The Departure by Neal Asher

Eight people attended this discussion, and another submitted comments by email. Our topic was Neal Asher’s The Departure, a story set in a dystopic future Earth. Only one person present had read the author before. All of us started the book, but only four finished. Five of us read the novel electronically.

A couple of us had trouble getting into the book. One person complained that the huge amount of infodump in the first chapter kept putting him to sleep. Another complained of “odd diction” and “clunky sentences”, and said that he was “tempted to throw the book across the room, but it was an e-book”.

Those who got a bit further into the book enjoyed it more. One reader called it “a

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Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed

We had a weird series of events around this meeting. Several of our regulars read the book, but due to various personal issues (sickness, travel, etc.) many of them missed the scheduled meeting. So only two people attended the meeting but four emailed in comments. Reports on the meeting and the mailed-in reports follow.

From the two who attended the meeting

We had both read the book, and not read anything by that author before.  We both liked the book.  We were impressed that the main characters all had developed back stories.  We agreed that the middle was a little slow.  We both thought that the author had left himself a lot of options for sequels or other books

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