I think I came late to that Slack discussion, but for posterity's sake, I'll repeat my "+1" that I made there, here:

For combat scenes, and how to pace them, check out Joe Abercrombie.  Anything of his will do, but the First Law trilogy is what we were talking about in particular.  It's like a master class in how to make action sequences that click, where the reader always knows what's going on, but never gets bored.

As for a book club, though: why not?  Why not have a VE Book Club, where we choose a book per month to read and discuss?  Not as a requirement, but just as an option?  Every 1st of the month, we get to start talking about the recommended book from the previous month.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12aM88cAdlLYfDOFE2lfnQb3M_nk1DmP16dT_jSHCZX8/edit?usp=sharing

Sorry for not linking it directly, but the url tags don't like HTTPS for some reason and I don't remember if there is a workaround.

Regardless, I figured we might need an organized place to put recommendations. For now, just throw stuff up on there and we'll worry about properly organizing it later.

Anyone can edit it, so please take care. If someone does mess it up, we always have revision history, so there's that.

Cool, I'll add some of the things I've suggested to people on a regular basis too just so that they're there and I've got a bit of a list of stuff that may or may not interest people.

Thanks for the endorsement, F-Bomb, but you also showed me Lowtown, which was amazing.