Sci-fi book club selections

A year or so ago I read 'Breakfast of Champions' by Kurt Vonnegurt as some friends mentioned it. I doubt it would be published these days, I was surprised at the amount of racist language.

Many of these books were products of their time and do come across as a bit cringeworthy.

I guess for me, classic SFF would include Le Guin (Left Hand of Darkness plus others) & Marge Piercy (Woman on the Edge of Time) both of whom would be counted as 'woke' in your definition.

I agree with this - I read a few of the classics when I was in my teens/ twenties (1990s-2000s) and found them slow and clunky compared to the new SF being published then, so I imagine they’d seem even more so now.

In terms of modern SF, I’d suggest the Old Man’s War by John Scalzi, which is very straightforward SF with a feel of the 50s-60s classics.

Second the Lois McMaster Bujold suggestion - her first books were published in the 80s and she’s continued writing since then. The Vorkosigan series is SF, but her others are fantasy.

The Murderbot series by Martha Wells is great, and I suspect the younger club members would enjoy it.

I was going to suggest easing the other members in gently by suggesting books from the 80s-90s and see how they react, but I see that you’ve stopped going. Maybe something to think about if you go back to it. Another idea would be to suggest reading the winners/ nominees for the Hugo and Nebula awards over the past 20-30 years - lots of interesting stuff there.

We both were/are into sci-fi. When we were younger the classics were fairly new. A recent collection we've both been enjoying is Backyard Starship series (on kindle unlimited). Old fashioned space adventure with a fair bit of humour.

Define woke for me.

I guess the problem with reading classics in a specifically SFF bookclub, is that it's likely that most of the members would already have read them.

I'm mid-50s, I read a lot of classic sci-fi in my teens / early twenties, but these days mostly read more modern novels. I'd say with recently published SFF, there's good and bad, just as there was back in the day.

Of the two you mentioned, I quite enjoyed the Imperial Radch books, and absolutely loved the Terra Ignota series. Other modern authors - like the pp, I also rate Adrian Tchaikovsky, though some are better than others (fair enough, he writes a lot!). Dogs of War is my favourite. You might also find the Three Body Problem & sequels worth trying if hard SF is more your thing. Becky Chambers is fine as an entertaining read but pretty lightweight IMO.

Have you tried Lois McMaster Bujold?

They have dated very much, and in many cases would be a very hard sell to a modern readership.

I loved Asimov when I read him in the 80s. I re-read a few quite recently and wow, the text is clunky. Philip K Dick has wonderful concepts but again, quite heavy going for readers used to the more character-led and faster paced novels of today.

Stylistically, novels have changed significantly in the past 60 years. As with television and films, the pacing is completely different.

If you want a SF Classics book group, online is far more likely to be your friend than face to face groups.

If you’re looking resigned to leaving the classics behind, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Claire North and Becky Chambers are all modern science fiction writers I’d recommend, if you’ve not tried them, OP

I tend to like the older stuff too. I enjoy Andy Weir and Blake Couch books.

I used to read a lot of science fiction, but haven't been tempted to read modern sf - I've graduated towards fantasy these days. Of the little I've read I enjoyed Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter's Long Earth series and Stephen Donaldson's The Gap Cycle (though this is a bit older, and I prefer his fantasy!)

Also love Kate Elliott's books - mostly they are fantasy but her Jaran series is sf. I haven't read her latest yet (The Sun Chronicles) - that's sf too.