[bookshare-discuss] Re: Next Meeting of the Science Fiction Club, Thursday, October 8, 2009

  • From: "EVAN REESE" <mentat3@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2009 08:48:18 -0400

Yes, you can go to
www.accessibleworld.org
and there is a link to the Book Nook on the home page.

I thought those Stross stories were great. But I'm not as much of a character 
person as most people, it would seem. Not that I don't like good characters, 
but I don't think a story has to have great characters for me to enjoy it. Some 
of the greatest SF classics are not about characters. Arthur C. Clarke's 
Childhood's End immediately springs to mind. That novel is widely considered a 
classic by many people, but I don't think very many would consider great 
characterization as one of its strong points. It's one of my favorite SF novels 
even so.

Evan

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Kim Friedman 
  To: bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
  Sent: Sunday, September 13, 2009 2:39 AM
  Subject: [bookshare-discuss] Re: Next Meeting of the Science Fiction Club, 
Thursday, October 8, 2009


  Hi, Evan, does the SF book club meet at accessibleworld.org? I can remember 
that address as it's short. With regard to Charles Stross, I've read his 
Manfred Max stories in Asimov's SF magazine, but I couldn't get into those 
stories nor could I identify with the characters or the culture. I don't think 
I'll read this one. Regards, Kim.



------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  From: EVAN REESE [mailto:mentat3@xxxxxxxxxxx] 
  Sent: Saturday, September 12, 2009 4:23 PM
  To: Bob Acosta; scifi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; 
bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  Subject: [bookshare-discuss] Next Meeting of the Science Fiction Club, 
Thursday, October 8, 2009


  Hi Folks,

  The next meeting of the Science Fiction Club will take place on Thursday, 
October 8, 2009 in the 
  Book Nook at:
  http://conference321.com/masteradmin/room.asp?id=rs7867a2369e0e

  Time: 9 PM Eastern, 8 PM Central, 7 PM Mountain, 6 PM Pacific, and 01 hour 
UTC.

  For the next meeting, we are reading Glasshouse by Charles Stross. You can 
get it from both NLS--as digital download at:
  http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.nls/db.65900
  or on tape with number RC 65900
  and from Bookshare at:
  
http://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/38343/Glasshouse%20?returnPath=L3NlYXJjaD9rZXl3b3JkPWdsYXNzaG91c2Um
  with an Excellent rating.

  Here is the long synopsis from Bookshare:
  When Robin wakes up in a clinic with most of his memories missing, it doesn't 
take him long to discover that someone is trying to kill him. It's the 
twenty-seventh century, when interstellar travel is by teleport gate and 
conflicts are fought by network worms that censor refugees' personalities-- 
including Robin's earlier self.
  On the run from a ruthless pursuer and searching for a place to hide, he 
volunteers to participate in a unique experimental polity: the Glasshouse, a 
historical simulation of a pre-accelerated culture circa 1950-2040 where 
participants are assigned anonymized identities. But what looks like the 
perfect sanctuary turns into a trap, placing Robin at the mercy of the 
experimenters-- and at the mercy of his own unbalanced psyche...

  And here is a review from Publisher's Weekly taken from Amazon:
  The censorship wars"during which the Curious Yellow virus devastated the 
network of wormhole gates connecting humanity across the cosmos"are finally 
over at the start of Hugo-winner Stross's brilliant new novel, set in the same 
far-future universe as 2005's Accelerando. Robin is one of millions who have 
had a mind wipe, to forget wartime memories that are too painful"or too 
dangerously inconvenient for someone else. To evade the enemies who don't think 
his mind wipe was enough, Robin volunteers to live in the experimental 
Glasshouse, a former prison for deranged war criminals that will recreate 
Earth's "dark ages" (c. 1950"2040). Entering the community as a female, Robin 
is initially appalled by life as a suburban housewife, then he realizes the 
other participants are all either retired spies or soldiers. Worse yet, 
fragments of old memories return"extremely dangerous in the Glasshouse, where 
the experimenters'
  intentions are as murky as Robin's grasp of his own identity. With nods to 
Kafka, James Tiptree and others,
  Stross's wry SF thriller satisfies on all levels, with memorable characters 
and enough brain-twisting extrapolation for five novels.

  At the last meeting, we had a great discussion of City by Clifford D. Simak, 
with more people than we've had in a long time. Hope to see even more next 
month.

  Evan



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