FACT SF Reading Group

November 1996

After an absence of several months, here's a new installment of the adventures of several FACT members on a quest for good books...

On October 1, seven folks showed up at the FACT Office to discuss Charles de Lint's Memory and Dream, an urban fantasy involving magic and the visual arts. Due to the intrusion of two factors (ArmadilloCon and Real Life), few of us had read much of the book. Three people were at or past the halfway mark, and the rest had barely started. No one found the book hard to follow, but precious time to read had just not been available. Comments by those who had read significant portions of the book include "sober and adult but not dark", "de Lint seems to dismiss creativity in areas other than the Fine Arts", and "interesting take on how things happen and how we remember them".

Two weeks later, we gathered at Adventures in Crime and Space to talk about Lois McMaster Bujold's Cetaganda, a fast-spaced space opera/ mystery featuring Bujold's best-known character, Miles Naismith Vorkosigan. Our discussion again had seven members, including two newcomers. All but one us had finished the book, and it turned out that most of us had read nearly the complete works of Bujold. That led to an informed and lively discussion, but every few minutes we'd have to steer ourselves from general discussion of Bujold's ouevre to the specific book in question. We all enjoyed the book, although most felt it was not up to the level of Bujold's best work (generally acknowledged to be Mirror Dance). Cetaganda successfully depicts a meeting of two distinct alien cultures invented by Bujold. Several striking images are evoked, particularly the "kitten bush". Notable quotes from our discussion include "began like a mystery, but wasn't a whodunnit", "this society is as plausible as any far future", and "this book should have been either shorter or longer".

On November 5, eight of us met at the FACT Office to discuss Guy Gavriel Kay's The Lions of Al-Rassan, a fantasy set in a world patterned much after historical Spain. One of the group's regular members was unable to attend, but she liked the book enough to e-mail me a set of detailed comments to bring to the discussion. Opinions differed widely on this book, as shown by the following comments from early in the discussion: "I LOVE this book", "bittersweet but believable", "Kay's done better but this is still an above average fantasy", and "as a reader, I felt consistently cheated by Guy Gavriel Kay". We all liked the story and found Kay's writing style readable, but several of us felt that he tried to pull off too much trickery in his use (or misuse) of point of view. The book is basically a historical novel full of heroic deeds, romance, and extremely competent men and women, with only a couple of minor speculative elements included. The story follows the conventions of classical tragedy much more than it follows the traditions of high fantasy. Closing comments on this book included "I like his characters", "would be more interesting if characters had different strengths and more weaknesses", and "I wonder if the country Karch is named after the beach volleyball player".

Our next meeting will be a discussion of K. W. Jeter's Blade Runner 2: The Edge of Human at Adventures in Crime and Space on November 19. Since this book is supposedly a sequel to both Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and Ridley Scott's film Blade Runner, several members of our group will be viewing the film in preparation for this discussion. Our meetings are always open to all comers, so anyone who's read the book and wants to discuss it should feel free to join us.

-- A. T. Campbell, III