FACT SF Reading Group

December 2006

December 5: Mindswap by Robert Sheckley

Nine people assembled at Charles and Willie's home to discuss this recently-reissued classic. Also, one person submitted comments by email and another participated via telephone. Mindswap depicts a future where humans and aliens can explore each other's worlds by swapping minds between bodies. The story follows a man whose extraterrestrial vacation goes terribly wrong, forcing him to undergo a series of mindswaps with strange aliens in strange environments. Most of us had read Sheckley before, and all had finished this book.

Several of us found this book to be a lot of fun. The prose style was easy to read. We liked how the increasingly more surreal mindswaps were explained as “cognitive dissonances.” The elements of Westerns, detective stories, and swashbuckling literature worked well. References to classics like Don Quixote and Candide were well integrated into the story. We appreciated the parodies of yippie and hippie metaphysics, complete with rambling mathematics. Some people said that reading this novel was like an acid trip. This novel was perhaps the shortest book our group has discussed, but we felt the author told the story completely and efficiently.

A couple of people expected a more classic golden age science fiction adventure from the book's beginning, and were disappointed at the direction the novel took. This contingent felt that after the first couple of mindswaps, there was such a disconnect in story and style that they thought pages from another book had been glued in by mistake.

A few who'd read this book upon it original publication in the Sixties felt that this book felt a little dated. They felt that the concepts did not seem as mind-blowing as before, and the jokes were not as funny.

Overall we felt this was an interesting book and we had a fun discussion. At the end of the meeting, we picked new books for the reading schedule through April 2007. After the meeting, we had a nice dinner at Hyde Park Grill South.

December 19: Bad Prince Charlie by John Moore

Nine people attended this meeting at A. T.'s house. Our topic was Bad Prince Charlie, the latest romantic comedy fantasy by Houston-based FACT member John Moore. The story involves the prince of a small impoverished country deliberately trying to do a bad job of ruling, so that his country is absorbed by a wealthier empire. His plan is complicated by his father's ghost, noble ladies, a wizard, and a priestess. All of us had read Moore before, and all had finished the book.

This was a fun book to read. We found the story compulsively readable, and two of us had finished the book in one sitting. Prince Charlie's clueless romantic pursuits of strong-willed and beautiful women were charming. The techies in our group appreciated Moore's unusual “humor for engineers”, which involves much more math and science than usual for a fantasy. Clever footnotes are used to parody other humorous fantasy authors including Terry Pratchett and Jasper Fforde. One member pointed out that the story is essentially a comedy version of one of Shakespeare's classic tragedies.

Since we have discussed Moore's last three books, some of us offered comments on the development of his writing. We feel that his narrative voice is clear and noticeably different from other comic fantasy writers like Asprin and Pratchett. We would like to see him play with the conventions of the genre more. We also hope to see deeper characterizations, so that more of the humor grows out character. One of the joys of our group has been to see the evolution of new writers, and we're looking forward to seeing John's growth.

This enjoyable book was a great choice to close out the year. After the meeting, we had a nice dinner at Brick Oven Pizza.

-- A. T. Campbell, III