The Speculative Fiction Book Club meets in the Meeting Room on the 3rd Wednesday of the month. We’ll be reading a wide selection of Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Dystopian and otherwise fantastical works. Copies of the title to be discussed will be available at the Circulation Desk a month prior to each meeting.
For more information, visit our Events Calendar.
UPCOMING MEETINGS
2026
SEPTEMBER 16
Hyperion by Dan Simmons
It is the 29th century and the universe of the Human Hegemony is under threat. Invasion by the warlike Ousters looms, and the mysterious schemes of the secessionist AI TechnoCore bring chaos ever closer. On the eve of disaster, with the entire galaxy at war, seven pilgrims set fourth on a final voyage to the legendary Time Tombs on Hyperion, home to the Shrike, a lethal creature, part god and part killing machine, whose powers transcend the limits of time and space. The pilgrims have resolved to die before discovering anything less than the secrets of the universe itself.
OCTOBER 21
When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi
The moon has turned into cheese. Now humanity has to deal with it. For some it’s an opportunity. For others it’s a moment to question their faith: in God, in science, in everything. Still others try to keep the world running in the face of absurdity and uncertainty. And then there are the billions looking to the sky and wondering how a thing that was always just there is now… something absolutely impossible. Astronauts and billionaires, comedians and bank executives, professors and presidents, teenagers and terminal patients at the end of their lives – over the length of an entire lunar cycle, each get their moment in the moonlight. To panic, to plan, to wonder and to pray, to laugh and to grieve. All in a kaleidoscopic novel that goes all the places you’d expect, and then to so many places you wouldn’t. It’s a wild moonage daydream.
NOVEMBER 18
All Systems Red by Martha Wells
In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety. But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern. On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid – a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is. But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it’s up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth.
DECEMBER 16
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
Deep underground, thirty-nine women live imprisoned in a cage. Watched over by guards, the women have no memory of how they got there, no notion of time, and only a vague recollection of their lives before. As the burn of electric light merges day into night and numberless years pass, a young girl – the fortieth prisoner – sits alone and outcast in the corner. Soon she will show herself to be the key to the others’ escape and survival in the strange world that awaits them above ground. I Who Have Never Known Men is a haunting, heartbreaking post-apocalyptic novel of female friendship and intimacy, and the lengths people will go to maintain their humanity in the face of devastation.
2027
JANUARY 20
Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel
The only daughter of the kingdom of Kekaya, Kaikeyi is raised on grand stories about the might and benevolence of the gods. Yet she watches as her father unceremoniously banishes her mother, her own worth measured by how great a marriage alliance she can secure. And when she calls upon the gods for help, they never seem to hear. Desperate for some measure of independence, she turns to the ancient texts she once read with her mother and discovers a magic that is hers alone. She uses it to transform herself from overlooked princess into warrior, diplomat, and most-favored queen, determined to forge a better world for herself than the one that gods and men have granted. But as the demons of stories Kaikeyi grew up hearing threaten the cosmic order, her will clashes with the path that the gods have chosen for her family-and especially that of her beloved son, Rama. And she must decide if her resistance is worth the destruction it will wreak…and what legacy she intends to leave behind.
PAST TITLES
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