FACT SF Reading Group

December 1998

December 1: Eternity Road by Jack McDevitt

Ten people attended this meeting, including two first-time visitors to the Reading Group. One regular member e-mailed in her comments since she couldn't get away from work. The book under discussion, Eternity Road, is set 1000 years in Earth's future after our civilization has fallen. The story follows a group of people attempting to rediscover the lost science, culture, and literature of their past -- and our present. They wander across North America from the banks of the Mississippi to Canada on their quest.

Seven of the group had finished the novel, and most had read McDevitt before (two of his books had been discussed previously in the Reading Group). We found the prose easy to read without being simplistic. The observations on our present culture are interesting and amusing, and also painful at times. Ideals are discussed without becoming preachy. We liked how our travelers encountered various partially-functioning equipment from our time, although the way one character outwitted an AI robot reminded us of Captain Kirk. We appreciated the unique way civilization falls in this book; for once, it's not due to nuclear war. As with the rest of McDevitt's novels, this book doesn't have a villain -- just people with lots of problems to solve and mysteries to uncover.

We had a few minor criticisms. One person was tired of the post-apocalyptic genre and didn't feel any more books needed to be written in this tradition. Another complained that the fall of civilization and loss of knowledge, as described in this book, are unbelievable. Another felt that the English language should have drifted into local dialects over time, although he agreed that dealing with this problem would have been awkward in the book. Some of us would have liked to see a map that showed the progress of the travelers.

We liked Eternity Road a lot, and we would recommend it highly to others.

December 15: The Gift by Patrick O'Leary

Nine people attended this meeting. Eight had finished the book, and four had also read O'Leary's prior book Door Number Three. Typically for O'Leary, The Gift is hard to describe succinctly. It's a fantasy novel full of traditional tropes like a cursed prince, a woodcutter's son, a quest, and dragons, To further complicate things, the book is structured like a set of fairy tales wrapped inside one another. And the plot is an ambitious story about the "last magic makers on Earth."

We were impressed by this book's ambitions and its many successes. The story is at times delightful, charming, and dark, and it is told in spirals and twists. And best of all, the spirals are wrapped together in a logical way that comes together in the end. One person compared the structure to Dan Simmons's Hyperion. We liked several of the non-human races created in this book, particularly the delightful griffs. The use of dragons is original, and for once we get a good explanation for why they like gold. Best of all, this book concludes in a single volume.

Some of us voiced complaints. The characters are generally shallow and serve merely as plot devices, in sharp contrast to the well-developed characters in Door Number Three. Another person felt that this book had too many ideas and that the story was all over the map. Several noted that late in the book, O'Leary introduces feminist story elements that don't mesh well with the rest of the story.

This is a clever, challenging book full of invention and crafted with great care. We all found much to admire and like in the book. Patrick O'Leary's second novel is nothing like his first, and we suspect that we have more delightful surprises in store with his upcoming works.

-- A. T. Campbell, III