Tonight on the GeekNights Book Club, we consider our thoughts on Troy Denning's 1996 Planescape novel Pages of Pain. Rym read this when he was young, and remembered it being the best of the Dungeons & Dragons branded novels. Surprisingly, this opinion is not entirely uncommon. Will adult brain see otherwise? Is it merely the bar being so very, very low? The GeekNights Book Club will decide. Take a journey with us to the sensibilities of 1996!

The Lady of Pain, vigilant defender of Sigil, keeps an ongoing memoir of her existence. Here, in her own words, is her eternal story. Interspersed with these memoir passages is a story that takes plae in the maze where threats to Sigil are incarcerated for all eternity.

Tonight on the GeekNights Book Club, we consider Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey. You may have seen the movie.

In 1968 Stanley Kubrick released one of the all-time classic movies, "2001: a Space Odyssey". Until recently I had thought that this movie was based on the book of the same name. That is not the case.

What actually happened is that Arthur C. Clarke was writing the novel and also working on the screenplay with Kubrick simultaneously. The novel wasn't actually published until after the movie was released.

It would be impossible to maintain our pride as geeks without having read one of the most well known sci-fi novels of all time. It will be fascinating to see how it differs from the movie. I'm especially interested to see how the more psychedelic parts of the movie translate to written language.

Tonight on the GeekNights Book Club, we talk about The Odyssey as translated by Emily Wilson. It's fantastic. Unlike some of the other books we've discussed, this may well be one of the most studied and analyzed stories in human history. Thus, we'll dispense with attempts at lit crit and simply discuss the story and translation directly.

Tonight on the GeekNights Book Club, we consider N.K. Jemisin's wonderful The Fifth Season. If you haven't heard, N.K. Jemisin is the new hotness, relatively speaking. The Broken Earth series seems to be her biggest and most popular work. How could we not select its first installment, "The Fifth Season," for our next book club.

It won the Hugo Award for best novel in 2016. The second book in the series "The Obelisk Gate" won the same award in 2017. How much would you like to bet the third novel wins in 2018?

This is a fantastic book, and a must-read for the GeekNights Book Club!

Tonight on the GeekNights Book Club, we discuss Frank Herbert's classic Dune. Love it or hate it, it is a formative part of the wider world of speculative fiction, and its influences are vast. In finally reading it, we have a greater understanding of its place in modern literature.

Tonight on the GeekNights Book Club, we discuss Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca. A classic, and the basis for the well regarded Hitchcock movie, we enjoyed it, and you should too.

In the inaugural GeekNights Politics Club episode, with guests Andrew and the other Scott, we discuss Richard J. Evans' The Coming of the Third Reich.

From Amazon:
" There is no story in twentieth-century history more important to understand than Hitler’s rise to power and the collapse of civilization in Nazi Germany. With The Coming of the Third Reich , Richard Evans, one of the world’s most distinguished historians, has written the definitive account for our time. A masterful synthesis of a vast body of scholarly work integrated with important new research and interpretations."

This is part one, as we segue into contemporary politics in a part two that is forthcoming.