Dinner With Aaron Allston

We took local author Aaron Allston, author of Sidhe Devil, out to dinner on August 27. Eleven of us gathered for a nice meal at Tien Hong. Since Aaron was formerly a member of our Reading Group and still reads a lot, we discussed books we’d read recently. It turned out that Aaron also liked The Club Dumas. Aaron talked about his experiences writing Star Wars novels, several of which had been on bestseller lists. He mentioned that despite his success, a reader had only recognized him in public once. He said that he started writing Sidhe Devil over three years ago, and that his editor at Baen was ArmadilloCon 23 Editor Guest Toni Weisskopf. We all had a nice evening, and we appreciated Aaron giving us the opportunity to visit with him.

— A. T. Campbell, III

Sidhe Devil by Aaron Allston

Twelve people attended this meeting, and two submitted comments by email. One of the email participants was a person in Tennessee who has never attended one of our meetings in person, but who was a personal friend of one of our group’s regulars. Sidhe Devil is an action-packed fantasy novel that takes place mostly in a fairy world that greatly resembles Earth in the early 20^th century. The heroic Doc Sidhe and his band of competent assistants travel to an international sports competition to foil a fiendish supernatural plot. All ten of us who started this book finished it.

We had a lot of fun with this book. It has characters we quickly grew to like, gripping action, and an intriguing setting. Several people compared this book’s urban fantasy world with the world in Metropolitan by Walter Jon Williams. The plot was firmly in the pulp fiction tradition of such classic characters as the Shadow and Doc Savage. There was a lot of good humor. The rules of magic were well established in this book, and the author followed them consistently. Lots of things blew up in this book. Doc’s vehicles (particularly the outrigger

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Meet Me at Infinity by James Tiptree, Jr.

Thirteen people attended this discussion, including one first-time participant. Also, one person submitted comments by email. The book under consideration was a recent collection of short stories and essays by James Tiptree, Jr. Only one person at the meeting was able to finish the book.

For those unfamiliar with the author, a brief introduction is in order. James Tiptree, Jr. was one of the major SF writers of the 60s and 70s, writing such award-winning stories as “Houston, Houston, Do You Read?” and “The Women Men Don’t See.” Tiptree was a recluse who never appeared in public, and no in the SF community knew anything about the author. Finally it was revealed that Tiptree was the pseudonym of Dr. Alice Sheldon, a psychologist who worked for

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