When it was proclaimed the the Star Wars Expanded Universe novels and comics would no longer be considered canon, I tore my clothes and covered myself in ashes as I despondently cried out to the heavens in anguish.
It was very much like Vader yelling ‘NOOOOOOOOOOOO.’
My tradition was that any time I had a vacation, I would read a Star Wars book. While other folks were drinking piña coladas buy the pool side, I was curled up under a beach umbrella, reading Timothy Zahn. (I’m a nerd, so what?)
Having read probably 40 of those Star Wars Expanded Universe books, my heart just couldn’t accept that they had been un-canonized, thrown to the curb. Well, except for a few of the Yuuzhan Vong books, which I think we can all agree were a little below everyone’s pay grade.
The point is this: Us nerds love our books.
That’s why we are rolling out the Earth Nerds Book Club. Here is how it will work:
- We will host it on our Facebook page, so give our page a like if you haven’t already. We’ll pin the book club post to the top of the page, so there should be no difficulty in finding it.
- A couple weeks before we select our next book, we’ll share a list of options, allowing you to voice your preference.
- The writers of Nerds on Earth will take turns hosting. We have a variety of backgrounds and interests, so that should give the Earth Nerds Book Club a fresh tone each time, preventing it from becoming monotonous.
- We’ll develop a theme each time, which is an idea we stole from Lootcrate (who I’m sure stole it from someone else). If you don’t like sci-fi, for example, then just hold on because we’ll be mixing it up.
- Newbs are always welcome. We want this to be welcoming, open, and inclusive. Social over scholarly, in other words.
- No out-of-prints. If possible, we’ll even pick stuff that should be available in local libraries. We don’t want to create barriers.
- Although we might go obscure on occasion. We want to take you places you haven’t been before.
- We’ll try and stimulate discussion both above the neck and below it. On other words, we’ll try and hit both intellectual and emotional responses.
And the BIG one: We’ll do a book every two months, rather than every month. We want to give everyone plenty of time. Plus, that allows a nice schedule:
- 1 month to read the book spoiler free,
- 2-3 weeks to discuss the book
- then an extra week or so at the end to vote and choose our next book.
But it’s the internet, you might say. We can’t have nice things like friendly discussion on the internet, you might say. I assure you, this won’t be a place where one person screams BLAZZLEROZZLE! while the other side shouts HOOZLEWOOZLE! in a petty attempt to shout their perceived rightness.
Whether you like the books we select or not, or identify with the characters or not, or dig the tone and story or not, we want to have fun with this. So our intention is not to have contentious arguments. The Earth Nerds Book Club will be good ‘ole fashioned geeky enthusiasm and discussion.
Sooooooooo, have you read anything nerdy lately? Maybe some good sci-fi? Oh! Is it a dark, dystopian landscape ruled by killer cyborgs?!? That’s what this guy hopes. I have a lot of robot frustrations to take out, namely that we don’t have flying cars by now. As a kid, I thought for sure we’d have flying cars by now.
How about a good fantasy book? As a D&D lover, I’ve actually read one or two of those novels. In fact, those books have captivated my imagination in way that inspired me to post about D&D on this site every Thursday. Look for the nerd’s forthcoming post: How to Troll D&D Fans.
PLEASE BE IN A BOOK CLUB WITH US! PLEEEEEEEEEASE!
Ok, that may have come on too needy, but we do hope we’ll consider reading some books with us. We’re starting….NOW!
Our first book will be Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.
It’s a book that was recommended by lots of our readers and it’s a book that I can’t believe I haven’t read yet. With themes of play and nerd nostalgia and fitting in in a virtual world, it’s the perfect book for us to start with.
I burned through the first 160 pages in a short break from writing this post. It both reads that quickly and is that engaging. I’m looking forward to finishing it off and discussing it with each of you. I really do hope you’ll join us.
Again, give our Facebook page a like if you haven’t already and after taking the month of July to read through Ready Player One, we’ll discuss it the first couple weeks of August.
Tabletop Takeaways: Tips for Dungeon Masters with a Narrative Spin