FACT SF Reading Group

April 2001

April 3: The Road to Mars by Eric Idle

We had a wide variety of participation in this meeting. Ten people showed up at Adventures in Crime & Space to attend the discussion. One regular member of the group submitted comments by e-mail. Another person telephoned the bookstore and gave Willie comments to pass on. And finally, one person visited the store earlier in the day and gave Lori a handwritten note to be read aloud at the meeting. Seven of us had finished the book, four had read half or less, and two had not read the book at all but were just present to socialize.

The topic of discussion was The Road to Mars, a first SF novel by Eric Idle of Monty Python fame. The book is a fast-paced futuristic space adventure involving a comedy team, Alex and Lewis. Alex and Lewis have a few robot servants including Carlton, who's trying to understand the nature of humor and use it as a topic for his Ph.D. dissertation. The comedians and robots get wrapped up in a complicated plot involving divas, retirees, long-lost relatives, space cruises, and cross-dressing.

We found this book to be a welcome change of pace, since we hadn't read a space adventure in a while. The robot servants were a lot of fun, and we liked reading about Alex and Lewis's fully decked-out spaceship. Idle's insights into comedy and comedians were interesting, and we particularly enjoyed his comments on specific 20^th century comics – including himself. We appreciated that the author had apparently done research on space travel, since we didn't notice any physical laws being broken in the book.

While about half the group really liked The Road to Mars, the rest found it had serious flaws. Despite its being about comedians, many of us felt that the book wasn't all that funny. The academic jargon used by the narrator (a far future scholar who is attempting intellectual thievery of Carlton's work) caused the book to start slowly and distanced us too much from the characters. And, while this probably isn't fair, the basic plot kept reminding of the space-traveling acting troupe in John Varley's The Golden Globe, which many of us felt was a much better book.

Two people who disagreed strongly about the merits of The Road to Mars were a married couple, who'd been taking turns reading a shared copy of the book. The man had generally been enjoying the book, but the woman had so disliked it that she'd taken the book to sell back to Adventures in Crime & Space before the man had finished reading it. When this was revealed at the meeting, it turned out that the woman hadn't known the man wanted to finish the book. Fortunately the book hadn't been fully received into the bookstore's inventory, so the guy got his book back without having to buy it twice and later finished it within a couple of days.

One member of the group suggested that we attempt to cast the book as if it were a movie. Our casting choices include Eric Idle as the Narrator, Steve Martin as Lewis, Robin Williams as Alex, Glenn Close as Brenda, Jennifer Love Hewitt as Molly, John Cleese as John Brown, Chris Rock as Boo, Jennifer Lopez as Katy, Johnny Depp as Carlton, Kevin Bacon as Mr. Rogers, Charlton Heston as Emil, and Sean Connery as Katy's father.

Overall we found this to be an interesting but flawed novel that provided for a fun discussion. If it's ever turned into a movie, I'll forward our cast list to the producers.

After the meeting several of us went out to dinner, which turned into quite an adventure. Our first choice restaurant, Ay Chiwawa, turned out to have recently closed for good. The next place we tried, Chuy's, had an hour wait. We finally met success and had a good dinner at Henry's, a new Mexican food place on Barton Springs.

April 17: Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire

Fourteen people attended this meeting. Confessions of a Ugly Stepsister is a retelling of Cinderella from the point of view of one of her stepsisters. The story in Confessions starts earlier and ends later than the traditional story, so we learn more about the history of Cinderella's step-family and what happens to them after she marries the prince. The author, Gregory Maguire, is best known for his previous novel Wicked, which was the biography of the Witch of the West fromThe Wizard of Oz. Twelve of us had finished the book, one had read half, and the other did not start it.

Several of us loved this book for its premise and Maguire's execution of it. Comments included "This book kicks butt!" and "Great book! I was hooked by the third paragraph." We liked how the author set the story in a specific time and place (17^th century Holland) and worked historical details and characters into the story. The family develops friendships with several Dutch painters, which allows the author to include a lot of discussion of the nature of perception and its role in life and art.

Half of us had serious problems with the book. The removal of all fantastic elements from the story left us with a historical novel that many felt was off-topic for a science fiction and fantasy reading group. The basic story had been changed so much that a few of us felt all the interesting parts had been removed from Cinderella. The narrator's use of present tense and trickery with point of view made the book awkward to read. We liked the addition of painters to the story but were frustrated that the plot threads about art were not carried through. From the title we'd expected the book to be funny, but that was not the case. As one person put it, "I'd still like to read a fun book based on this one's title and cover."

Overall we can only give a mixed recommendation to Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister. We all liked the basic idea of the book and admired the author's ambition, but we disagreed about how well he succeeded. After the meeting several of us had a nice dinner at The Spaghetti Warehouse.

--A. T. Campbell, III