FACT SF Reading Group

November 2010

November 1: Implied Spaces by Walter Jon Williams

Twelve people attended this discussion at the North Village Library, and another submited comments by email. Our topic was Implied Spaces by Walter Jon Williams, one of our most frequently discussed authors. This story explores big ideas including immortality, the creation of pocket universes, and the search for the existence of higher intelligence. Nine of us had read Williams before. Nine of us started the book, and eight of us finished it.

The book is a series of episodes of the meanderings of a bored, rich, immortal guy. The book starts out with long passage that seems like something of Dungeons and Dragons campaign, taking place in a pocket universe. Then the story bounces around to various adventures in other pocket universes, including one on a waterworld. Ultimately there's a zombie plague and a supervillain, and lots of philosophical discussions.

Most of us had trouble getting engaged with the book. The protagonist was detached and hard to like. The book's tone bounced around between farcical, serious sense-of-wonder, and straightforward adventure. We wished the author had just picked one and stayed with it. And the author often introduces potentially interesting ideas like the speculative physics of "implied spaces," and then doesn't develop them in an interesting way. One person commented "I wish this was either more tightly plotted or funnier."

The book had good qualities. Some of us enjoyed the book's farcical passages. The feline lovers in our group liked the protagonist's cat. And a few of us simply appreciated the author's clean, readable prose style.

Overall this book felt unfocused and less ambitious than we've come to expect from Williams. The meeting was rather short, since none of us had much to say.

After the meeting, many of us had a nice dinner together at Conan's.

November 16: The Shadow Year by Jeffrey Ford

This meeting at the Milwood Library drew seven attendees. Our topic was Jeffrey Ford's The Shadow Year, a recent winner of the World Fantasy Award. This book follows a group of kids in 1960s Long Island growing up in a neighborhood where strange things are happening. Two of us had read Ford before. All of us started the book, and six finished it.

We liked the book's strong narrative voice and evocative description of Long Island in the LBJ era. People in the group who remembered that time enjoyed Ford's authentic recreation of it. Most of us felt the personalities of the kids were well-fleshed-out, and the relationships among family members seemed believable. We enjoyed their crazy antics at Halloween and Thanksgiving. The narrator's little sister was everyone's favorite character. And the mystery element worked for many of us.

Most of the people at the meeting did not feel that this book had much or any fantasy component. This surprised some of us since it had won the World Fantasy Award. But many enjoyed the story enough that they did not mind. As one person put it, "it's like expecting Beethoven and getting Philip Glass."

The book has a fairly minimal plot that moves slowly. Some in the group had no problem with that, but a few were disappointed and bored. The book's narrator is never given a name or a gender. This bothered one person so much that he stopped reading the book.

One person said she kept wondering how this story would have been told by another author. She felt that Ford took every exciting emotional moment and turned down the volume.

Overall we thought that The Shadow Year is a well-done book that would appeal to selective audiences. It was suggested that fans of Gene Wolfe or Tim Powers would likely enjoy it.

After the meeting, many of us got together for a nice dinner at Culver's.

---A. T. Campbell, III