FACT SF Reading Group

April 2004

April 6: Permanence by Karl Schroeder

Of the five who attended this discussion, one was new to the group and had not read any of Schroeder's work. The other four had read the whole book, plus Schroeder's previous book, Ventus and thought the author had done a much better job this time.

Permanence is a classic space opera set in a completely different universe from Ventus. The main character is a feisty young woman, Rue, who steals her family's ship and escapes to the nearest brown-dwarf planet. On the way she discovers an unoccupied interstellar cycler ship, which will make her rich if she can claim it first. She hopes to use it to serve the brown-dwarf civilization, which has been decaying since FTL ships and the monetarily obsessed Right's Economy left it behind.

We found much to like about this book: good main characters, good pacing, adventure, conflict, interesting technologies, aliens, a sufficiently different plot and enough ups and downs to hold a reader's interest. We liked Rue, the heirloom fossil, alien archeology, brown-dwarf worlds, cycler seeds, and brain implants that showed the value of everything.

Although this book did not have the plodding pace, info-dumps and repetition of Ventus it still had some new-writer glitches. The love story was not very believable, secondary characters were over-developed, some of the science was not very believable (but not enough to bother anyone), the story had some large jumps in time, and the kami concept was not completely clear.

We all enjoyed this book and expect to see a sequel since the bad guy, an admiral who escaped with a cycler seed, was not captured at the end.

April 20: Pattern Recognition by William Gibson

Twelve people showed up for this discussion, plus we heard emailed comments from one person. Everyone had read at least part of the book, and of the five who hadn't finished it, most did plan to finish later. All but one had read Gibson before.

Set one year after September 11 (although that wasn't clear enough--several of us thought it was set ten years later), this book contains no science fiction elements. However, only a science fiction writer of Gibson's caliber could have captured the rich detail of today's digital and global consumer culture.

In the story, Cayce, a brand-name phobic woman, can intuitively spot what will be cool. Her interest in the footage, movie clips on the Internet, leads her through London, Tokyo and Moscow in her search for the maker. Along the way, other footage fans, hackers, spies and a power-hungry marketer aid in the search, while those who believe they need to protect the maker's anonymity impede Cayce.

Reactions to this book varied from transcendence to dislike. Those who loved the book found it rich and ambitious, with many parallels to Neuromancer and Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49.

The intrigue in Pattern Recognition develops slowly, with more emphasis on sleeping, eating, drinking coffee and obsessing on clothes, brand names and logos than on action. This bothered some readers (some to the point of feeling allergic to brand names), although they still appreciated the book for its "lean and evocative" prose. Confusing segues, present tense and Cayce's lack of emotion over her father's 9/11 disappearance also troubled some readers.

Generally, the group found this a fast-paced (partly due to the sentence fragments), entertaining and enjoyable read.

-- Sandy Kayser