FACT SF Reading Group

January 2002

January 8: Mendoza in Hollywood by Kage Baker

Eleven people attended this meeting, and one submitted comments by email. Mendoza in Hollywood is the third novel in Baker’s continuing series about the Company. In this book, the immortal botanist Mendoza is sent to collect rare plants in Southern California in the 1800s. In the course of her assignment she absorbs local color, learns about the great movies that will be made soon in this location, gets involved in local politics, and learns unexpected new things about time travel. Everyone at the meeting had read the book and both its predecessors.

This meeting was unusual because our group had discussed all of Baker’s previous books and many of us had read her stories in Asimov’s. We came into the discussion already knowing that the author knows how to write, how to pace, and knows how to do research. Thus many of our comments were at a higher level, dealing with the series as a whole and how Mendoza in Hollywood fits into it.

We liked several things about this book. Mendoza’s immortal colleagues at the Hollywood outpost are interesting, particularly when we realize how different their life paths were than Mendoza’s. We enjoyed reading about the earlier days of the film history, recounted as the immortals visited the sites of famous movies decades before they are to be filmed.

Mendoza in Hollywood introduces several twists into the overall series, ending with a ton of loose ends. One person was disappointed by how little this volume advances the overall story, calling it "a coasting book.".

We tried to speculate on where the series is headed. Baker is obviously leaving lots of clues. Since the Company is based in the 24^th Century and each book advances a couple of hundred years, we feel that a confrontation is due in a couple of books.

Overall we liked this book and would recommend it, but only to those who’d read the earlier books in the series. We feel that Baker’s world is compelling and that this is a fun series to read. After the meeting we ate at Garcia’s.

January 22: The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien

Fourteen people attended this meeting, include one first time participant. The subject of this meeting was the first book of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The meeting was scheduled a month after the movie opened, so that everyone who wanted to see the movie first could do so. Everyone had finished the book.

The group quickly divided into two camps. About half of us had originally read this book as children and reread it regularly since. The story was so deeply ingrained in these people that they could not speak objectively about it. One person felt this story achieved the spirit of the Ring of the Nibelung and the King Arthur story.

The people in the other camp had either read the book as adults or simply had not bonded with the book when they first encountered it. It quickly became apparent that neither group was going to persuade members of the other group to its side.

We did agree about several points. All felt that it is a remarkable work of imagination and worldbuilding. We appreciated the morality of the book. We enjoyed the teamwork and friendships, particularly the relationship between Sam and Frodo.

The book’s writing style was likely the element about which we disagreed most strongly. Some loved every word, some loved everything but the poetry, and the rest found the writing style artificial and off-putting. One person who liked The Princess Bride much more than the Lord of the Rings suggested that William Goldman should write a "good parts" version.

After discussing the book we turned to the film, which we all liked a lot. We found the film was visually rich and much more action-packed than the book. Several people pointed out that some action sequences in the film were actually from other books (The Two Towers and The Silmarillion). We felt that the writers of the screenplay did a wonderful job of adapting the story to a different medium.

It seems silly to try to make a recommendation about this book, since it’s so well known that everyone likely to read it probably already has. After the meeting we had dinner at Threadgill’s.

-- A. T. Campbell, III