FACT SF Reading Group

March 2002

March 5: The Time Machine

We’d originally planned to discuss a book on this date, but Willie Siros got a bunch of free passes to a movie preview and convinced us to postpone the meeting. A large group of Reading Group members and their significant others (at least 20 people total) went to the Metropolitan to see this adaptation of the H. G. Wells novel.

We thought this was a well-crafted action movie full of impressive computer-generated images of time passing quickly. We liked the performances of Guy Pearce as the Time Traveler and Orlando Jones as an Artificial Intelligence.

Fans of the original novel were disappointed by this film. The story bore only a superficial resemblance to the novel’s plot, and it seemed more like a remake of the 1960 Time Machine movie. Unfortunately the 2002 version lacks much of the charm of either the book or the earlier movie, and the story didn’t make a lot of sense. None of us understood why the film ended with a big explosion.

We were all curious about this film and enjoyed the chance to see it for free. Thanks to Willie for providing the tickets. After the film several of us had dinner at Chili’s.

March 12: Time Future by Maxine McArthur

Nine people attended this meeting, and three submitted comments by email. Time Future is a first SF novel by an Australian author. It involves a murder mystery on a space station with a female commander. Everyone at the meeting had read at least some of the book, and seven had finished it.

There was a lot to like about this book. The space opera setting and the tone of the book were old-fashioned fun. Commander Halley is a complex and interesting viewpoint character. The political background of the story was interesting, and it sewed the seeds for this story and possibly several sequels. The plot twists of the murder mystery had us engaged throughout. Some of thought it was cool that each chapter of the book takes place in an hour of real time, like the television series "24".

There were some problems. The book’s first several chapters are primarily exposition, so the story moves very slowly until around page 125, when the murder is discovered. Some of us gave up on the book before that point. We also felt that Halley wasn’t convincing as an experienced commander, since she had real problems in delegating work.

Overall we thought Time Future was an interesting book and that Maxine McArthur is a talent to watch. Several in the group plan to read the sequel, Time Past, when it comes out later this year. After the meeting we had a nice dinner at Threadgill’s.

March 19: Futures edited by Peter Crowther

Eleven people attended the discussion of Futures. The book is an anthology of four hard SF novellas written by prominent British authors. The Reading Group had discussed books by all but one of these writers previously. Since we talked about each story separately, this story will group our comments accordingly. Seven of us had read the book.

"Watching Trees Grow" by Peter F. Hamilton is a murder mystery set on an alternate Earth that has a race of extremely long-lived humans. A crime investigation occupies more than two centuries and takes a detective all over the world and eventually on a tour of the solar system to find the murderer. We thought that Hamilton did an elegant job of dropping us in the middle of the situation, getting us interested, and then explaining details as needed. The society in this story exhibits several well thought out consequences of longer lifespans, including faster technological progress and different roles for women. The mixture of hard SF, alternate history, and mystery worked well. This was the favorite story for four of us.

"Reality Dust’ by Stephen Baxter is a futuristic story featuring space travel, first contact with aliens, and downloading of human consciousness. We thought this story lacked new ideas and just reworked concepts that Arthur C. Clarke and Greg Egan handled better. The writing was awkward, with too much exposition and a couple of switching viewpoints that did not tie together well. It was easily everyone’s least favorite story.

"Making History" by Paul J. McAuley follows a historian trying to figure out what really went on during a failed political revolution. We liked the "historical SF" approach, and thought the story featured some neat twists. We generally thought it was a well-written and enjoyable story, although it was no one’s personal favorite.

"Tendeleo’s Story" by Ian McDonald is set in an Africa slowly being overrun by a fast-growing alien plant called Chaga. The story ties in to some of McDonald’s earlier work, especially the novel Evolution’s Shore. We liked the fresh voice of the young woman who narrates this story, and we enjoyed reading about the changes in her life from child to adult as the Chaga draws closer to her home. This was simply a well-told disaster story with interesting characters, and it was the favorite of three in our group.

Overall we found the stories in Futures were interesting and of high quality, and we liked the novelty of reading stories rather than a novel. After the meeting we had a nice dinner at Brick Oven Pizza.

-- A. T. Campbell, III