FACT SF Reading Group

October 1998

October 6: An Exchange of Hostages by Susan R. Matthews

Ten people attended the discussion of An Exchange of Hostages, the first novel by Campbell Award nominee Susan R. Matthews. This is a science fiction novel about a military doctor who is forced to attend a school for torturers. The story describes the training in detail and also depicts the complicated political and psychological environment at the school and in the world outside.

This book produced strong and varied responses. Eight people finished the book and had positive things to say about it. Two of us were so turned off by the graphic depiction of torture sequences that we were unable to finish the book. I fell into the latter category, and had to quit halfway through the first intermediate torture exercise. I hope to never find out about the advanced material...

Those who finished the book were impressed by the book's ambition and its attention to detail. Generally Matthews's prose style was considered compulsively readable. We felt that this novel was a good examination of a corrupt society and its corrupt inhabitants. It's a character-driven story about control. The complicated social structure in the school seemed believable as a military extreme. The author gets deep into the minds of some of the torturer students (and their subjects), which leads to an uncomfortable level of reader identification. Someone commented that a novel about a torturer should be this introspective. The emotions seem so realistic that some of us speculated that the author might be writing from experience.

If the idea of a graphic torture novel doesn't turn you off, we recommend that you read An Exchange of Hostages. Susan R. Matthews undeniably has talent. We were all impressed by the author's bravery in writing such a book and the publisher's bravery in publishing it.

October 20: Spiritride by Mark Shepherd

Four showed up for this discussion, and two additional people submitted comments via e-mail. Spiritride is a hard-to-describe fantasy novel involving elves, motorcycles, and Native Americans. The story follows a group of elves hunting for their enemies, who have fled to the world of humans. Along the way, the elves enlist the help of a Native American biker and several "guardian angels" of bikers. Complications ensue, and eventually a Satanic cult gets mixed into the plot.

Despite most in the group stating that this is "not the type of book I usually read", no one had any trouble reading the book. The tone of the book, the inclusion of a teenage boy character, and the emphasis on motorcycles made us feel like this novel was aimed at teenage boys who like motorcycles. None of us fell into that category, but we liked the book anyway. We found Shepherd's prose style to be technically solid and very readable. The fantasy and Native American elements were well thought-out, and we were pleasantly surprised at how well these disparate elements worked together. The "good guy" characters were well developed and had complicated personalities.

The book had a few problems. The "bad guy" characters were one-dimensional and didn't seem like real people. And many of us felt that the basic elf fantasy element was not very original. Since this book is related to a series that Shepherd did with Mercedes Lackey, he might not have had freedom to innovate with this element.

Overall we liked this book, and we think Mark Shepherd is a writer to watch. We're particularly interested to see Shepherd develop new worlds of his own in which to set his stories.

-- A. T. Campbell, III