Dinner with Bradley Denton

Following the success of last month’s dinner with Bill Spencer, we took Brad Denton out to dinner on July 23. Eleven of us, including Brad and his wife Barbara, gathered at the Shady Grove Cafe for a lovely meal of burgers, sandwiches, and “frings”. The group was so large that Brad had to go back and forth from one side of the table to the other to answer all his fans’ questions. We learned about Brad’s writing process: “I always finish a book before I try to sell it, to lessen the chance of editors screwing it up”, “I wrote the chapters of Lunatics in order but I skipped around a lot on Blackburn“, “I always do at least 8 or 9 drafts”. We had fun visiting with Brad, and we’ll probably do another “meal with a writer” in a couple of months.

Due to conventions and other conflicts, we’ll only have one August meeting. We’ll be discussing Metropolitan by Walter Jon Williams on August 20 at Adventures in Crime and Space. For the latest information, check out our web page. Newcomers are always welcome.

–A. T. Campbell, III

Lunatics by Bradley Denton

Six of us got together on July 16 to discuss Bradley Denton’s Lunatics, which has been described as a “coming of middle age” novel. The book, set in Austin, is about how a group of late-thirtiesh friends reacts when one of them claims to be dating a goddess from the moon. The book mixes humor and drama well. We all liked the book. Interestingly, women readers tended to like it more than the men did. Comments included “the women in the book are well-done but not too catty”, “I liked how the goddess had difficulty with high heels”, “…best portrayal of women by a man since Tom Robbins”, and “…even though this is not the type of book I usually read, I loved it”.

–A. T. Campbell, III

The Terminal Experiment by Robert J. Sawyer

The July Reading Group activities started on July 2 with a splash — a pool party at Elaine Powell’s house. We had lots of fun eating pizza and watermelon, and most of the nine of us got into the pool. In the midst of all the party atmosphere, we actually did spend some time discussing Robert J. Sawyer’s The Terminal Experiment. This novel, a techno-thriller about a medical researcher delving into the nature of human consciousness, recently won the Nebula Award and is a current finalist for the Hugo Award. Our members all appreciated Sawyer’s slick writing style — none of us had any trouble finishing the book. We were divided in how much we liked the premise of the book. The book’s fictional advances in medical technology are used for some controversial purposes that troubled several in our group. We all found it to be a thought-provoking story that prompted interesting discussion, and many of us will be looking forward to reading Sawyer’s next book.

–A. T. Campbell, III