Science Fiction Book Club

Abu and Obssa complete their read-through of The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu. Part 3 jumps nearly two centuries into a seemingly utopian future, and neither host was ready for how fast it falls apart. Abu says the Starship Earth chapters do something he has never seen in science fiction, asking what it does to the human mind to leave Earth for good. Both hosts take issue with how little setup Zhang Beihai's father gets, and Obssa finds the closing conversation about love too thin for a book this dark. In his takeaway, Obssa traces the motif of eyes and unseen watchers from Ye Wenjie's cosmic sociology through a Pascal's wager moment in Part 2, and argues the ending is far less triumphant than it looks. JOIN THE CLUB Bookmark the reading schedule: sfbc.loreparty.com/schedule Join the conversation in our free Discord: discord.gg/bVrhwWm7j4 Watch video episodes and clips: youtube.com/@loreparty Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Abu and Obssa continue their read-through of The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu. In Part II, the Wallbreakers arrive, and the hosts argue over how humanity can beat defeatism and whether this book has a villain at all. The summary follows Frederick Tyler and Manuel Rey Diaz as their secret plans are laid bare, while Bill Hines and Keiko Yamasuki build the mental seal (Abu insists on calling it brain CRISPR). Abu's takeaway weighs Luo Ji's family, the Faith Center and Zhang Beihai's fanatical hope as three possible cures for humanity's despair, then asks Obssa which one would actually work on him. Obssa argues that the book hands out evil in small portions to everyone, Trisolarans and ETO included, and that the most villainous act in the section might belong to the character readers love most. JOIN THE CLUB Bookmark the reading schedule: sfbc.netlify.app/schedule Join the conversation in our free Discord: discord.gg/bVrhwWm7j4 Watch video episodes and clips: youtube.com/@loreparty Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Abu and Obssa continue their read-through of The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu. They work through all of Part I, where the UN hands four Wallfacers nearly unlimited resources and orders them to keep their plans to themselves. Zhang Beihai quickly becomes Abu's favorite character in the book, while Luo Ji spends his new power hunting for a woman he once invented in his head. The hosts also cover the plans of Frederick Tyler, Manuel Rey Diaz and Bill Hines, plus a group of retired neighbors arguing over who deserves a ticket off Earth. In the back half, Obssa asks why one Wallbreaker's reunion with his Trisolaran Lord feels so plausible, connecting it to modern science skepticism and the way cults of personality hold on to their followers. JOIN THE CLUB Bookmark the reading schedule: sfbc.netlify.app/schedule Join the conversation in our free Discord: discord.gg/bVrhwWm7j4 Get bonus content: patreon.com/scifibookclubpod Watch video episodes and clips: youtube.com/@loreparty Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Abu and Obssa begin their read-through of The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu. They cover just the prologue, a short opening that picks up right where The Three-Body Problem left off and introduces the idea of cosmic sociology. Ye Wenjie lays out her two axioms for a skeptical Luo Ji at a graveside, and Abu argues the ant and the spider crawling over the headstone are doing more work than they seem, picking up Da Shi's line about bugs from the end of the first book. Obssa takes up the question Mike Evans puts to the Trisolarans, who broadcast every thought and can't see why the wolf in a children's fable would speak before it eats. He borrows the software idea of lossy communication to ask whether human art exists because no mind can hand a thought to another whole. JOIN THE CLUB Bookmark the reading schedule: sfbc.netlify.app/schedule Join the conversation in our free Discord: discord.gg/bVrhwWm7j4 Get bonus content: patreon.com/scifibookclubpod Watch video episodes and clips: youtube.com/@loreparty Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this bonus episode, Abu and Obssa share their thoughts on the adaptation of The Dog Stars. Obssa caught Ridley Scott's film in theaters and breaks down how it turns Peter Heller's slow, poetic survival novel into a faster, action-driven adventure movie. They dig into how the film expands the Grand Junction sequence into a stranger, more elaborate set piece than the book ever attempts, and how the romance between Hig and Cima gets more room to develop on screen. Abu and Obssa also talk through how Bangley's characterization shifts in ways that surprised them, and weigh whether the movie's shootouts and action beats trade away the book's quieter, interior tone. The film stars Jacob Elordi as Hig alongside Josh Brolin, Margaret Qualley, Allison Janney, and Guy Pearce. JOIN THE CLUB Bookmark the reading schedule: sfbc.netlify.app/schedule Join the conversation in our free Discord: discord.gg/bVrhwWm7j4 Get bonus content: patreon.com/scifibookclubpod Watch video episodes and clips: youtube.com/@loreparty Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Should you read The Dog Stars by Peter Heller? Abu and Obssa give their spoiler-free verdict. The Dog Stars follows a lone survivor scraping by a few years after a pandemic has wiped out most of humanity, and it's a book for readers who love nature writing and quiet survival stories more than plot. Abu and Obssa describe the prose as unconventional, a stream-of-consciousness style that takes some patience to settle into before its poetry and heartfelt lines start to land. Readers who loved The Road or I Am Legend will find a kindred, grounded take on the genre, one that earns its place in the man-and-his-dog-after-the-apocalypse canon. JOIN THE CLUB Bookmark the reading schedule: sfbc.netlify.app/schedule Join the conversation in our free Discord: discord.gg/bVrhwWm7j4 Get bonus content: patreon.com/scifibookclubpod Watch video episodes and clips: youtube.com/@loreparty Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Abu and Obssa complete their read-through of The Dog Stars by Peter Heller. They close out chapters 7-13 with the book's ending, including a last-page swerve that left both hosts uneasy. Hig, Bangley, Cima, and Pops all make it to the story's close, and Abu and Obssa spend real time on the novel's baffling, racially charged suggestion that a mysterious group survived the plague. They also dig into how thin the line grows between Bangley and Pops, two men who have each decided that survival justifies anything. The sci-fi analysis turns to contextual ethics, weighing Hig against Lauren Olamina from Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower and against Andor's Saw Gerrera, and asking whether Hig is quietly turning into Bangley himself. Abu closes on Cima's backstory and her regret over a life spent waiting for the right moment, a theme that reframes the book's quiet, unexpected hopefulness. JOIN THE CLUB Bookmark the reading schedule: sfbc.netlify.app/schedule Join the conversation in our free Discord: discord.gg/bVrhwWm7j4 Get bonus content: patreon.com/scifibookclubpod Watch video episodes and clips: youtube.com/@loreparty Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Abu and Obssa begin their read-through of The Dog Stars by Peter Heller. They dig into the odd-couple partnership between the poetic, dog-loving Hig and his cold-blooded neighbor Bangley, Heller's stripped-down, punctuation-free prose style, and the quiet question sitting under the whole book: what's actually worth surviving for. IN THIS EPISODE How chapter five's chewing-out from Bangley reveals a surprisingly protective, tactical mind underneath the gruffness Peter Heller's own life as an adventure writer, from a doomed Tibet expedition to owning the same model Cessna Hig flies The upcoming Ridley Scott adaptation, its cast (Jacob Elordi as Hig, Josh Brolin as Bangley), and its August 28 release date JOIN THE CLUB Bookmark the reading schedule: sfbc.netlify.app/schedule Join the conversation in our free Discord: discord.gg/bVrhwWm7j4 Get bonus content: patreon.com/scifibookclubpod Watch video episodes and clips: youtube.com/@loreparty Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Abu and Obssa complete their read-through of Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor. Zelu's story and the Rusted Robots storyline finally meet in a twist that reframes everything that came before it, and the hosts land in very different places on whether the ending earns it. Obssa found the book's recursive structure deeply satisfying start to finish, while Abu closes out a rocky read with real reservations about how the final act ties its themes together. IN THIS EPISODE Zelu survives an armed ambush in Nigeria by running 35 miles while livestreaming the whole ordeal on Facebook, and the fallout with her family gets ugly fast. Obssa's takeaway breaks down the novel's recursive "creation flows both ways" structure and ties it back to Roland Barthes' original essay on the death of the author. Abu and Obssa hand out their final ratings for the book and close out Season 3 with a first look at Season 4's opening read, The Dog Stars. JOIN THE CLUB Bookmark the reading schedule: sfbc.netlify.app/schedule Join the conversation in our free Discord: discord.gg/bVrhwWm7j4 Get bonus content: patreon.com/scifibookclubpod Watch video episodes and clips: youtube.com/@loreparty Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Abu and Obssa continue their read-through of Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor. This middle third is where the two of them split hardest: one is all in on Zelu, the other can barely stand her. Between them they get into grief, exoskeletons, and who gets to decide what makes someone human. IN THIS EPISODE Zelu's custom exoskeleton, the line "I'm no one's robot," and whether augmentation frees her or just hands people the right to define her body. Two deaths, one in each timeline, and Abu's case that grief reprograms the people left behind for better and worse. In the Rusted Robots strand, an unlikely friendship between a Hume and a Ghost, a loyalty pact at a graveside, and a warning Cross River City doesn't want to hear. JOIN THE CLUB Bookmark the reading schedule: sfbc.netlify.app/schedule Join the conversation in our free Discord: discord.gg/bVrhwWm7j4 Get bonus content: patreon.com/scifibookclubpod Watch video episodes and clips: youtube.com/@loreparty Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices