地球星人 🌏 Book Club ・ In progress

[Phryne]

Welcome to the 地球星人 Book Club!

This is part of the Intermediate Book Club.

Where to purchase

Digital: Amazon · Bookwalker · Kobo
Physical: Amazon · CDJapan

Schedule

Week	Start Date	End Page	End %	End On	Page Count
Week 1	November 27th	16	4	恋人なのだった。	11
Week 2	December 4th	33	10	色に染まっていた。	17
Week 3	December 11th	47	14	End Chapter 1	14
Week 4	December 18th	68	21	教室を飛び出した。	21
Break	December 25th
Week 5	January 1st	87	27	見つめながら眠った。	19
Week 6	January 8th	103	32	じっと見つめていた。	16
Week 7	January 15th	124	38	End Chapter 2	21
Week 8	January 22nd	149	45	立ち尽くしていた。	25
Week 9	January 29th	173	53	End Chapter 3	24
Week 10	February 5th	193	59	End Chapter 4	20
Week 11	February 12th	215	66	止めることができなかった。	22
Week 12	February 19th	235	72	End Chapter 5	20
Week 13	February 26th	257	78	繁殖しようとしていた。	22
Week 14	March 5th	279	85	「暗いとき」の中にいた。	22
Week 15	March 12th	297	91	染め上げていた。	18
Week 16	March 19th	315	96	End	18

Vocabulary

地球星人 🌏

Please read the guidelines on the first page before adding any words.

Trigger Warnings

The book gets very dark and explores topics that could be considered disturbing or triggering. I do think that these warnings contain significant spoilers, and that the book is best enjoyed going in blind, so please only read them if you feel you need to.

Earthlings Trigger warnings

• Abusive family
• Cannibalism
• Child sexual abuse
• Incest
• Manipulation
• Mental abuse
• Murder
• Pedophilia
• Rape
• Sexual abuse

Spoiler Courtesy

Please follow these rules to avoid inadvertent ネトバレ. If you’re unsure whether something should have a spoiler tag, err on the side of using one.

1. Any potential spoiler for the current week’s reading need only be covered by a spoiler tag. Predictions and conjecture made by somebody who has not read ahead still falls into this category.
2. Any potential spoilers for external sources need to be covered by a spoiler tag and include a label (outside of the spoiler tag) of what might be spoiled. These include but are not limited to: other book club picks, other books, games, movies, anime, etc. I recommend also tagging the severity of the spoiler (for example, I may still look at minor spoilers for something that I don’t intend to read soon).
3. Any information from later in the book than the current week’s reading (including trigger warnings that haven’t yet manifested) need to be hidden by spoiler tags and labeled as such.

Membership

Will you be reading with us?

• Yes
• Yes, but I might start late
• Maybe
• No

Which version will you be reading?

• eBook
• Paperback
• Hardcover
• I’m not reading, but I polls

[Aislin]

Reposting:

@jhol613

The book gets very dark and explores topics that could definitely be considered disturbing or triggering. I don’t want to elaborate because I think it’s best to go in knowing as little about this book as possible, but if you find this warning concerning it might be worth looking into some more specifics before deciding if Earthlings is for you.

@jhol613

I do think that these warnings contain significant spoilers, so please only read them if you feel you need to.

Earthlings Trigger warnings

• Abusive family
• Cannibalism
• Child sexual abuse
• Incest
• Manipulation
• Mental abuse
• Murder
• Pedophilia
• Rape
• Sexual abuse

[kappaka]

I won’t be joining this particular book club but as someone who has read this in translation, y’all are in for a wild ride. I might peek my head in just to see people’s reactions. Enjoy!

[jhol]

@Phryne since I’ve read the translation, I’m happy to come up with a discussion question or two each week like for コンビニ人間.

[Phryne]

You are a saint! I think we’d all love that!

[RachelG]

By request, this is a wiki now!

[Phryne]

Take it away @jhol613

[jhol]

Excellent! Hopefully I’ll have the schedule up in the next week or so for the paperback, and I’ll count on some helpful e-bookers for percentages/locations.

[jhol]

Proposed Schedule

Week	Start Date	End Page (PB)	Pages
Week 1	November 27th	16	11
Week 2	December 4th	33	17
Week 3	December 11th	47 End Ch 1	14
Week 4	December 18th	68	21
Week 5	December 25th*	87	19
Week 6	January 1st	103	16
Week 7	January 8th	124 End Ch 2	21
Week 8	January 15th	149	25
Week 9	January 22nd	173 End Ch 3	24
Week 10	January 29th	193 End Ch 4	20
Week 11	February 5th	215	22
Week 12	February 12th	235 End Ch 5	20
Week 13	February 19th	257	22
Week 14	February 26th	279	22
Week 15	March 5th	287	18
Week 16	March 12th	315 End	18

*Potential holiday break around here, contingent on polling

This schedule is a bit on the fast side so I’d like to open it up to discussion. If we look at recent IBC picks, 君の名は, 博士の愛した数式, and 夜市 fell within a 14-15 page per week average. With コーヒーが冷めないうちに, the IBC didn’t realize it was over the typical length limit until after it had won the poll, so members chose to compensate by reading at a fast (compared to typical) 20.5 page per week schedule in order to finish in a reasonable timeframe. My proposed schedule averages 19.5 pages per week. This seems reasonable to me, but I don’t want pace creep to make the IBC less accessible to people making the jump from the BBC or to other people who have less experience reading who are looking to challenge themselves.

Some mitigating factors:

• Text density is on the lighter side
• Language is fairly accessible
• There’s ramp-up time built into the proposed schedule for the first few weeks
• There’s a manga buffer so the two high-paced books aren’t directly back-to-back
• This book is on the longer side for the IBC, so a fast-ish schedule makes sense to keep the timeframe reasonable

I have no issues modifying the schedule if several people prefer to slow it down for the sake of accessibility, so please don’t hesitate to vote, even if you’re not certain whether you’ll participate! My biggest goal with the club isn’t to finish a few weeks faster, but to introduce as many people as possible to one of my favorite books by one of my favorite authors and hopefully help increase others’ (as well as my own) confidence with reading Japanese novels.

• I like the schedule as-is.
• I think we should slow it down a bit.
• Other (Please elaborate in a comment)

[2000kanji]

As I have both コーヒーが冷めないうちに and 地球星人 in the bookwalker version I compared the scheduled average number of bookwalker pages per day (on my tablet and with my 200% zoom setting) for both books. I got an average of around 8.5 which seems ok for me, although there is some spread between the weekly tasks, from 11 to 25 book pages.

[jhol]

The first three weeks (11, 17, and 14 pages) comprise the first chapter. The only other way to divide it cleanly (i.e. each week ending at a section break and each new chapter starting with a new week) would be to have a 25-page first week. Even setting clean breaks aside, I figured the better solution would be to have a bit of a ramp-up early-on for folks to get accustomed to the style, and hopefully lessen the effects of the inevitable first-few-week dropout wave. Outside of that, other than one light 16-page week everything falls in the 18-25 page/week range.

[2000kanji]

That’s fine. I couldn’t see where the actual breaks are as I don’t know the paper book’s pagination. I will skip the current IBC manga, so I will be able to read ahead of the schedule and take a break later on if needed.

[omk3]

The schedule looks great. I’m just not sure about the two weeks around Christmas and New Year’s. There may be even more time to read, or no time at all. I guess either reading ahead or catching up later can solve that potential problem though.
I read the sample in English (much quicker) and I was hooked, so I’m definitely in. Looking forward to it.

[NicoleRauch]

@jhol613

The first three weeks (11, 17, and 14 pages) comprise the first chapter.

Oh, so I was already wondering whether the book does have chapters at all.

@2000kanji

I couldn’t see where the actual breaks are

Yep, that made understanding the schedule much trickier to me as well. @jhol613 Maybe you could add that information to the schedule? I mean things like “end of chapter x” or “break in chapter y” or something? I find it much more motivating to read a larger amount if I know that there is the end of a chapter to be reached or the like and it would also make the irregularities in the schedule more relatable to me.

[jhol]

@omk3

I’m just not sure about the two weeks around Christmas and New Year’s. There may be even more time to read, or no time at all.

I’m in the same boat regarding the holidays. I think I’ll program in a week-long break from the get-go if nobody objects

@NicoleRauch

@jhol613 Maybe you could add that information to the schedule?

I updated the proposed schedule to include chapter breaks. I’ll add more info (e.g. end phrases, ebook locations) once we’ve settled on the schedule.

[NicoleRauch]

@jhol613

I updated the proposed schedule to include chapter breaks.

Thank you! That adds so much information for me, e.g. why do we have the 25+24 weeks in the middle etc. - looked very random at the start but now that makes perfect sense.

[NicoleRauch]

BTW for those who haven’t bought the book yet, there is a 50% cashback on Bookwalker currently.

[Phryne]

I’ve been checking it daily on Amazon for weeks and still no decent offer

[Kappa421]

It’s still some time, maybe we get lucky

[jhol]

I just posted the finalized schedule. I would be very appreciative if somebody with the ebook could post ebook percentages and/or kindle locations.