FACT SF Reading Group

November 2003

November 4: Starborn by ArmadilloCon 26's GOH, Sharon Shinn

Twelve people attended this discussion and 3 others emailed in their comments. Eight people started the book with five reading to the end. The same five had all read this author before.

Using the classic Jane Eyre as the basis for a science fiction novel intrigued some readers while others were more ambivalent. The source material was easy to identify with a few updated twists, such as a cyborg wife instead of a crazy one. Plus in this retelling our heroine is a vat-grown, plucky nuclear reactor technician. There is a governess who is ruined by a lover, but needless to say Jenna manages to eventually find true love with her own Everett. Some people enjoyed ferreting out the similarities between the books while others liked the non JE parts better.

One reader called it "a serious chick novel" that needed more action. The women present rejected this label. But another reader found the book very readable "in a Gothic romance kind of way" and thought it would be a good book to introduce young girls to SF.

We speculated on the author's motivations for using JE as a framework. Trying to retrofit moral and social values from 1847 to the far future was like squeezing the future into a Victorian corset for some readers. The concept of a rigidly tiered caste system was seen as interesting but implausible in today's morality. But others liked her Pan-Equist religion and accepted the reasons for why some areas of research still thrived and why some things did not get attention or improvement.

All in all, we thought this was an interesting literary experiment and wondered what other works could be retrofitted to SF.

November 18: Darwin's Radio by Greg Bear

Fifteen people attended this discussion, including one on crutches. Fourteen people started the book and 13 finished it.

The group was happy to read a book they felt dealt with SCIENCE. Set two weeks in the future, DR follows a virus researcher who discovers what seems to be a new virus that affects human reproduction. Soon widespread pregnancies are causing panic as facial changes visably mark those affected and humanity experiences an evolutionary burst.

The trigger for the changes was a hot topic. Was it stress? Population overflow? Cedar pollen? The only thing we agreed on was that Bear didn't specify.

We picked at some elements, such as the serendipity of finding evidence of a previous evolution spurt at the same time as the current one. Some people felt the novel tended to have info dumps, while others enjoyed the technical details.

There was some concern over the types of vectors the story used, such as the miscarriages and violence but all agreed that to tell the story effectively these tragic elements were necessary. Plus it made some aspects even more poignant, such as when a few-days old baby begins to talk and communicate with its mother.

One character comparing her ostracism to being treated like a nigger angered one of our memebers who went on to remark that maybe Bear needed some black friends.

Otherwise, this was one of our more popular books. A lot of people are planning to read the sequel, Darwin's Children.

Afterwards we had dinner at Mexican restaurant A la Carrera.

-- Judy Strange