Hey hey!!! its that time again, and wow what a great book this was. Who killed which North? Alien? hmm lots more questions answered but hey come on in and discuss either this book or any other you wish. Take a look at Evans info below for times and places.
Original message:
Hello Folks,We had a great turnout at our most recent meeting, including someone new who we hope will become a regular, for a long, thoughtful discussion of our book, The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell, which most of us liked to varying degrees. For our next book, we’ve chosen a story about a murder mystery in the 22nd century by a master of the long tale. Our book for next month is Great North Road by Peter F. Hamilton. The next meeting of the Science Fiction club will be on Thursday, September 11, 2014.Place, Book Nook at:http://conference321.com/masteradmin/room.asp?id=rs7867a2369e0e <http://conference321.com/masteradmin/room.asp?id=rs7867a2369e0e>Time: 9 PM Eastern, 8 PM Central, 7 PM Mountain, 6 PM Pacific, and 1:00 UTC. Our book, Great North Road, is available from both BARD and Bookshare. The downloadable BARD version is at: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.nls/db.75996 <http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.nls/db.75996> And the Publisher Quality Bookshare version is at:https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/855638 <https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/855638>Here is the NLS synopsis: England, 2143. Detective Sidney Hurst investigates the murder of a clone from the world's most powerful family. Meanwhile, Angela Tramelo, incarcerated twenty years for a similar crime she claims she did not commit, is released and plans vengeance. Here is Bookshare’s Long Synopsis for Great North Road from the publisher:New York Times bestselling author Peter F. Hamilton's riveting new thriller combines the nail-biting suspense of a serial-killer investigation with clear-eyed scientific and social extrapolation to create a future that seems not merely plausible but inevitable. A century from now, thanks to a technology allowing instantaneous travel across light-years, humanity has solved its energy shortages, cleaned up the environment, and created far-flung colony worlds. The keys to this empire belong to the powerful North family--composed of successive generations of clones. Yet these clones are not identical. For one thing, genetic errors have crept in with each generation. For another, the original three clone "brothers" have gone their separate ways, and the branches of the family are now friendly rivals more than allies. Or maybe not so friendly. At least that's what the murder of a North clone in the English city of Newcastle suggests to Detective Sidney Hurst. Sid is a solid investigator who'd like nothing better than to hand off this hot potato of a case. The way he figures it, whether he solves the crime or not, he'll make enough enemies to ruin his career. Yet Sid's case is about to take an unexpected turn: because the circumstances of the murder bear an uncanny resemblance to a killing that took place years ago on the planet St. Libra, where a North clone and his entire household were slaughtered in cold blood. The convicted slayer, Angela Tramelo, has always claimed her innocence. And now it seems she may have been right. Because only the St. Libra killer could have committed the Newcastlecrime. Problem is, Angela also claims that the murderer was an alien monster.Now Sid must navigate through a Byzantine minefield of competing interests within the police department and the world's political and economic elite . . . all the while hunting down a brutal killer poised to strike again. And on St. Libra, Angela, newly released from prison, joins a mission to hunt down the elusive alien, onlyto learn that the line between hunter and hunted is a thin one.Finally, here’s a very positive review from Booklist taken from Amazon’s page for Great North Road: *Starred Review* Hamilton, the increasingly popular British science-fiction writer, tends to write long, but he also writes well. Someone else might have told this story in half the space, but it probably wouldn’t have been nearly as good. The story is simple enough: in the year 2143, a man is murdered, and Sidney Hurst, the detective assigned to the case, must wade through the evidence to find the culprit. Well, wade isn’t exactly the word, because the evidence is pretty sparse. Physical traces of the murderer are virtually nonexistent, the scene of the crime is unknown (the body was dumped), and even the victim’s identity is a mystery. Hurst knows the dead man is a North, a member of an extended family of clones, but nobody seems to be able to figure out which of the many hundreds of Norths he might be. Oh, and there’s also the tantalizing possibility that the unknown killer might be the same creature that slaughtered another North and 13 other people two decades ago. And that’s just the setup of this epic-size SF mystery (which morphs, the deeper you go into the story, into something else entirely). The author’s rapidly growing legion of fans will flock to this new title, and readers unfamiliar with Hamilton’s brand of SF should be steered in its direction. It’s a perfect introduction to his gifts for character design,dialogue, and sheer, big-idea-driven storytelling. --David PittIt’s a murder mystery, but knowing Peter Hamilton, it will be a lot more than that. All are welcome to come next month to discuss this book from one of the best around, and talk about SF books in general. This is one of those cases where the old saying “The more the merrier” really is true.Evan
-- Lelia
