Speculative fiction includes both science fiction and fantasy (and other genre like horror, I think). I don’t think it’s usually abbreviated SF, but writing sci-fi might be clearer.
I don’t think the natively tags were imported from a Japanese site, so I don’t think they are evidence on what counts as sci-fi in Japan. While it’s not always trivial to distinguish fantasy and sci-fi, I was flabbergasted that a search for the sci-fi tag turned up Dragonball and Suzume. At first I thought searching major elements only would help, but no, they are tagged as major. I went ahead and down voted the sci-fi tag on those works.
Oh, and it’s a “pet peeve” of mine that StarWars gets called sci-fi when I think it’s really fantasy with a sci-fi look. On the flip side I maintain that 風の谷のナウシカ (コミック) 1 | L35 is mostly sci-fi not fantasy.
As for some candidates for the list, I’ll nominate 星界の紋章〈1〉帝国の王女 | L38?? I want to watch the anime in English one day and if it’s good see if why want to read it. I have no idea how accurate the difficulty rating is. Then there are franchises that are mostly known for anime such as Ghost in the shell, Psychopass and Gundam, but I’m sure there are plenty of novels and manga for those. In fact, while I never read (as opposed to watched) anything Gundam, I’d be very interested in a Gundam book-book club (even one where people read English).
You could add 涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱 as it has a time traveler, an artificial human created by extraterrestrials, and they are investigating some space time bubbles.
or, the コップクラフト series, as it is placed on some future earth, which is connected to another world via hyper space gates in the Pacific Ocean, but the actual contents is the cooperation between police forces of both sides to investigate inter-world crimes.
Dragonball is not SF as such, but it has some SF elements. E.g. there are quite futuristic designed buildings, machines, especially airplanes, it has those capsules, androids and robots, some sort of teleportation, artificial and extraterrestrial life, space ships, gravity manipulation, time machines, and what not.
it sounds like a harsh strategy, but it works precisely due to the psychology - someone has got to step up or you’re right, there is a possible non-club failure. I’ve seen the club organisers do that on WK all the time, when the person who nominated is no longer active, they just ask for a volunteer (without volunteering themselves), and wait. And it can take an uncomfortable amount of time, but to answer your question, if no one volunteers, just nudge again and wait longer eventually someone comes forward. If not (has it ever happened?), perhaps after 2-3 weeks, just go for the second place pick and read that (led by the nominator).
Crucially, someone rarely comes forward if they know the default is it will happen anyway. We’re lazy by design and leading a club for the first time is uncomfortable and new, so most people need a bit of a push to get involved. But once they do, now the work load is lighter for everyone… and so on. But anyway, as others have pointed out, 90% of the problem is already solved if by default the nominator runs the particular book club.
I’m not saying it has to be this way, and that’s great if someone has time to organise the club overall and run the individual book clubs. I just wanted to point out it’s a reasonable option for a club organiser who needs it
I’ll note that part of why I’m comfortable running the MBC is that it’s the only club I run anymore aside from the random ad-hoc informal deal which doesn’t require as much effort. People being involved in multiple clubs will have a much more difficult time with this fallback.
Thank you, Mara! I’ll keep you mind once that time rolls around.
I feel like that would be the biggest initial hurdle with starting up a sci-fi book club (as opposed to the more general speculative fiction): “good” sci-fi is almost certainly going to be a high level (L30 minimum, though I’d expect to see it more in the L35+ range honestly).
I would probably call クォンタムデビルサーガ アバタールチューナー sci-fi, but it relies on magic/demonic energy/whatever rather than hard science.
吸血鬼ハンター“D”―吸血鬼ハンター is sci-fi in the sense that mad max is sci-fi. Magic plays a large role as well.
天冥の標 is proper sci-fi. It is a harder read because of that, though.
彼女は一人で歩くのか? Does She Walk Alone? | L33 is also a good match! (A bit hard for the intended goal, but still). Edit: it didn’t have any tag, so I just added the Sci-fi one.
Generally speaking, the 日本SF大賞 rewards books that are “proper” sci-fi as well. That’s thanks to that prize that I found about 天冥の標 in the first place. The prize has an English Wikipedia page too: Nihon SF Taisho Award - Wikipedia
eventually someone comes forward. If not (has it ever happened?), perhaps after 2-3 weeks, just go for the second place pick and read that (led by the nominator).
and leading a club for the first time is uncomfortable and new, so most people need a bit of a push to get involved. But once they do, now the work load is lighter for everyone… and so on. But anyway, as others have pointed out, 90% of the problem is already solved if by default the nominator runs the particular book club.
