FACT SF Reading Group

March 2004

March 2: Thraxas by Martin Scott

Ten people attended this discussion and two submitted comments by email. Seven had read part of the book, but only four read the entire Baen volume, which is composed of the original Thraxas (2000 World Fantasy Award winner) plus a second book, Thraxas and the Warrior Monks. No one had read British author Martin Scott before, nor any of the urban fiction under his real name, Martin Millar.

Scott parodies both noir and high fantasy in a way that most of the group found amusing and enjoyable, but nowhere near "hilarious." We did not think it merited the World Fantasy Award, and thought it may have received the award for political reasons. Those who read the second book thought it was better written and was more of a straight mystery.

The title character of the book, Thraxas, a lazy, hard-drinking, down-on his-luck sorcerer/detective, was well-characterized, but most of the group (the men in particular) preferred his sidekick, a smart, mixed-blood, ex-gladiator waitress in a chain-mail bikini. Just about everything is thrown into the first book, from dragons, giant alligators, and assassins, to Orcs, elves, a beautiful princess, corrupt politicians, drugs, and women's rights.

This fast, light read is good for times when the brain needs no demands on it, such as before bed, but the book should be weighted down--one reader kept expecting it to float off the nightstand.

After the discussion, the group voted on new books then went to dinner.

March 16: Schild's Ladder by Greg Egan

Of the eight who showed up for this discussion, all had read at least part of the book, but only four finished it. Some of the seven who had read Egan's work before preferred Diaspora or his short fiction, but others did enjoy this book.

The book begins far in the future when an Earth scientist and several aliens decide to test a space-time theory and create a novo-vacuum. The test goes awry of course and the novo-vacuum begins to expand and take over our universe. The rest of the book is set even further in the future and involves a struggle between those who want to study the novo-vacuum and those who want to destroy it.

Egan's mixture of real and imaginary physics was a bit much for some readers to slog through, but at least it was incorporated into the story well and not presented as infodumps. Egan certainly must be given credit for trying to create a commercial, interesting fiction around such high-level science. His characters, however, could have been fleshed out more; they were not very believable as immortals living in the far future, even though they did have the choice of being down-loaded into a computer or having a real body.

At the end of the discussion we came to an ethical question. Would you go ahead with an experiment that could be potentially disastrous if it also had a potential for numerous benefits? Many of us would decide to wait until we knew more--it's not worth the risk.

-- Sandy Kayser