The days are growing shorter, and with the arrival of autumn (despite what the weather might think) comes the arrival of SciFi Month in November! Here are some early details for curious/eager nerds…

What is SciFi Month, you may ask?

For those who aren’t familiar with it, SciFi Month is an annual month-long science fiction nerdfest in which a bunch of nerds who love sci-fi come together on the internet to revel and share in our love of the genre.

What counts as science fiction?

Anything and everything SF! It can be as hard or as soft as you want. There can be mystery, romance, horror, whatever mixed in. It can be about robots or dystopian futures or cyberpunk or time travel or … you get the idea. As a genre, science fiction is very broad – and so we don’t try to limit it with boxes to tick. Whatever it means to you, it counts! Bring us your perspective. We’re into that sort of thing.

How does it all work?

As an event, SciFi Month is all about sharing your love, whatever form you’d like that to take. Post reviews! Write lists! Start discussions! It’s all signal, and we want to help you boost yours. As we do every year, though, we will be presenting some features of our own that have become staples of the event, such as the SciFi Month Challenge – one prompt every day, that you can interpret however you please, and you can share pics or write blog posts – whatever works for you! Then there’s the SciFi Month Read Along(s) – and this year I’m hosting a Read Along for Behind The Throne by KB Wagers. Full details of the reading schedule are still in the works, though, so look out for a future announcement with more info on that!

And speaking of hosts and the stuff we do, I’m delighted to announce that imyril and myself will have two new co-hosts helping us out this year! Nerdy veterans of SciFi Month Annemieke of A Dance With Books, and Mayri the Bookforager are joining us on the bridge this year, and I can’t wait to see what wonderful fun ensues.

How do I join in?

Easy! You can sign up to get access to our master spreadsheet of links to posts/other content, and if you need a little more motivation there will be some giveaways open to participants! There is no deadline for signing up, as we welcome everyone who wants to take part, all month long – but for those who sign up and post something SciFi Month-related by November 5th, there’s the chance to win bookish prizes in our signup giveaway! Details on the prizes will be forthcoming as soon as we’ve nailed them down, so stay tuned!

You can choose to post on the social media channel that suits you best (if you’re using Twitter or Bluesky, a single tweet/skeet doesn’t count, but a thread does) – just remember to add a link to the Master Schedule to be sure we’ll see it. Full terms and conditions are included in the signup form, linked above.

There’s also banner art and social media buttons for those who want to use them – imyril has you covered for all of it with her announcement post!

As always with the art provided, please remember to a) credit the artist (info below), and b) don’t make any changes except to resize.

Whew! OK, that’s it for now. Go forth and nerd out, crewmates! See you in November…

ART COPYRIGHT: Yosua Bungaran Cahya Putra