FACT SF Reading Group

April 2002

April 2: Wheel of the Infinite by Martha Wells

This meeting was our first since Adventures in Crime & Space closed its storefront. Jeff Hurst and Judy Strange hosted the discussion at their home. Ten people showed up for the meeting, and two others sent in comments by email.

Our topic was Wheel of the Infinite, the most recent fantasy novel by ArmadilloCon 24 Guest of Honor Martha Wells. This book tells the story of Maskelle, an exiled priestess who discovers a threat involving the powerful Wheel of the Infinite. Maskelle and Rian, a young swordsman, travel to the capitol city of Duvalpore in an attempt to prevent disaster for all reality. Everyone at the meeting had read this book, and six had read prior books by Wells.

Wells creates a rich world full of wonderful characters. Her prose did a good job of describing the world without calling attention to itself. Magic was an integral part of the book, but it was treated so matter-of-factly by the characters that several non-fantasy-lovers in our group enjoyed it a great deal. Maskelle was a strong and sympathetic viewpoint character, and we enjoyed her developing romance with the younger Rian. We found the book had a lot of humor, and we also liked the pirates, the fight scenes, and the strange creatures. One member of the group said this book seemed like an Andre Norton book for grownups.

We could not find much negative about Wheel of the Infinite. Nobody hated the book or even disliked it. A couple of people felt the ending seemed rushed, but that was the only complaint.

In conclusion, our group found Wheel of the Infinite to be well-written fantasy novel full of fun characters, big ideas, and lots of action. Everyone at the meeting planned to recommend this book to their friends and to read more Martha Wells in the future. After the meeting, most of us went to dinner at Marie Callender's.

April 16: Cosmonaut Keep by Ken MacLeod

Lori and I hosted this meeting at our house in Cedar Park. Fourteen people attended this meeting, including four first-time participants. One person submitted comments by email.

Our topic was Cosmonaut Keep, a current Hugo nominee for Best Novel. The book goes back and forth between two plotlines in different locations and times. The first is a near-future story about a computer hacker being chased by agents of several government, which leads to his eventually leaving the Earth. The other plotline involves people from Earth who have been settled on a distant planet named Mangalay for generations and are trying to rediscover the lost technology of their ancestors.

Most of us preferred the earthbound cyberpunkish story, which got going quicker and was more action-packed. This sequence was full of inside jokes about computer programmers, which all the high tech workers in our group enjoyed. There was much political discussion and speculation, which one person in our group liked, but the rest of us skimmed it since it was not relevant to the plot. After the protagonist leaves Earth he travels to a space station full of dysfunctional research scientists. Just as the book seems to be setting up a cool battle with space marines, aliens show up and do cosmic stuff.

The Mangalay plotline was slow to get going and seemed primarily to be setting up a long story that will be told over a several-volume series. Several crucial bits of exposition in this sequence were poorly written, causing several readers to be confused even after multiple readings. We liked the sentient reptilian native inhabitants of the planet, and how they fit well into the human society.

The author cleverly dropped hints about how the two plotlines were related, so we were prepared when the connection was revealed near the end of the book. We appreciated the author's experimental storytelling technique, but did not consider it a success. A few people found the changes between threads were so abrupt that they felt they were changing genres. Several people in our group got tired of the back-and-forth and simply read the entire book in chronological order.

Overall we found Cosmonaut Keep to be an ambitious, flawed book. There are several clever concepts in the book, but the different plot threads don’t fit well together and both end too abruptly. Ken MacLeod clearly has a lot of talent and may produce a great book in the future, but most of us don’t plan to recommend this book or read its planned sequels. After the meeting, we had a wonderful dinner at Mongolian Grille.

--A. T. Campbell, III