FACT SF Reading Group

June 2001

June 5: The Prophecy Machine by Neal Barrett, Jr.

Twelve people attended the discussion of The Prophecy Machine, a recent novel by Austin writer Neal Barrett Jr. This fantasy novel is set in a world where many of the world's animal races have been magically evolved into "Newlies", creatures with human levels of intelligence and a more-or-less human appearance. The book follows a human inventor named Finn and his Newlie lady love Letitia on a vacation that goes horribly wrong. They get stranded on a strange island, which leads them to get involved with a clan of strange men who have a bizarre invention.

We found this book easy to read. All eleven of us who'd started the novel finished it. Barrett's playful use of language was fun, and we all had favorite sentences and phrases that we repeated. We enjoyed the interplay between Finn and his pet, an ornery robot lizard named Julia. The island society with its two dominant factions (the Hooters and the Hatters) was a clever invention, and we liked the way this concept was worked so strongly into the book. For example, a business named "Bar" accepted only customers from one group, while the other townspeople were cheerfully accepted at a place named "Tavern". Visitors were not welcome anywhere, and the concept of hospitality was unknown.

There were some problems with this book. The amount of action seemed insufficient for the book's page count, and many of us felt like it read like a padded novella. Also, the story and characters just didn't have the exuberance and energy level we'd come to associate with Barrett's earlier books like The Hereafter Gang and Dead Dog Blues. Many of us who'd read and enjoyed the bawdy action in those prior books were surprised to find that The Prophecy Machine is practically wholesome. We wondered if Barrett was consciously trying to restrain himself to produce a book suitable for a younger audience.

Overall we found The Prophecy Machine to be a light, highly readable book with several interesting ideas. It lacks the depth of Barrett's best work, but it's certainly worth reading. After the meeting several of us had dinner at Vinny's.

June 19: Galveston by Sean Stewart

The discussion of Sean Stewart's latest novel drew thirteen attendees. Also, two people e-mailed in comments. Galveston is a fantasy novel set in the near future, after another big hurricane has caused great damage to the island off the coast of Texas. The complex and multi-layered plot of this book involves poker, witchcraft, famous Texas families, Mardi Gras, piano-playing ghosts, cannibals, historic mansions, the devil, first aid, and giant shrimp men.

We had a lot of familiarity with this author and topic. Ten people at the meeting had read Galveston, and eight had read prior books by Sean Stewart. Seven of us had visited Galveston and had seen many of the historic sites mentioned in the book. Also, eight of us had attended Stewart's reading and signing of this book last year at Adventures in Crime & Space.

Our group had a lot of favorable comments on this book. Many of us were sucked in by the high-stakes poker game that opens the book. The gorgeous prose style delivered with a slow Southern drawl fit the story perfectly. Those of us familiar with Galveston and its history enjoyed reading a story involving the wonderful island and its famous families, although several names had obviously been changed to protect the guilty. The semi-feudal Galveston society, controlled by cultlike organizations called krewes, was fascinating. We appreciated how the personal journeys of the book's young adult protagonists exhibited growth in small but believable ways. The recurring poker games were fun to read and revealed much about the players' personalities. We were impressed by how well the personalities of future Galveston's matriarchal leaders were depicted by a male author. Sean Stewart has always been able to write great women.

While this book had more wonderful and memorable elements than most other books, we did have some quibbles. The magic realist approach of the book was just not to some people's taste. Some of us who are fond of Galveston hated what Stewart caused to happen to the island in this book. And while the book mentions several types of monsters including minotaurs and zombie frogs, we never actually encounter them in the course of the story.

We found Galveston to be a rich and rewarding piece of fantasy literature, and we're looking forward to Sean Stewart's next book. After the discussion several of us had a nice dinner at Threadgill's.

-- A. T. Campbell, III