Oct

17

Posted by : atcampbell | On : October 17, 2006

Howard Who? by Howard Waldrop

Nine people gathered at A. T.’s house in north Austin for this meeting. Our topic was Howard Who?, the recent 20th anniversary edition of local author Howard Waldro’s first collection. Six of us had read Waldrop before, and four had heard him read his work aloud at ArmadilloCon. Seven of us read this book for the discussion.

The book contains Waldrop’s best known early story, “The Ugly Chickens”, which is about a graduate student’s search for a fowl that had been thought extinct. We found this story to be surreal, unusual, and memorable, with the most classic

Continue Reading

Oct

03

Posted by : atcampbell | On : October 3, 2006

A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick

On October 3, 2006 the FACT reading group discussed A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick. Of 6 people who attended the discussion, only 2 people finished reading, or rather re-reading it. Some others had read it long ago when it first came out. One reader commented that he enjoyed “A Scanner Darkly” back then, but it didn’t seem as good the second time around. This change in perspective was attributed to the reader’s head being in a different place than it was a couple of decades ago. 🙂

Two readers said they liked this book because they like books about paranoia. One reader could really relate to the paranoia, experienced by the protagonist; in her view, paranoia was inseparable from the 1965-75 drug era that she thought

Continue Reading