Western MA Science Fiction Book Club

We meet roughly every other month (usually Feb, Apr, Jun, Aug and Sep for Hugo Award-related content, and Nov or Dec), usually on the 4th Thursday of the month at 6:00pm.

We read a mix of newer and older books. Our meeting location is typically the Community Room in either the Forbes Library in Northampton or the Lilly Library in Florence. 

We are currently open to new members, so feel free to spread the word.

If you have any questions or suggestions or want to recommend books for us to read/discuss in the future, feel free to message me through the group's members page.

See below for a list of past and future reads! 

2025

FEB: The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz

APR: Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang

JUN: The Man Who Fell to Earth by Walter Tevis

AUG: 2024 Hugo short fiction finalists (short stories and novelettes)

SEP: 2025 Hugo Best Novel winner

NOV/DEC: The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers

PREVIOUS SELECTIONS

2024

NOV/DEC: Startide Rising by David Brin

SEP: Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh (Hugo Best Novel winner)

AUG: 2023 Hugo short fiction finalists (short stories and novelettes)

JUN: Contact by Carl Sagan

APR: The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord

FEB: The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler 

2023

NOV/DEC: Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher (2023 Hugo Best Novel winner)

OCT: Two Sci-fi novellas (Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky and This Is How You Lose the

Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone)

AUG: 2023 Hugo short fiction finalists (short stories and novelettes)

JUN: Woman on the Edge of Time, by Marge Piercy

APR: Earth Abides, by George R. Stewart

FEB: Aurora, by Kim Stanley Robinson

2022

NOV/DEC: Tales of Pirx the Pilot, by Stanislaw Lem

SEP: 2022 Hugo Best Novel runner up: Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki

AUG: 2022 Hugo short fiction finalists

JUN: Babel-17, by Samuel R. Delany

APR: Piranesi, by Susanna Clarke

FEB: The Wild Shore, by Kim Stanley Robinson

JAN: 2021 Hugo Best Novel runner up: The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin

2021

OCT: 2021 Hugo short fiction finalists

AUG: Gather, Darkness, by Fritz Leiber

JUN: Rendezvous with Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke

APR: An Unkindness of Ghosts, by Rivers Solomon

FEB: The Dispossessed, by Ursula Le Guin

2020

NOV/DEC: The Lesson, by Cadwell Turnbull

SEP: 2020 Hugo Best Novel winner: A Memory Called Empire, by Arkady Martine

AUG: 2020 Hugo short fiction finalists

JUN: Dreamsnake, by Vonda McIntyre

APR: Two Sci-fi novellas: All Systems Red, by Martha Wells and And Then There Were

(N-One), by Sarah Pinsker

FEB: Among Others, by Jo Walton

2019

NOV/DEC: Oryx and Crake, by Margaret Atwood

SEP: 2019 Hugo Best Novel winner: The Calculating Stars, by Mary Robinette Kowal

AUG: 2019 Hugo nominated short fiction

JUN: The Parable of the Sower, by Octavia Butler

APR: Infomocracy, by Malka Ann Older

FEB: The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin

2018

NOV/DEC: The Diamond Age, by Neal Stephenson

SEP: 2018 Hugo Best Novel finalist: Six Wakes, by Mur Lafferty

AUG: 2018 Hugo nominated short fiction

JUN: Welcome to Night Vale, by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor

APR: We, by Yevgeny Zamyatin

FEB: The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, by Becky Chambers

2017

NOV/DEC: The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury

SEP: All the Birds in the Sky (2017 Nebula Award winning novel)

AUG: 2017 Hugo nominated short fiction

JUN: Childhood's End, by Arthur C. Clarke

APR: Two Sci-fi novellas: 'Binti' and 'Binti: Home', by Nnedi Okorafor

FEB: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams

2016

NOV/DEC: The Sparrow, by Mary Doria Russell

OCT: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. Dick

SEP: 2016 Hugo Best Novel winner: The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

AUG: 2016 Nebula nominated short fiction

JUL: Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut

MAY: Red Mars, by Kim Stanley Robinson

APR: Two Sci-fi novellas: On a Red Station Drifting by Aliette de Bodard and True Names by

Vernor Vinge

MAR: The City and the City, by China Mieville

JAN: Dune, by Frank Herbert

2015

NOV/DEC: The Martian, by Andy Weir

OCT: 2015 Hugo Best Novel winner: The Three-Body Problem, by Cixin Liu

SEP: 'Alternate' Hugo short fiction nominees

JUL: The Warrior's Apprentice, by Lois McMaster Bujold

MAY: The Player of Games, by Iain M. Banks

APR: SF Short Stories #1

MAR: Old Man's War, by John Scalzi

JAN: The Lathe of Heaven, by Ursula K. Le Guin

2014

DEC: Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson

SEP: Hugo nominated short fiction

AUG: 2014 Hugo Best Novel winner: Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

JUL: Ringworld, by Larry Niven

MAY: To Say Nothing of the Dog, by Connie Willis

APR: Boneshaker, by Cherise Priest

MAR: Tunnel in the Sky, by Robert A. Heinlein

FEB: House of Suns, by Alastair Reynolds

JAN: Kindred, by Octavia Butler

2013

DEC: Spin, by Robert Charles Wilson

NOV: I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov

SEP: Redshirts, by John Scalzi