Goat Droppings
Official Blog for Capricon and Phandemonium
Phandemonium Book Club – The Obelisk Gate
07 years
by Marinda Darnell
in Book Club
Join us for the November book club where we will be reading Hugo winning N.K. Jemisin’s The Obelisk Gate. We will be at Windycon for this on Saturday, November 11th. Time TBD.
From Goodreads:
“THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS… FOR THE LAST TIME.
The season of endings grows darker as civilization fades into the long cold night. Alabaster Tenring – madman, world-crusher, savior – has returned with a mission: to train his successor, Essun, and thus seal the fate of the Stillness forever.
It continues with a lost daughter, found by the enemy.
It continues with the obelisks, and an ancient mystery converging on answers at last.
The Stillness is the wall which stands against the flow of tradition, the spark of hope long buried under the thickening ashfall. And it will not be broken.”
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26228034-the-obelisk-gate
Phandemonium Book Club – The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter
07 years
by Marinda Darnell
in Book Club
Join us for the September book club where we will be reading Theodora Goss’s The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter.
From Goodreads:
“Based on some of literature’s horror and science fiction classics, this is the story of a remarkable group of women who come together to solve the mystery of a series of gruesome murders—and the bigger mystery of their own origins.
Mary Jekyll, alone and penniless following her parents’ death, is curious about the secrets of her father’s mysterious past. One clue in particular hints that Edward Hyde, her father’s former friend and a murderer, may be nearby, and there is a reward for information leading to his capture…a reward that would solve all of her immediate financial woes.
But her hunt leads her to Hyde’s daughter, Diana, a feral child left to be raised by nuns. With the assistance of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, Mary continues her search for the elusive Hyde, and soon befriends more women, all of whom have been created through terrifying experimentation: Beatrice Rappaccini, Catherine Moreau, and Justine Frankenstein.
When their investigations lead them to the discovery of a secret society of immoral and power-crazed scientists, the horrors of their past return. Now it is up to the monsters to finally triumph over the monstrous.”
https://www.goodreads.com/
Panera Bread
1700 Sherman Ave
Evanston, IL 60201
7:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Book cover for The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter
Phandemonium Book Club – The Core of the Sun
08 years
by Marinda Darnell
in Book Club
Join us for the May Phandemonium Book Club as we discuss The Core of the Sun by award-winning Finnish author and Helsinki Worldcon Guest of Honor Johanna Sinisalo.
From Good Reads:
“From the author of the Finlandia Award-winning novel Troll: A Love Story, The Core of the Sun further cements Johanna Sinisalo’s reputation as a master of literary speculative fiction and of her country’s unique take on it, dubbed “Finnish weird.” Set in an alternative historical present, in a “eusistocracy”—an extreme welfare state—that holds public health and social stability above all else, it follows a young woman whose growing addiction to illegal chili peppers leads her on an adventure into a world where love, sex, and free will are all controlled by the state.
The Eusistocratic Republic of Finland has bred a new human sub-species of receptive, submissive women, called eloi, for sex and procreation, while intelligent, independent women are relegated to menial labor and sterilized so that they do not carry on their “defective” line. Vanna, raised as an eloi but secretly intelligent, needs money to help her doll-like sister, who has disappeared. Vanna forms a friendship with a man named Jare, and they become involved in buying and selling a stimulant known to the Health Authority to be extremely dangerous: chili peppers. Then Jare comes across a strange religious cult in possession of the Core of the Sun, a chili so hot that it is rumored to cause hallucinations. Does this chili have effects that justify its prohibition? How did Finland turn into the North Korea of Europe? And will Vanna succeed in her quest to find her sister, or will her growing need to satisfy her chili addiction destroy her?
Johanna Sinisalo’s tautly told story of fight and flight is also a feisty, between-the-lines social polemic—a witty, inventive, and fiendishly engaging read.”
https://www.goodreads.com/book
Note that Cosi will “close” (i.e. no new customers) at 7 pm so we’ll start wrapping up so we can be completely out by 7:30 pm.
Cosi
1740 Sherman Ave
Evanston, IL60201
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM
Phandemonium Book Club – Across the Universe Book #1
08 years
by Marinda Darnell
in Book Club
Join us for a lively discussion of Capricon 37 Author Guest of Honor Beth Revis’s Across the Universe Book #1.
Date and Time to be determined yet.
Literary Awards: Abraham Lincoln Award Nominee (2014), Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Best Young Adult Fantasy & Science Fiction (2011), Carnegie Medal Nominee (2012)
From Good Reads: “A love out of time. A spaceship built of secrets and murder.
Seventeen-year-old Amy joins her parents as frozen cargo aboard the vast spaceship Godspeed and expects to awaken on a new planet, three hundred years in the future. Never could she have known that her frozen slumber would come to an end fifty years too soon and that she would be thrust into the brave new world of a spaceship that lives by its own rules.
Amy quickly realizes that her awakening was no mere computer malfunction. Someone—one of the few thousand inhabitants of the spaceship —tried to kill her. And if Amy doesn’t do something soon, her parents will be next.
Now Amy must race to unlock Godspeed’s hidden secrets. But out of her list of murder suspects, there’s only one who matters: Elder, the future leader of the ship and the love she could never have seen coming.”
We’ll be meeting at Capricon (www.capricon.org), with the day and time yet to be determined.
Phandemonium Book Club – Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge
08 years
by Marinda Darnell
in Book Club
*Note* Please note the time change. Cosi now closes at 8 pm.
Join us for a lively discussion of Paul Krueger’s Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge.
From Goodreads: “A sharp and funny urban fantasy for “new adults” about a secret society of bartenders who fight monsters with alcohol fueled magic.
College grad Bailey Chen has a few demons: no job, no parental support, and a rocky relationship with Zane, the only friend who’s around when she moves back home. But when Zane introduces Bailey to his cadre of monster-fighting bartenders, her demons get a lot more literal. Like, soul-sucking hell-beast literal. Soon, it’s up to Bailey and the ragtag band of magical mixologists to take on whatever—or whoever—is behind the mysterious rash of gruesome deaths in Chicago, and complete the lost recipes of an ancient tome of cocktail lore.”
We’ll be meeting on Sunday, January 15, 2017, at 6:00 pm at our normal location:
Cosi 1740 Sherman Ave Evanston, IL
Phandemonium Book Club – The Fifth Season
08 years
by Marinda Darnell
in Book Club
Join us at WindyCon for our November book club. We will be in Maple.
Saturday, November 12, 2016 @ Noon.
www.windycon.org
We are reading N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season. Winner of the 2016 Hugo Award for Best Novel, this book promises to be fantastic.
From Goodreads:
THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS… FOR THE LAST TIME.
A season of endings has begun.
It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world’s sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun.
It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter.
It starts with betrayal, and long dormant wounds rising up to fester.
This is the Stillness, a land long familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy.
Phandemonium Book Club – The Man in the High Castle
08 years
by Marinda Darnell
in Book Club
Join us for a lively discussion of Philip K. Dick’s Hugo Winning novel, The Man in the HIgh Castle.
From Goodreads: “It’s America in 1962. Slavery is legal once again. The few Jews who still survive hide under assumed names. In San Francisco the I Ching is as common as the Yellow Pages. All because some 20 years earlier the United States lost a war, and is now occupied jointly by Nazi Germany and Japan.
This harrowing, Hugo Award-winning novel is the work that established Philip K. Dick as an innovator in science fiction while breaking the barrier between science fiction and the serious novel of ideas. In it Dick offers a haunting vision of history as a nightmare from which it may just be possible to awake”
We’ll be meeting on Sunday, September 25, 2016, at 7:00 pm at our normal location:
Cosi 1740 Sherman Ave Evanston, IL
Deadline for Awesome Ideas Extended!
08 years
Members of Phandemonium,
Every year, Capricon transforms the Westin Chicago Northshore hotel into a big tent celebration of genre awesomeness. Magic you say? Hardly. Awesome doesn’t just appear at the wave of a wand. Each Capricon begins as a bid idea that brings amazing people together to create exponentially more awesome at a real live convention.
Sound like a good time? It gets better. We are already preparing for Capricon 38, and we want YOU to make it happen!
The Board of Phandemonium is currently seeking candidates for Con Chair of Capricon 38: Have you ever said, “If I ran this convention….?” or “You know what I think?” Then consider running a Capricon! We are currently seeking qualified candidates to apply for Chairperson of Capricon 38 in 2018. Contact boardpresident@phandemonium.org for more information. The bid proposal deadline has been extended to September 15th so we can review them In time for our September 18th Phandemonium Board meeting. Those submitting bids will present them in person to the board on September 18, after which will select and announce the Capricon 38 Con Chair.
Thank you all for your continued support and enthusiasm! There would literally be no Capricon without you. See you all next February!
Best,
Dan Berger
President of the Board, Phandemonium, Inc.
Nilah Magruder is writing for Marvel Comics!
08 years
by Marinda Darnell
in Capricon 37
This year just keeps getting better! Artist Guest of Honor, Nilah Magruder, will be one of 33 women working on 24 books for Marvel Comics!
Nilah will be a co-writer for A Year of Marvels: The Unbeatable #1, which is due out in December 2016.
Congrats Nilah!
Bring your copy to Capricon to be signed.
https://thanley.wordpress.com/…/women-at-marvel-comics-wat…/
Do you have an awesome idea?
08 years
Members of Phandemonium,
Every year, Capricon transforms the Westin Chicago Northshore into a big tent celebration of genre awesomeness. Magic you say? Not even. Awesome doesn’t just happen. Each Capricon begins as a cool idea that brings amazing people together to create exponentially more awesome.
Sound like a good time? It gets better. We are already preparing for Capricon 38, and we want YOU to make it awesome!
The Board of Phandemonium is currently seeking candidates for Con Chair of Capricon 38: Have you ever said, “If I ran this convention….?” or “You know what I think?” Then consider running a Capricon! We are currently seeking qualified candidates to apply for Chairperson of Capricon 38 in 2018. Contact boardpresident@phandemonium.org for more information. Please submit your proposals by August 31 so we can review them In time for the September Phandemonium Board meeting. We will select the Capricon 38 Con Chair at that time.
Thank you all for your continued support and enthusiasm! There would literally be no Capricon without you. See you all next February!
Best,
Dan Berger
President of the Board, Phandemonium, Inc.