
June 15, 2025 at 6:06 PM
bskybookclub.bsky.social
So they’ve got some pretty grim folk tales here on Gethen eh? Of course, I come from a whole planet of perverts, so maybe my judgment is flawed

How’s everybody enjoying themselves?
#bskybc
June 12, 2025 at 4:54 PM
Reposted by Bsky Book Club
flicknow.xyz
already finished the first five - there's still time to start and join! two of the chapters are just a couple pages
bskybookclub.bsky.social Bsky Book Club @bskybookclub.bsky.social · Jun 5
#bskybc to kick us off here’s the start of the wonderful introduction to the edition I have.

Discussion schedule is five chapters a week for four weeks starting… now!!
INTRODUCTION Science fiction is often described, and even defined, as extrapolative. The science fiction writer is supposed to take a trend or phenomenon of the here-and-now, purify and intensify it for dramatic effect, and extend it into the future. "If this goes on, this is what will happen." A prediction is made. Method and results much resemble those of a scientist who feeds large doses of a purified and concentrated food additive to mice, in order to predict what may happen to people who eat it in small quantities for a long time. The outcome seems almost inevitably to be cancer. So does the outcome of extrapolation. Strictly extrapola-tive works of science fiction generally arrive about where the Club of Rome arrives: somewhere between the gradual extinction of human liberty and the total extinction of terrestrial life. This may explain why many people who do not read science fiction describe it as "escapist," but when questioned further, admit they do not read it because "it's so depressing." Almost anything carried to its logical extreme becomes depressing, if not carcinogenic. Fortunately, though extrapolation is an element in science fiction, it isn't the name of the game by any means. It is far too rationalist and simplistic to satisfy the imaginative mind, whether the writer's or the reader's. Variables are the spice of life. This book is not extrapolative. If you like you can read it, and a lot of other science fiction, as a thought-experiment. Let's say (says Mary Shelley) that a young doctor creates a human being in his laboratory; let's say (says Philip K. Dick) that the Allies lost the second world war; let's say this or that is such and so, and see what happens. ... In a story so conceived, the moral complexity proper to the modern novel need not be sacrificed, nor is there any built-in dead end; thought and intuition can move freely within bounds set only by the terms of the experiment, which may be very large indeed. The purpose of a thought-experiment, as the term was used by Schrödinger and other physicists, is not to predict the future indeed Schrödinger's most famous thought-experiment goes to show that the "future," on the quantum level, cannot be predicted-but to describe reality, the present world. Science fiction is not predictive; it is descriptive. Predictions are uttered by prophets (free of charge); by clairvoyants (who usually charge a fee, and are therefore more honored in their day than prophets); and by futurologists (salaried). Prediction is the business of prophets, clairvoyants, and futurolo-gists. It is not the business of novelists. A novelist's business is lying. The weather bureau will tell you what next Tuesday will be like, and the Rand Corporation will tell you what the twenty-first century will be like. I don't recommend that you turn to the writers of fiction for such information. It's none of their business. All they're trying to do is tell you what they're like, and what you're like what's going on—what the weather is now, today, this moment, the rain, the sunlight, look! Open your eyes; listen, listen. That is what the novelists say. But they don't tell you what you will see and hear. All they can tell you is what they have seen and heard, in their time in this world, a third of it spent in sleep and dreaming, another third of it spent in telling lies. "The truth against the world!" —Yes. Certainly. Fiction writers, at least in their braver moments, do desire the truth: to know it, speak it, serve it. But they go about it in a peculiar and devious way, which consists in inventing persons, places, and events which never did and never will exist or occur, and telling about these fictions in detail and at length and with a great deal of emotion, and then when they are done writing down this pack of lies, they say, There! That's the truth! They may use all kinds of facts to support their tissue of lies. They may describe the Marshalsea Prison, which was a real place, or the battle of Boro-dino, which really was fought, or the process of cloning, which really takes place in laboratories, or the deterioration of a personality, which is described in real textbooks of psychology; and so on. This weight of verifiable place-event-phenomenon-behavior makes the reader forget that he is reading a pure invention, a history that never took place anywhere but in that unlocalisable region, the author's mind. In fact, while we read a novel, we are insane bonkers. We believe in the existence of people who aren't there, we hear their voices, we watch the battle of Borodino with them, we may even become Napoleon. Sanity returns (in most cases) when the book is closed. Is it any wonder that no truly respectable society has ever trusted its artists? But our society, being troubled and bewildered, seeking guidance, sometimes puts an entirely mis.-taken trust in its artists, using them as prophets and futurologists. I do not say that artists cannot be seers, inspired: that the awen cannot come upon them, and the god speak through them. Who would be an artist if they did not believe that that happens? if they did not know it happens, because they have felt the god within them use their tongue, their hands? Maybe only once, once in their lives. But once is enough. Nor would I say that the artist alone is so burdened and so privileged. The scientist is another who prepares, who makes ready, working day and night, sleeping and awake, for inspiration. As Pythagoras knew, the god may speak in the forms of geometry as well as in the shapes of dreams; in the harmony of pure thought as well as in the harmony of sounds; in numbers as well as in words. But it is words that make the trouble and con-fusion. We are asked now to consider words as useful in only one way: as signs. Our philosophers, some of them, would have us agree that a word (sen-tence, statement) has value only in so far as it has one single meaning, points to one fact which is comprehensible to the rational intellect, logically sound, and-ideally-quantifiable. Apollo, the god of light, of reason, of proportion, harmony, number-Apollo blinds those who press too close in worship. Don't look straight at the sun. Go into a dark bar for a bit and have a beer with Diony-sios, every now and then. I talk about the gods, I am an atheist. But I am an artist too, and therefore a liar. Distrust everything I say. I am telling the truth.
June 10, 2025 at 3:47 AM
bskybookclub.bsky.social
The #bskybc experience
weedlejuice.bsky.social tara @weedlejuice.bsky.social · Jun 5
What if we all read some ancient truths before bed
June 5, 2025 at 5:30 AM
bskybookclub.bsky.social
#bskybc to kick us off here’s the start of the wonderful introduction to the edition I have.

Discussion schedule is five chapters a week for four weeks starting… now!!
INTRODUCTION Science fiction is often described, and even defined, as extrapolative. The science fiction writer is supposed to take a trend or phenomenon of the here-and-now, purify and intensify it for dramatic effect, and extend it into the future. "If this goes on, this is what will happen." A prediction is made. Method and results much resemble those of a scientist who feeds large doses of a purified and concentrated food additive to mice, in order to predict what may happen to people who eat it in small quantities for a long time. The outcome seems almost inevitably to be cancer. So does the outcome of extrapolation. Strictly extrapola-tive works of science fiction generally arrive about where the Club of Rome arrives: somewhere between the gradual extinction of human liberty and the total extinction of terrestrial life. This may explain why many people who do not read science fiction describe it as "escapist," but when questioned further, admit they do not read it because "it's so depressing." Almost anything carried to its logical extreme becomes depressing, if not carcinogenic. Fortunately, though extrapolation is an element in science fiction, it isn't the name of the game by any means. It is far too rationalist and simplistic to satisfy the imaginative mind, whether the writer's or the reader's. Variables are the spice of life. This book is not extrapolative. If you like you can read it, and a lot of other science fiction, as a thought-experiment. Let's say (says Mary Shelley) that a young doctor creates a human being in his laboratory; let's say (says Philip K. Dick) that the Allies lost the second world war; let's say this or that is such and so, and see what happens. ... In a story so conceived, the moral complexity proper to the modern novel need not be sacrificed, nor is there any built-in dead end; thought and intuition can move freely within bounds set only by the terms of the experiment, which may be very large indeed. The purpose of a thought-experiment, as the term was used by Schrödinger and other physicists, is not to predict the future indeed Schrödinger's most famous thought-experiment goes to show that the "future," on the quantum level, cannot be predicted-but to describe reality, the present world. Science fiction is not predictive; it is descriptive. Predictions are uttered by prophets (free of charge); by clairvoyants (who usually charge a fee, and are therefore more honored in their day than prophets); and by futurologists (salaried). Prediction is the business of prophets, clairvoyants, and futurolo-gists. It is not the business of novelists. A novelist's business is lying. The weather bureau will tell you what next Tuesday will be like, and the Rand Corporation will tell you what the twenty-first century will be like. I don't recommend that you turn to the writers of fiction for such information. It's none of their business. All they're trying to do is tell you what they're like, and what you're like what's going on—what the weather is now, today, this moment, the rain, the sunlight, look! Open your eyes; listen, listen. That is what the novelists say. But they don't tell you what you will see and hear. All they can tell you is what they have seen and heard, in their time in this world, a third of it spent in sleep and dreaming, another third of it spent in telling lies. "The truth against the world!" —Yes. Certainly. Fiction writers, at least in their braver moments, do desire the truth: to know it, speak it, serve it. But they go about it in a peculiar and devious way, which consists in inventing persons, places, and events which never did and never will exist or occur, and telling about these fictions in detail and at length and with a great deal of emotion, and then when they are done writing down this pack of lies, they say, There! That's the truth! They may use all kinds of facts to support their tissue of lies. They may describe the Marshalsea Prison, which was a real place, or the battle of Boro-dino, which really was fought, or the process of cloning, which really takes place in laboratories, or the deterioration of a personality, which is described in real textbooks of psychology; and so on. This weight of verifiable place-event-phenomenon-behavior makes the reader forget that he is reading a pure invention, a history that never took place anywhere but in that unlocalisable region, the author's mind. In fact, while we read a novel, we are insane bonkers. We believe in the existence of people who aren't there, we hear their voices, we watch the battle of Borodino with them, we may even become Napoleon. Sanity returns (in most cases) when the book is closed. Is it any wonder that no truly respectable society has ever trusted its artists? But our society, being troubled and bewildered, seeking guidance, sometimes puts an entirely mis.-taken trust in its artists, using them as prophets and futurologists. I do not say that artists cannot be seers, inspired: that the awen cannot come upon them, and the god speak through them. Who would be an artist if they did not believe that that happens? if they did not know it happens, because they have felt the god within them use their tongue, their hands? Maybe only once, once in their lives. But once is enough. Nor would I say that the artist alone is so burdened and so privileged. The scientist is another who prepares, who makes ready, working day and night, sleeping and awake, for inspiration. As Pythagoras knew, the god may speak in the forms of geometry as well as in the shapes of dreams; in the harmony of pure thought as well as in the harmony of sounds; in numbers as well as in words. But it is words that make the trouble and con-fusion. We are asked now to consider words as useful in only one way: as signs. Our philosophers, some of them, would have us agree that a word (sen-tence, statement) has value only in so far as it has one single meaning, points to one fact which is comprehensible to the rational intellect, logically sound, and-ideally-quantifiable. Apollo, the god of light, of reason, of proportion, harmony, number-Apollo blinds those who press too close in worship. Don't look straight at the sun. Go into a dark bar for a bit and have a beer with Diony-sios, every now and then. I talk about the gods, I am an atheist. But I am an artist too, and therefore a liar. Distrust everything I say. I am telling the truth.
June 5, 2025 at 4:46 AM
Reposted by Bsky Book Club
nonbinary.computer
@concept.country
The Concept Country zine, on a workbench full of electronics. The cover of the zine has a slightly glitchy, blue hued image of a man holding a baby with glowing blue eyes. On the workbench is a LoRaWAN network server and gateway composed of a dev board and a Raspberry Pi with a big antenna, a Glasgow Interface Explorer, and some miscellaneous electronics development hardware. Behind is an oscilloscope showing some sort of waveform. It has a probe connected to a pin on the Raspberry Pi.
June 4, 2025 at 8:21 PM
bskybookclub.bsky.social
Hello #bskybc! It looks like The Left Hand of Darkness has twenty chapters, if we do our usual schedule that’s five chapters a week. Nice and manageable. How would we feel about starting tomorrow?
June 3, 2025 at 11:02 PM
bskybookclub.bsky.social
And the winner izzzzz *drum roll* The Left Hand of Darkness! I’ll be reading an ancient paperback I found in a free box, but as always there are lots of cheap used copies with free (USA) shipping on Abe Books. Get yours today! We’ll start idk Wednesday? #bskybc

www.abebooks.com/servlet/Sear...
The Left Hand of Darkness - AbeBooks
The Left Hand of Darkness: 50th Anniversary Edition (Ace Science Fiction) by Le Guin, Ursula K. and a great selection of related books, art and collectibles available now at AbeBooks.com.
www.abebooks.com
May 31, 2025 at 5:08 AM
bskybookclub.bsky.social
Polls close in four hours #bskybc
bskybookclub.bsky.social Bsky Book Club @bskybookclub.bsky.social · May 30
We have our finalists: Ursula K. Le Guin’s groundbreaking classic “The Left Hand of Darkness”, about a planet of sex-shifting aliens; and Samuel Delaney’s “Dhalgren”, a puzzle box that has been confounding the sci-fi community for fifty years. Only one can win—which should we read? Vote now! #bskybc
bskybookclub.bsky.social Bsky Book Club @bskybookclub.bsky.social · May 26
Trying a new polling site. Which has slightly changed the ordering from that image! Great! Anyway, here is the bracket! Round 1 ends tomorrow at 10pm Pacific. Will China Mieville best Neal Stephenson? Which space opera triumphs--Simmons or Vinge? Stay tuned! #bskybc

www.polltab.com/bracket-poll...
May 31, 2025 at 1:01 AM
Reposted by Bsky Book Club
bskybookclub.bsky.social
We have our finalists: Ursula K. Le Guin’s groundbreaking classic “The Left Hand of Darkness”, about a planet of sex-shifting aliens; and Samuel Delaney’s “Dhalgren”, a puzzle box that has been confounding the sci-fi community for fifty years. Only one can win—which should we read? Vote now! #bskybc
bskybookclub.bsky.social Bsky Book Club @bskybookclub.bsky.social · May 26
Trying a new polling site. Which has slightly changed the ordering from that image! Great! Anyway, here is the bracket! Round 1 ends tomorrow at 10pm Pacific. Will China Mieville best Neal Stephenson? Which space opera triumphs--Simmons or Vinge? Stay tuned! #bskybc

www.polltab.com/bracket-poll...
May 30, 2025 at 5:05 AM
bskybookclub.bsky.social
We have our finalists: Ursula K. Le Guin’s groundbreaking classic “The Left Hand of Darkness”, about a planet of sex-shifting aliens; and Samuel Delaney’s “Dhalgren”, a puzzle box that has been confounding the sci-fi community for fifty years. Only one can win—which should we read? Vote now! #bskybc
bskybookclub.bsky.social Bsky Book Club @bskybookclub.bsky.social · May 26
Trying a new polling site. Which has slightly changed the ordering from that image! Great! Anyway, here is the bracket! Round 1 ends tomorrow at 10pm Pacific. Will China Mieville best Neal Stephenson? Which space opera triumphs--Simmons or Vinge? Stay tuned! #bskybc

www.polltab.com/bracket-poll...
May 30, 2025 at 5:05 AM
Reposted by Bsky Book Club
huwupy.kawaii.social
vote vote vote vote vote for the bsky book club book (and join us! just post about the book at #bskybc). semifinals polls close at 10pm pacific!
May 29, 2025 at 7:29 PM