Comment by FumblingBear | Hacker News Reader

Comment by FumblingBear | Hacker News Reader

I host 3 weekly book clubs with various friend groups via Discord which is very rewarding and a great way to socialize! Highly recommend for any people who enjoy reading to give a book club a shot—not only does it deepen my relationships with friends, it provides a ton of different perspectives on motifs, themes, and moments in the story that resonate with others.

We've tended towards fantasy series, but have done some sci-fi and other works as well. Currently reading through Malazan: Book of the Fallen in one group (Near the end of Memories of Ice (book 3)) and Mother of Learning in another. The third group is currently on hiatus but we'll vote on the next series soon and resume next year.

I'm also very into music (both listening and playing). Recently restrung my 7-string guitar with heavier gauge strings and have been learning some new stuff in lower tunings than I'm used to (Drop F and Drop G#).

Haven't engaged seriously with it in some time, but I used to be really into Yoyo's, specifically 1a style throwing. Super rewarding hobby that can be fun for beginners to advanced throwers.

Finally, I really enjoy video games. Lately I've been into MMO's (WoW, FFXIV, OSRS, GW2+1, etc.) but love puzzle games, factory building games, and RPGs/ARPGs.

That's awesome, I want to read (part of?) Malazan in 2024, after having finally gotten around to reading Wheel of Time in 2022-23.

And I also have a collection of YoYos! Haven't learned too much relatively speaking, but I did love it when I focused on it and always want to get back into it.

The Wheel of Time is one that I'd like to read eventually too! Best of luck with Malazan! Our group has had a blast—definitely rewarding to read with a group if you can find others willing to commit because it's so dense that we're often able to theorize or point out parts that others overlooked!

Also love that you collect YoYo's too! My favorite is my OneDrop Markmont Classic. Smoothest and most balanced YoYo I've ever tried! Do you have a fave?

Yes, I've heard so much about Malazan. I basically got into fantasy more big time a couple of years ago, and decided to start going through the most popular series, and WoT was first up, being the probably most popular. (I was and am a huge Sanderson fan before this, that's one reason I decided to read more fantasy.)

YoYo's - actually my first YoYo was a OneDrop. I was collecting spinners at the time and they came out with a spinner, which is how I heard of them, then they came out with the Deep State YoYo, which sounded really cool as a "carry around everywhere" kind of thing. Of course it's not a very good YoYo for actually learning, it's thin and semi-responsive.

I haven't really played enough with any of my YoYos, but I think my favorite of the ones I have is the Boost Afterburner. It just looks amazing, and plays beautifully. But I've probably actually played the most with the Shutter and the Replay (plastic YoYo).

I haven't read Malazan but I've heard it's very hard to get into. I've seen trying to read the first book being likened to being dropped in a remote Chinese village with no manual or linguistic ability in Mandarin.

For your group to not only successfully complete the 1st book, but to also proceed till the 3rd book must have been a challenging feat.

Thanks! I think the difficulty can be a little overhyped sometimes, but it's definitely been a challenging read! More than anything, it often presents information with little context and leaves you to wonder for a while (sometimes books) before finally explaining things. The nice thing about reading it in a group is we can all share different insights and predictions for the things that are happening.

I think we're going to make it through the whole series because everyone is still very engaged with the books but only time will tell haha. Definitely a marathon of a series!

Would you recommend it to a casual fantasy reader who's never really ventured beyond Sanderson/Rothfuss/etc?

Honestly, probably not. It's not necessarily that I don't think someone who's primarily familiar with Sanderson/Rothfuss/etc wouldn't be __capable__ of reading it—it's more that the format of the story and narrative are so vastly different than the styles of more mainstream fantasy works that it's hard to say whether or not it would resonate with you.

Some readers of the series would recommend reading 1-3 books before making a judgement on it, but I think that it's just not for most people. If you'd like a challenge and enjoy the process of solving a big crazy puzzle, than I'd say go for it! But if you are more interested in reading something that you can just pick up and enjoy, there are better series out there.

If you're looking to try some stuff outside the Sanderson/Rothfuss bubble, some of my personal favorites are Mother of Learning by Domagoj Kurmaic and Cradle by Will Wight.

The former is a fantasy time loop story about a young academy student who becomes stuck in a month long time loop and has to figure out how to get out of it.

The latter is a underdog eastern fantasy story that's kind of like an anime in book form where quite possibly the weakest person in the world learns of an apocalyptic event that he needs to get strong enough to stop in order to save his loved ones.

Both are progression fantasy, a fun sub-genre that is more focused on the acquisition of power than a more traditional epic fantasy series like the authors you mentioned have, but could be a fun way to branch out and explore some other styles of fantasy writing!

What exactly do you do in a book club?

We read a set amount of a book on a schedule (2-3 chapters usually) then discuss as a group our thoughts on parts of the story that stood out to us. Sometimes it's predictions for the future, sometimes it's specifics about characters and their relationships to others, sometimes it's a meta-discussion about themes and motifs present in the writing and how they relate to our experiences and lives, and sometimes it's just us sharing thoughts on parts we found to be awesome!

I find it helps to discuss these things with others because oftentimes I can miss certain parts of a story or interpret events in a way that others interpreted differently. Those types of things can lead to super interesting conversations that teach us more about ourselves and the world around us so it's a fun way to get introspective and learn by deepening relationships with others!

They're usually about 1 hour long conversations that are very free-form, so there's not really a right or wrong way to do it—if you want to give it a shot, just find some people with an interest in reading something together and meet up for discussions!

Good info, thanks. A person in a WhatsApp group I am in, but not known to me, started such a club recently, so I was interested to know what it was about.

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