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Here is a link to the story which includes the audio of the radio-play. ~Mick
I stumbled on this review she wrote for guardian.co.uk. She writes about Embassytown by China Mieville.
Hello again, everybody! I think this book was a breath of fresh air for many of us; the core of this group loves science fiction, and Hugo award winners make us very, very happy. There was no one at the meeting who was displeased with this one, except maybe for Kat because she was really digging on STEPPENWOLF and wasn’t too happy switching in the middle.
Now, I know me, and if I don’t write all this down tonight I’m going to forget it. I also know that I am hopped up on flu medication and super sleepy so this might not make the most sense. Bear with me people! We will go for broad strokes and you guys are more than welcome to edit/add comments to flesh this evening out more.
Thing Number One: DID YOU KNOW? that Alfred Bester wrote the oath of the Green Lantern? He did! Apparently he had a lot of experience in graphic novels and screenwriting, which explains his extraordinary economy of words and a strong emphasis on the visual and cinematic flow of the narrative.
Hello, Dean here. Firstly, a bit of business: after some soul-searching on my part and discussion with everyone present at the last meeting, we will be changing April’s selection from Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse to The Stars, My Destination by Alfred Bester. I’m sorry if this causes any confusion; they are both excellent books by wonderful authors, but Alfred Bester’s work is a little closer to the core of what the club is about.
Our most recent gathering focused on Ursula K. LeGuin’s Hugo- and Nebula-award winning novel The Lathe of Heaven. This has long been one of my favorites and the Missus has grown to love it as well. Everyone agreed that LeGuin’s prose was graceful, lyrical and very clear. There was some disagreement, however, about the general worth of the plot. Criticism on this point argued that the double-edged nature of power is an idea that has been explored many, many times, as has the notion of “be careful what you wish for”. The godlike ability that Orr wished to repudiate and that Dr. Haber desired was likened to the titular object in the horror classic “The Monkey’s Paw” and to tales of wily djinn turning someone’s wish into an ironic comeuppance. Conversely, the careful incorporation of Taoist ideas into the book differentiates The Lathe of Heaven from the stories that preceded it: Orr understood instinctively the dangerous trap of his power and the moral quandaries that it raised.
Greetings, fellow SFBCers! Our most recent meeting (12/11/10) was combined with Dinner Club and it was a great success, especially on the grounds of having two events nearly cancelled by snow rather than one. Nebraska weather -– won’t you?
December’s book was Newbery award winner The Giver by Lois Lowry. Lively discussion was had on many points, mainly revolving around the moral responsibilities of the title character and his young protégé to their community. Brian in particular had the most strident opinions regarding the book; he asserted that “this was the most offensive book I have ever read outside of Dick Cheney’s memoir.” Brian’s main concern was that the protagonist did not follow the Prime Directive – rather than letting this admittedly imperfect society gradually redeem itself he forced change upon it, causing untold traumas and pain to an unsuspecting public. The word “selfish” and “irresponsible” were tossed around a lot.
We had a smaller group tonight, which in itself is a bit of a wonder because who would have guessed that we would keep this going for eight full months, add on several new members, and are now defining “smaller group” as seven people? Well done us!
For those who have read more of the Foundation series, the discussion tonight easily segued into future plot contrivances that Asimov has set up in this book, for those who are very familiar with his robot series (I am so proud of us for being able to quote his three laws, then debate exact wording without referencing any book – again, well done) it was hard not to applaud Baley and Daneel walking off into the sunset together and waxing poetic about real robots and how awesome that will be, and for those unfamiliar with Asimov they didn’t show up tonight.
Well then. Last night marked a first for our young book club – no one, including Dave, finished this book. We had some valiant efforts: Trilety and Kat both made it to page 73, Chuck got into the triple digits, Dean made it to 150. In the other column, Mick threw his albatross of a book over to Trilety and announced it was not allowed back in his home after page 25, and I never even opened it. In my defense, I live with Dean. If he’s having a hard time getting through a book, that’s my dead canary in the shaft. There’s no way I’m going in.
Dave said that his inability to finish the book was due to “one of the things I liked best, namely the archaic writing style and the vocabulary words that had me searching (futilely) for my OED. There’s a complexity to the writing that is completely absent from modern fiction which I really appreciated. Sadly this also led me to fall asleep nearly every time I picked up the book. This somnolence should not be looked upon as a failing on the book, but rather a shortcoming of this reader.” Mick disagreed with this statement, saying that the writing style was one of the more offensive characteristics because it wasn’t clear to a room full of intelligent folks and none of us were able to access it well. I countered that I don’t think H.G. Wells was meaning for plebs like us to read this – when education was more class based, say from the time writing was invented to about fifty years ago in developed countries, it wasn’t enough that you knew how to read but that you were properly acculturated to tolerate such density.
I know that Heinlein has become our great debate topic. Regardless of your view one must admit the man wrote things that lent themselves to being discussed! I recently ran across this letter RAH wrote to a young friend who lost his brother in WWII. I’d love it if everyone could read this and comment on how they felt about it.
http://io9.com/5550437/heinlein-slammed-fans-who-didnt-help-with-the-war-effort
Mick
Alright. I’m curious. Is anyone else having a really hard time getting interested in this book? It seems to be really long and written as if it was a text book. I’m not sure if I’m going to have it read by our meeting. Sad face.
As discovered by Dean, this is a top ten list of science fiction detective novels. Dean writes: ” I was pleased to see that two of them are already on our upcoming schedule (and a third is sitting on my desk).”
Take a gander! Any you would like to see on the book list?
Speculative Fiction Book Club 