[bookshare-discuss] Re: [Scifi] Next Meeting of the Science Fiction Club, Thursday, May 9, 2013
- From: Lelia Struve <leliastruve@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: Evan Reese <mentat1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 9 May 2013 07:35:50 -0600
Hi there, this was a good book, hope to see you there for some great discussion.
Sent from my iPhone
On Apr 15, 2013, at 12:01 PM, "Evan Reese" <mentat1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hello Folks,
>
> We had a larger, more normal turnout at our most recent meeting, with most of
> us liking our book, The Uplift War by David Brin, pretty well. For our next
> read, we return to Earth in the 22nd century for a tale of conspiracy in
> Counting Heads by David Marusek.
>
> The next meeting of the Science Fiction club will be on Thursday, May 9, 2013.
>
> Place, Book Nook at:
>
> http://conference321.com/masteradmin/room.asp?id=rs7867a2369e0e
>
> Time: 9 PM Eastern, 8m PM Central, 7 PM Mountain, 6 PM Pacific, and 01:00 UTC.
>
> Our book, Counting Heads, is available as a digital download from BARD at:
>
> http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.nls/db.71708
>
> Here's the NLS synopsis:
>
> Technology brings about a new society on Earth.
> After outcast Samson Harger's politically powerful wife
> Eleanor and their daughter are killed in a plane crash, his
> daughter's cryogenically frozen head goes missing. He soon
> discovers he is not the only one searching for it.
>
>
> Here's a fuller dewscription from Publishers Weekly, taken from Amazon's page
> for this book:
>
> Starred Review. This extraordinary debut novel puts Marusek in the first rank
> of
> SF writers. Life on Earth in 2134 ought to be perfect: nanotechnology can
> manufacture
> anything humans need; medical science can control the human body's shape or
> age;
> and AIs, robots and contented clones do most of the work. If only there were
> a way
> to get rid of the surplus people. When Eleanor Starke, one of the major power
> brokers,
> is assassinated, her daughter's cryogenically frozen head becomes the object
> of a
> quest by representatives of several factions, including Eleanor's aged and
> outcast
> husband, a dense zealot for interstellar colonization, a decades-old little
> boy and
> husband and wife clones who are straining at the limitations of their
> natures. Marusek's
> writing is ferociously smart, simultaneously horrific and funny, as he
> forces readers
> to stretch their imaginations and sympathies. Much of the fun in the story is
> in
> the telling rather than its destination—which is just as well, since it
> doesn't so
> much come to a conclusion as crash headlong into the last page. But the trip
> has
> been exciting and wonderful.
>
> Finally, here's another brief description taken from the same page:
>
> From Bookmarks Magazine
> Critics compared this debut SF novel to works by Charles Stross,
> Rudy Rucker, John
> Wright, and even Philip K. Dick. Marusek examines present-day trends in
> technical
> and scientific advances, projects the social, biological, economic, and
> political
> consequences of such progress—and runs with it. Yet, although the author "is
> unstintingly
> generous in his speculations," notes SciFi.com, he is also "convincingly
> realistic."
> Inventive set pieces, complex and cliché-free characters with ordinary
> aspirations,
> and blurred lines between "real" and "artificial" thrilled all reviewers.
> Only the
> ending rang false in its brevity, suggesting that perhaps a sequel may be on
> its
> way.
>
> There is indeed a sequel, Mind Over Ship, available from BARD.
>
> Hope to have another good turnout to talk about this one. It looks like a
> great read.
>
> Evan
>
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