The Tag Team Tag with Ariana! A SciFi Month Special

Artwork by Simon Fetscher

Back in May, the awesome Ariana of The Book Nook and I did the Tag Team Tag for Wyrd and Wonder’s fifth anniversary. It seems only right and proper that we play it again for SciFi Month’s tenth birthday.

In case we can tempt you to play too, the rules are as follows:

1. Pick a friend to play with
2. Decide on a prompt to get you started (this can be absolutely anything you want it to be)
3. Make a thematic connection to the book picked by your partner, Six Degrees stylie (see link above)
4. See where your chain of books takes you (and make your chain as long as you like)
5. Definitely link back to our posts so we can see your book chains and grow our TBRs

Here is where our Tag Team book chain starts – then zoom over to The Book Nook to carry on reading …

Mayri: So, back in 2012 I read, like, five scifi books all year! One of which was Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, which seems like an excellent place to start. Set on a grim future Earth, it tells the story of the vast virtual world of the OASIS. This book has pop culture references out the wazoo, as competitors battle to complete puzzles set by the OASIS’ creator and win a fortune.

Ariana: 10 years ago I wasn’t really reading a lot of sci-fi, so I’m going to stick closer to the present… in Andy Weir’s latest book Project Hail Mary, the Earth is facing a grim future because the sun is growing dimmer due to tiny alien particles consuming its energy. As a last resort, all Earth’s resources are put towards a scientific mission to solve the extinction-inducing cataclysm and Ryland Grace, ex-high school teacher, is the only one who can do it. Except he can’t remember who he is or why he’s in a spacecraft, light years from earth…

Wow that was hard! Turns out I haven’t read many things like Ready Player One at all!

Mayri: A brilliant choice! (I enjoyed Project Hail Mary a lot).

Another scientific mission is underway in To Be Taught If Fortunate by Becky Chambers. The small team of explorers aboard the spacecraft Merian encounter many types of alien life as they travel to four very different worlds in this love letter to science and knowledge.

Ariana: Ooh I loved that novella! So many fun planets!

The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas is also a love letter to science and knowledge, as it follows a group of four women who, in the 60s, invent time travel. The story then jumps between timelines, following one disgraced scientist and the effects her experiments have on the next generation. It’s weird, fun, and twisty!

Mayri: Oof! This was a difficult one, (also, adding that to my TBR – thank you!) but I’m going with Doomsday Book by Connie Willis – my favourite author when it comes to time travel. A university student travels back to the fourteenth century, but gets stuck there as the plague rages through the country. Her experiences are heart-wrenching, and back in her own time, her teachers and friends race to bring her back home.

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But wait! This is only half the tag! Head on over to The Book Nook for the continuation of our Tag Team Tag…

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