The Veiled Web by Catherine Asaro

The discussion of Catherine Asaro’s recent technothriller drew twelve participants. Asaro is to be the Guest of Honor at this year’s ArmadilloCon. The Veiled Web is a near-future novel in which an American ballerina, Lucia, gets romantically involved with a Moroccan computer genius named Rashid. While Lucia and Rashid are trying to work through their cultural differences, they get captured by spies who want to harness Rashid’s intelligence for their own dubious plans.

We generally found this to be a well-written thriller. The Veiled Web contains several gripping action scenes that we thought worked well. We thought Rashid’s computer research was interesting, and we liked his AI character Zaki. The personality of Lucia seemed realistic for a ballerina, and it’s clear that Asaro

Continue Reading

Sean Stewart Lunch

Sean Stewart was in town to sign Galveston at Adventures in Crime & Space, so eight people from the Reading Group took him to lunch at Ninfa’s before the signing. Sean answered our questions about his books, and he told us interesting stories about his research for Galveston and Mockingbird. After lunch we got our books signed at ACS and heard Sean read a chapter about cannibals from Galveston. We were glad we’d eaten before the reading.

–A. T. Campbell, III

Code of Conduct by Kristine Smith

Ten people attended the discussion of Code of Conduct. This book, a first novel, is a space opera espionage thriller. Its protagonist is a middle-aged female spy who helps a former lover investigate the mysterious circumstances of his wife’s death.

Most of us liked the book. We liked reading an SF spy novel, a type of book that isn’t very common these days. The plot had interesting twists. The protagonist’s personality was developed deeply, with a well thought out depiction of the loneliness and alienation of a spy. Also, many appreciated the author’s realistic

Continue Reading