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

  • From: "Kim Friedman" <kimfri11@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2009 23:35:50 -0700

Hi, Evan, many thanks for the information. I started appreciating SF because
of a radio show called "Hour 25" on a Pacifica station. There would be
author interviews, readings of short stories, talk about films, and it
covered mainly SF, but I heard about horror fiction, some fantasy fiction,
and comic books. Some of the authors who were guests on the program were
Marion Zimmer Bradley, David Gerrold, Octavia E. Butler, Frederick Pohl,
Anne McCaffrey, Diane Duane, etc. I got to liking SF more, so I got The
Caves of Steel by Asimov. The only comment I can make about what you said is
that tastes vary. What authors might suit me may not be interesting to you.
I have The Unreasoning Mask and will read it. Regards, Kim.

  _____  

From: EVAN REESE [mailto:mentat3@xxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Sunday, September 13, 2009 5:48 AM
To: bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bookshare-discuss] Re: Next Meeting of the Science Fiction Club,
Thursday, October 8, 2009


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  <mailto:kimfri11@xxxxxxxxxxx> 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=L3NlYXJj
aD9rZXl3b3JkPWdsYXNzaG91c2Um
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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