Calendar Update

Most thought Lest Darkness Fall was OK, but no great enthusiasm.  Adam's one sentence summary: "It was unbelievable".

The group chose Philip Jose Farmer's "The Unreasoning Mask" for November.

Notes:

• 10/15 meeting tentatively changed to 10/16.  Location tentatively at Janet Rae's office.  Confirmation and details to follow in a few days.
• Due to continuing interest in The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell, I've tentatively scheduled it for Jan 2014.  At our next meeting, we will discuss whether or not to go ahead with this suggestion.
• We may be switching to the 3rd Wednesday of the month or alternating days based on conference room availability.  Both Susan and Janet Rae have generously offered to host at their offices when possible.

Date           Title/Author                            Discussion Leader             Recommender

10/16           The Amulet of Samarkand     Darlene/Charles                 Phil Z. for Dec

                   (The Bartimaeus Trilogy, Book 1)
                   Jonathan Stroud 

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Nov            The Unreasoning Mask          James Henderson            TBD for Jan 2014 (The Sparrow)

                  Philip Jose Farmer

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Dec            TBD                                    Phil Z.                             TBD for Feb 2014

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 Jan           The Sparrow                        TBD                                 TBD for March
                 Mary Doria Russell

And thanks again to Marc-Paul for hosting.
Regards,
Phil Z.

Recommendations for November 2013 - Jim Henderson

The Dark Beyond the Stars by Frank M. Robinson. Orb Books, 404p. (1991)

After returning to his ship from an away mission, Sparrow wakes up with no memory of his past. While recovering, more accidents occur and it's not long before our main character realized someone is trying to kill him. Set aboard a ship that left Earth hundreds of years earlier, Robinson's book explores multigenerational space travel and asks what price we are willing to pay to find evidence of other life in the universe.

The Dark Beyond the Stars brings together an interesting plot with unusual characters on an extraordinary set. Yet, what makes this book succeed is the interactions of the characters. They love, they fight with words and fists, and they have sex. They find out that sex and love are not the same. Sparrow explores what it is to be a part of a group, as well as an outsider. Through him, Frank M. Robinson works out what it means to be human, both with our frailties and our nobilities. While most versions of this book are out of print, many copies can be found through Amazon. It is one of the great reads of sci-fi.



Dimension of Miracles by Robert Sheckley. Ace Books. (1968)

Where, among all of the possible configurations in time and space of Earth, is the Earth he left behind, and how can he find it? On his journeys Carmody meets a handful of disenchanted gods, and visits numerous permutations of the Earth, none of which is quite like the one he remembers. In one, he visits a town that talks to him in a gratingly solicitous tone, always making sure he's had enough dessert and is comfortable napping - but there is no other human being to be found. In another, everyone speaks in advertising slogans. In another, dinosaurs are sentient and avid practitioners of science. In another, Carmody seems to recognize everyone in his home town as old friends, except they are all famous movie stars.

Re-released in 2002 by NESFA Press as part of their glorious omnibus edition  .

Downbelow Station by C.J. Cherryh. DAW Books, 432p. (1981)

"The Earth Company built its first space stations to mine the resources of the solar system. Centuries later, it now controls only the first few stations reaching out from Sol. The interstellar distances, and the delays in crossing them, have lead the outer stations to independence. Further out, a Union has been formed, a fascist empire of a few free leaders and uncountable cloned slaves. The massive company fleet, once intended to enforce discipline in space and to battle the Union, now survives by leeching off of the stations it once protected. Pell station, the 10th one, orbits the first new world that is habitable by humans and more importantly, on which the first alien life has been discovered. For many years, the Konstantin family have ruled Pell Station and the colonies on Pell itself. Angelo and his two sons Damon and Emilio must fight to protect their fragile domain, now overloaded with refugees from neighbouring stations against overwhelming external forces and insidious internal subversion."

The Voyage of the Space Beagle by A. E. Van Vogt, Collier Books, 240p. (1950)

"Okay, here's your tip sheet. If you like whales, read Moby Dick. If you prefer dogs, try The Call of the Wild. If you like horses for your literary courses, go for Black Beauty. But if you're looking for creepy monsters from outer space, this is your book. Contrary to what you may have heard elsewhere, A.E. van Vogt doesn't actually use the term "bug-eyed monster" at any point of The Voyage of the Space Beagle, but whenever sci-fi scholars (no, that is not an oxymoron) refer to BEMs (yes, that is the accepted acronym), this is frequently the first literary work they mention, the granddaddy of them all." - Dana Goia

The Unreasoning Mask by Philip Jose Farmer. Overlook Press,243p. (1981)

All the skills and the soaring imagination which have won Farmer over a million dedicated fans are abundant in this highly charged, far-future, space adventure story. The Unreasoning Mask is the story of Ramstan, captain of al-Buraq, a rare model starship. It is capable of alaraf drive: instantaneous travel between two points of space. Three of these special ships were built to explore and make contact with the many sentient races inhabiting the universe. Suddenly, one of the ships mysteriously disappears. And then it is discovered that an unidentifiable "creature" is marauding through the universe, totally annihilating intelligent life on planet after planet.

Ranstan, a thoughtful and moral man, becomes a fascinated yet reluctant pawn in the hands of the strange forces which arise to fight the deadly destroyer. Ultimately, he is the one man who, in a fearful race against time, can stop the destruction. But what price must he pay for becoming the savior of intelligent-kind? The Unreasoning Mask is Farmer at his best--fast-paced, complex, slightly mystical, high-action adventure.

The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick. Vintage Books, 259p. (1962)

It's America in 1962. Slavery is legal once again. The few Jews who still survive hide under assumed names. In San Francisco, the I Ching is as common as the Yellow Pages. All because some 20 years earlier the United States lost a war--and is now occupied jointly by Nazi Germany and Japan.

This harrowing, Hugo Award-winning, novel is the work that established Philip K. Dick as an innovator in science fiction while breaking the barrier between science fiction and the serious novel of ideas. In it Dick offers a haunting vision of history as a nightmare from which it may just be possible to awake.

Behold the Man by Michael Moorcock. Overlook Press, 144p. (1969)

Karl Glogauer is a disaffected modern professional casting about for meaning in a series of half-hearted relationships, a dead-end job, and a personal struggle. His questions of faith surrounding his father's run-of-the-mill Christianity and his mother's suppressed Judaism lead him to a bizarre obsession with the idea of the messiah. After the collapse of his latest affair and his introduction to a reclusive physics professor, Karl is given the opportunity to confront his obsession and take a journey that no man has taken before, and from which he knows he cannot return. Upon arriving in Palestine, A.D. 29, Glogauer finds that Jesus Christ is not the man that history and faith would like to believe, but that there is an opportunity for someone to change the course of history by making the ultimate sacrifice.

First published in 1969, Behold the Man broke through science fiction's genre boundaries to create a poignant reflection on faith, disillusion and self-sacrifice. This is the classic novel that established the career of perhaps contemporary science fiction’s most cerebral and innovative author.

SUPER-CANNES by J. G. Ballard. Picador USA, 392p. (2000)

Eden-Olympia is more than just a multinational business park, it is a virtual city-state in itself, with the latest in services and facilities for the most elite high-tech industries. Isolated and secure, overlooking the luxurious French Riviera, the residents lack nothing. Yet one day Dr. Greenwood from Eden-Olympia's clinic goes on a suicidal shooting spree. Dr. Jane Sinclair is hired as his replacement, and she and her husband, Paul, are given Dr. Greenwood's house as a residence.

Unable to work while recovering from an accident, Paul spends his days taking a close look at the house where Dr. Greenwood shot himself and three hostages. He discovers clues in the house lead him to question Eden-Olympia's official account of the killings. Drawn into investigating the activities of the park's leading citizens, while Jane is lured deeper into Eden-Olympia's inner workings, Paul uncovers the dangerous psychological vents that maintain Eden-Olympia's smoothly running surface. An experiment is underway at Eden-Olympia, an experiment in power and brutality. Soon Paul finds himself in race to save himself and his wife before they are crushed by forces that may be beyond any one's control.

Man Plus by Frederick Pohl. Orb Books, 267p. (1976)

Ill luck made Roger Torraway the subject of the Man Plus Programe, but it was deliberate biological engineering which turned him into a monster -- a machine perfectly adapted to survive on Mars. For according to computer predictions, Mars is humankind's only alternative to extinction. But beneath his monstrous exterior, Torraway still carries a man's capacity for suffering. A bestselling, Nebula Award–winning novel when first published more than thirty years ago.

The Fifth Head of Cerberus by Gene Wolfe. Orb Books, 252p. (1972)

Gene Wolfe's The Fifth Head of Cerberus is a universally acknowledged masterpiece of science fiction by one of the field's most brilliant writers. Far out from Earth, two sister planets, Saint Anne and Saint Croix, circle each other in an eternal dance. It is said a race of shapeshifters once lived here, only to perish when men came. But one man believes they can still be found, somewhere in the back of the beyond.

In The Fifth Head of Cerberus, Wolfe skillfully interweaves three bizarre tales to create a mesmerizing pattern: the harrowing account of the son of a mad genius who discovers his hideous heritage; a young man's mythic dreamquest for his darker half; the bizarre chronicle of a scientists' nightmarish imprisonment. Like an intricate, braided knot, the pattern at last unfolds to reveal astonishing truths about this strange and savage alien landscape.

Looking 32,000 Years into the Past:

Looking 32,000 Years into the Past: Q&A With Author Kim Stanley Robinson - Yahoo! News

Calendar for Upcoming Meetings as of 8/21/2013

Note: 9/17 meeting officially changed to 9/24.

Date           Title/Author                            Discussion Leader             Recommender

9/24             Lest Darkness Fall               Marc-Paul                        James for Nov

                   L. Sprague deCamp

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10/15           The Amulet of Samarkand     Darlene                           TBD for Dec

                   (The Bartimaeus Trilogy, Book 1)
                   Jonathan Stroud

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11/19            TBD                                    TBD                                 TBD for Jan 2014

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12/17            TBD                                    TBD                                 TBD for Feb 2014

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Calendar for Upcoming Meetings (as of July 24, 2013)

Note: 9/17 meeting officially changed to 9/24.

Date           Title/Author                  Discussion Leader             Recommender

8/20             The Windup Girl           Charles                           Darlene for Oct

                   Paolo Baciqalupi

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9/24             Lest Darkness Fall       Marc-Paul                        TBD for Nov

                   L. Sprague deCamp

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10/15            TBD                            Darlene                           TBD for Dec

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11/19            TBD                           TBD                                 TBD for Jan 2014

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12/17            TBD                           TBD                                  TBD for Feb 2014

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Recommendations for September 2013 - Marc-Paul

The winner is Lest Darkness Fall.

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Lest Darkness Fall. L. Sprague deCamp.  (1939).  

Rarely do books have such a great influence on a genre as "Lest Darkness Fall" has had on science fiction. Frequently quoted as one of the ‘favorite’ books of many of the masters of the field, this book by L. Sprague de Camp helped establish time-travel as a solid sub-genre of science fiction.

Similar, thematically, to Mark Twain’s "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court", the book tells the tale of Martin Padway who, as he is walking around in modern Rome, is suddenly transported though time to 6th Century Rome.

Once in ancient Rome, Padway (now Martinus Paduei Quastor) embarks on an ambitious project of single-handedly changing history.

L. Sprague de Camp was a student of history (and the author of a number of popular works on the subject). In Lest Darkness Fall he combines his extensive knowledge of the workings of ancient Rome with his extraordinary imagination to create one of the best books of time travel ever written.

“Endlessly fascinating. The author knows a lot about Gothic Italy and almost as much about human nature, and he has a real gift for making the people of those days come alive.”—The New York Times

“Lest Darkness Fall [is] one of the best time travel stories ever written…”—A Reader’s Guide to Science Fiction

“Good fun.” —The New Yorker

“A work of real and stimulating imagination.” —Saturday Review of Literature

The Man in the High Castle.  Philip K. Dick (1962).

“The single most resonant and carefully imagined book of Dick’s career.” – New York Times

It's America in 1962. Slavery is legal once again. The few Jews who still survive hide under assumed names. In San Francisco, the I Ching is as common as theYellow Pages. All because some twenty years earlier the United States lost a war—and is now occupied by Nazi Germany and Japan.

This harrowing, Hugo Award-winning novel is the work that established Philip K. Dick as an innovator in science fiction while breaking the barrier between science fiction and the serious novel of ideas. In it Dick offers a haunting vision of history as a nightmare from which it may just be possible to wake.

Winner of the Hugo Award

Pavane.  Keith Roberts.  (1968). 

First published in 1968, these intricately linked short stories (broken into six measures and a coda) constitute a pioneering work of alternative history that has influenced many contemporary SF and fantasy writers. In them a twisted Church of Rome rules a modern world where steam locomotives are the primary mode of transportation, semaphores (telegraph signals moved by hand and read via binoculars) are used for communication and the horrors of the Inquisition continue. Why? Because in 1588 Queen Elizabeth I was assassinated, leading to the Spanish Armada's defeat of England and the subsequent suppression of the Protestant Church. But in this stately "dance" of stories, revolution becomes inevitable when society's natural cultural and scientific progress can no longer be contained. Roberts displays intense respect and love for history as he rewrites it with deft abandon. Three measures in particular stand out as profound today, just as they did when originally published: "The Signaller," which allegorically portrays a young guild member who pays a high price for his dedication to communication; "Brother John," a stunning portrayal of a devoted priest's traumatizing encounter with torture and his resultant reaction; and, finally, "The White Boat," another almost mythological piece about a young girl's obsession with a boat that can take her to freedom. All the other stories are excellent, but these are outstanding examples of why revolutions occur. Impact is doing a great service by reprinting this and other classics.

The Alteration.  Kingsley Amis. (1976).  

In Kingsley Amis’s virtuoso foray into virtual history it is 1976 but the modern world is a medieval relic, frozen in intellectual and spiritual time ever since Martin Luther was promoted to pope back in the sixteenth century. Stephen the Third, the king of England, has just died, and Mass (Mozart’s second requiem) is about to be sung to lay him to rest. In the choir is our hero, Hubert Anvil, an extremely ordinary ten-year-old boy with a faultless voice. In the audience is a select group of experts whose job is to determine whether that faultless voice should be preserved by performing a certain operation. Art, after all, is worth any sacrifice.

How Hubert realizes what lies in store for him and how he deals with the whirlpool of piety, menace, terror, and passion that he soon finds himself in are the subject of a classic piece of counterfactual fiction equal to Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle.

The Alteration won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best science-fiction novel in 1976.

1632.  Eric Flint.  (2000).

"The Ultimate Y2K Glitch....

1632 In the year 1632 in northern Germany a reasonable person might conclude that things couldn't get much worse. There was no food. Disease was rampant. For over a decade religious war had ravaged the land and the people. Catholic and Protestant armies marched and countermarched across the northern plains, laying waste the cities and slaughtering everywhere. In many rural areas population plummeted toward zero. Only the aristocrats remained relatively unscathed; for the peasants, death was a mercy.

2000 Things are going OK in Grantville, West Virginia. The mines are working, the buck are plentiful (it's deer season) and everybody attending the wedding of Mike Stearn's sister (including the entire membership of the local chapter of the United Mine Workers of America, which Mike leads) is having a good time.

THEN, EVERYTHING CHANGED....

When the dust settles, Mike leads a small group of armed miners to find out what's going on. Out past the edge of town Grantville's asphalt road is cut, as with a sword. On the other side, a scene out of Hell; a man nailed to a farmhouse door, his wife and daughter Iying screaming in muck at the center of a ring of attentive men in steel vests. Faced with this, Mike and his friends don't have to ask who to shoot.

At that moment Freedom and Justice, American style, are introduced to the middle of The Thirty Years War.

At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management)."

The Years of Rice and Salt.  Kim Stanley Robinson.  (2002).

Award-winning author Kim Stanley Robinson delivers a thoughtful and powerful examination of cultures and the people who shape them. How might human history be different if 14th-century Europe was utterly wiped out by plague, and Islamic and Buddhist societies emerged as the world's dominant religious and political forces? The Years of Rice and Salt considers this question through the stories of individuals who experience and influence various crucial periods in the seven centuries that follow. The credible alternate history that Robinson constructs becomes the framework for a tapestry of ideas about philosophy, science, theology, and politics.

At the heart of the story are fundamental questions: what is the purpose of life and death? Are we eternal? Do our choices matter? The particular achievement of this book is that it weaves these threads into a story that is both intellectually and emotionally engaging. This is a highly recommended, challenging, and ambitious work.

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell.  Susanna Clarke.  (2004).

It's 1808 and that Corsican upstart Napoleon is battering the English army and navy. Enter Mr. Norrell, a fusty but ambitious scholar from the Yorkshire countryside and the first practical magician in hundreds of years. What better way to demonstrate his revival of British magic than to change the course of the Napoleonic wars? Susanna Clarke's ingenious first novel, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, has the cleverness and lightness of touch of the Harry Potter series, but is less a fairy tale of good versus evil than a fantastic comedy of manners, complete with elaborate false footnotes, occasional period spellings, and a dense, lively mythology teeming beneath the narrative. Mr. Norrell moves to London to establish his influence in government circles, devising such powerful illusions as an 11-day blockade of French ports by English ships fabricated from rainwater. But however skillful his magic, his vanity provides an Achilles heel, and the differing ambitions of his more glamorous apprentice, Jonathan Strange, threaten to topple all that Mr. Norrell has achieved. A sparkling debut from Susanna Clarke--and it's not all fairy dust.

The Yiddish Policemen's Union.  Michael Chabon. (2007).

They are the "frozen Chosen," two million people living, dying and kvetching in Sitka, Alaska, the temporary homeland established for displaced World War II Jews in Chabon's ambitious and entertaining new novel. It is—deep breath now—a murder-mystery speculative-history Jewish-identity noir chess thriller, so perhaps it's no surprise that, in the back half of the book, the moving parts become unwieldy; Chabon is juggling narrative chainsaws here.The novel begins—the same way that Philip Roth launched The Plot Against America—with a fascinating historical footnote: what if, as Franklin Roosevelt proposed on the eve of World War II, a temporary Jewish settlement had been established on the Alaska panhandle? Roosevelt's plan went nowhere, but Chabon runs the idea into the present, back-loading his tale with a haunting history. Israel failed to get a foothold in the Middle East, and since the Sitka solution was only temporary, Alaskan Jews are about to lose their cold homeland. The book's timeless refrain: "It's a strange time to be a Jew."Into this world arrives Chabon's Chandler-ready hero, Meyer Landsman, a drunken rogue cop who wakes in a flophouse to find that one of his neighbors has been murdered. With his half-Tlingit, half-Jewish partner and his sexy-tough boss, who happens also to be his ex-wife, Landsman investigates a fascinating underworld of Orthodox black-hat gangs and crime-lord rabbis. Chabon's "Alyeska" is an act of fearless imagination, more evidence of the soaring talent of his previous genre-blender, the Pulitzer Prize–winning The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.Eventually, however, Chabon's homage to noir feels heavy-handed, with too many scenes of snappy tough-guy banter and too much of the kind of elaborate thriller plotting that requires long explanations and offscreen conspiracies.Chabon can certainly write noir—or whatever else he wants; his recent Sherlock Holmes novel, The Final Solution, was lovely, even if the New York Times Book Review sniffed its surprise that the mystery novel would "appeal to the real writer." Should any other snobs mistake Chabon for anything less than a real writer, this book offers new evidence of his peerless storytelling and style. Characters have skin "as pale as a page of commentary" and rough voices "like an onion rolling in a bucket." It's a solid performance that would have been even better with a little more Yiddish and a little less police. (May)Jess Walter was a finalist for the 2006 National Book Award for The Zero and the winner of the 2006 Edgar Award for best novel for Citizen Vince. 

11/22/63.  Stephen King.  (2011).

On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed. What if you could change it back? Stephen King’s heart-stoppingly dramatic new novel is about a man who travels back in time to prevent the JFK assassination—a thousand page tour de force.

Following his massively successful novel Under the Dome, King sweeps readers back in time to another moment—a real life moment—when everything went wrong: the JFK assassination. And he introduces readers to a character who has the power to change the course of history.

Jake Epping is a thirty-five-year-old high school English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching adults in the GED program. He receives an essay from one of the students—a gruesome, harrowing first person story about the night 50 years ago when Harry Dunning’s father came home and killed his mother, his sister, and his brother with a hammer. Harry escaped with a smashed leg, as evidenced by his crooked walk.

Not much later, Jake’s friend Al, who runs the local diner, divulges a secret: his storeroom is a portal to 1958. He enlists Jake on an insane—and insanely possible—mission to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination. So begins Jake’s new life as George Amberson and his new world of Elvis and JFK, of big American cars and sock hops, of a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and a beautiful high school librarian named Sadie Dunhill, who becomes the love of Jake’s life – a life that transgresses all the normal rules of time.

The Accidental Universe

Interesting article from Harper's:
Click this link for the article

Calendar of upcoming meetings

Date           Title/Author                  Discussion Leader             Recommender

7/16            Spin                             Philip                             Marc-Paul for Sept

                   Robert Charles Wilson

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8/20             The Windup Girl           Charles                           Darlene for Oct

                   Paolo Baciqalupi

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9/17              TBD                           Marc-Paul                        TBD for Nov

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10/15            TBD                            Darlene                           TBD for Dec

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Corrected Meeting Calendar thru 9/2013

Date           Title/Author                  Discussion Leader             Recommender

7/16            Spin                             Philip                             Marc-Paul for Sept

                   Robert Charles Wilson

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8/20             The Windup Girl           Charles                           TBD for Oct

                   Paolo Baciqalupi

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9/17              TBD                           Marc-Paul                        TBD for Nov

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We live in a science fiction reality

Eternal Sunshine of the Bionic Mind: Prosthesis Could Restore Memory - Yahoo! News

The Singularity Is Near: Mind Uploading by 2045? - Yahoo! News

The Singularity Is Near: Mind Uploading by 2045? - Yahoo! News

Recommendations for August 2013 - Charles Spohrer

Theme - New Discoveries and Cult Classics

Wool - Hugh Howey
Windup Girl - Paolo Bacigalupi
The Road - Cormac McCarthy
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
Altered Carbon - Richard K Morgan

What we've read so far August 2013

Daemon                      Suarez

Freedom                     Suarez

Calculating God             Sawyer

Inverted World              Priest

A Clockwork Orange          Burgess

Oryx and Crake              Atwood 

The Left Hand of Darkness   Le Guin

The Stars My Destination    Bester

We                          Zamyatin

Android's Dream             Scalzi

American Gods               Gaiman

Ringworld                   Niven

A Fire Upon the Deep        Vinge

When Gravity Fails          Effinger

The Diamond Age             Stephenson

Consider Phlebas            Banks

Spin                        Wilson 

The Windup Girl             Bacigalupi

Lest Darkness Fall          L. Sprague de Camp (September 2013)

Recommendations for July 2013

Spin Robert Charles Wilson 2005 Awards: ·   Winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novel, Nominated for Campbell and Locus SF Awards, 2006 ·   On 2006-10-12 won the Geffen Award as the Best Translated SF Novel in Israel for 2006 ·   In 2009 won the Seiun Award as the Best Foreign Language Novel of the Year in Japan for 2008	Amazon: Spin is Robert Charles Wilson's Hugo Award-winning masterpiece—a stunning combination of a galactic "what if" and a small-scale, very human story.  One night in October when he was ten years old, Tyler Dupree stood in his back yard and watched the stars go out. They all flared into brilliance at once, then disappeared, replaced by a flat, empty black barrier. He and his best friends, Jason and Diane Lawton, had seen what became known as the Big Blackout. It would shape their lives. The effect is worldwide. The sun is now a featureless disk—a heat source, rather than an astronomical object. The moon is gone, but tides remain. Not only have the world's artificial satellites fallen out of orbit, their recovered remains are pitted and aged, as though they'd been in space far longer than their known lifespans. As Tyler, Jason, and Diane grow up, a space probe reveals a bizarre truth: The barrier is artificial, generated by huge alien artifacts. Time is passing faster outside the barrier than inside—more than a hundred million years per year on Earth. At this rate, the death throes of the sun are only about forty years in our future.  Jason, now a promising young scientist, devotes his life to working against this slow-moving apocalypse. Diane throws herself into hedonism, marrying a sinister cult leader who's forged a new religion out of the fears of the masses. Earth sends terraforming machines to Mars to let the onrush of time do its work, turning the planet green. Next they send humans…and immediately get back an emissary with thousands of years of stories to tell about the settling of Mars. Then Earth's probes reveal that an identical barrier has appeared around Mars. Jason, desperate, seeds near space with self-replicating machines that will scatter copies of themselves outward from the sun—and report back on what they find. Life on Earth is about to get much, much stranger. From Publishers Weekly One night the stars go out. From that breathtaking "what if," Wilson (Blind Lake, etc.) builds an astonishingly successful mélange of SF thriller, growing-up saga, tender love story, father-son conflict, ecological parable and apocalyptic fable in prose that sings the music of the spheres. The narrative time oscillates effortlessly between Tyler Dupree's early adolescence and his near-future young manhood haunted by the impending death of the sun and the earth. Tyler's best friends, twins Diane and Jason Lawton, take two divergent paths: Diane into a troubling religious cult of the end, Jason into impassioned scientific research to discover the nature of the galactic Hypotheticals whose "Spin" suddenly sealed Earth in a "cosmic baggie," making one of its days equal to a hundred million years in the universe beyond. As convincing as Wilson's scientific hypothesizing is--biological, astrophysical, medical--he excels even more dramatically with the infinitely intricate, minutely nuanced relationships among Jason, Diane and Tyler, whose older self tries to save them both with medicines from Mars, terraformed through Jason's genius into an incubator for new humanity. This brilliant excursion into the deepest inner and farthest outer spaces offers doorways into new worlds--if only humankind strives and seeks and finds and will not yield compassion for our fellow beings. From Bookmarks Magazine Spin is not merely a SF thriller. It’s also a coming-of-age tale, a love story, a literary triumph, and an ecological and apocalyptic warning. The award-winning Wilson excels at all aspects of his tale, from the human angle to the political, religious, biological, medical, and astrophysical theorizing. The first part elicited "jaw-dropping amazement" from critics; luckily, the pace slows over the remaining pages to recount the next few decades on Earth (Emerald City). If the plot involving the terraforming and colonization of Mars seems farfetched, put it in the context of Wilson’s deep characterization and convincing relationships, and you’ll be OK. After all, Spin is "a book about faith: especially our faith in ourselves"
The Sparrow Mary Doria Russell 1996 The Sparrow has received the following awards: ·   The 1996 James Tiptree, Jr. Award ·   The 1998 Arthur C. Clarke Award ·   The 1998 British Science Fiction Association Awards in the Novel category ·   The 1998 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer ·   The 2001 Gaylactic Spectrum Hall of Fame (The Sparrow and Children of God together)	An Excerpt: It was predictable, in hindsight. Everything about the history of the Society of Jesus bespoke deft and efficient action, exploration and research. During what Europeans were pleased to call the Age of Discovery, Jesuit priests were never more than a year or two behind the men who made initial contact with previously unknown peoples; indeed, Jesuits were often the vanguard of exploration. The United Nations required years to come to a decision that the Society of Jesus reached in ten days. In New York, diplomats debated long and hard, with many recesses and tablings of the issue, whether and why human resources should be expended in an attempt to contact the world that would become known as Rakhat when there were so many pressing needs on Earth. In Rome, the questions were not whether or why but how soon the mission could be attempted and whom to send. The Society asked leave of no temporal government. It acted on its own principles, with its own assets, on Papal authority. The mission to Rakhat was undertaken not so much secretly as privately–a fine distinction but one that the Society felt no compulsion to explain or justify when the news broke several years later. The Jesuit scientists went to learn, not to proselytize. They went so that they might come to know and love God’s other children. They went for the reason Jesuits have always gone to the furthest frontiers of human exploration. They went ad majorem Dei gloriam: for the greater glory of God. Amazon.com Review In 2019, humanity finally finds proof of extraterrestrial life when a listening post in Puerto Rico picks up exquisite singing from a planet which will come to be known as Rakhat. While United Nations diplomats endlessly debate a possible first contact mission, the Society of Jesus quietly organizes an eight-person scientific expedition of its own. What the Jesuits find is a world so beyond comprehension that it will lead them to question the meaning of being "human." When the lone survivor of the expedition, Emilio Sandoz, returns to Earth in 2059, he will try to explain what went wrong... Words like "provocative" and "compelling" will come to mind as you read this shocking novel about first contact with a race that creates music akin to both poetry and prayer. From Publishers Weekly An enigma wrapped inside a mystery sets up expectations that prove difficult to fulfill in Russell's first novel, which is about first contact with an extraterrestrial civilization. The enigma is Father Emilio Sandoz, a Jesuit linguist whose messianic virtues hide his occasional doubt about his calling. The mystery is the climactic turn of events that has left him the sole survivor of a secret Jesuit expedition to the planet Rakhat and, upon his return, made him a disgrace to his faith. Suspense escalates as the narrative ping-pongs between the years 2016, when Sandoz begins assembling the team that first detects signs of intelligent extraterrestrial life, and 2060, when a Vatican inquest is convened to coax an explanation from the physically mutilated and emotionally devastated priest. A vibrant cast of characters who come to life through their intense scientific and philosophical debates help distract attention from the space-opera elements necessary to get them off the Earth. Russell brings her training as a paleoanthropologist to bear on descriptions of the Runa and Jana'ata, the two races on Rakhat whose differences are misunderstood by the Earthlings, but the aliens never come across as more than variations of primitive earthly cultures. The final revelation of the tragic human mistake that ends in Sandoz's degradation isn't the event for which readers have been set up. Much like the worlds it juxtaposes, this novel seems composed of two stories that fail to come together. BOMC, QPB and One Spirit Book Club selections.
Dawn Octavia E. Butler 1987	Dawn is the first novel in the trilogy, Lilith’s Brood (formerly known as the Xenogenesis trilogy). Lilith lyapo awoke from a centuries-long sleep to find herself aboard the vast spaceship of the Oankali. Creatures covered in writhing tentacles, the Oankali had saved every surviving human from a dying, ruined Earth. They healed the planet, cured cancer, increased strength, and were now ready to help Lilith lead her people back to Earth--but for a price. Amazon.com Review In a world devastated by nuclear war with humanity on the edge of extinction, aliens finally make contact. They rescue those humans they can, keeping most survivors in suspended animation while the aliens begin the slow process of rehabilitating the planet. When Lilith Iyapo is "awakened," she finds that she has been chosen to revive her fellow humans in small groups by first preparing them to meet the utterly terrifying aliens, then training them to survive on the wilderness that the planet has become. But the aliens cannot help humanity without altering it forever. Bonded to the aliens in ways no human has ever known, Lilith tries to fight them even as her own species comes to fear and loathe her. A stunning story of invasion and alien contact by one of science fiction's finest writers.
Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang Kate Wilhelm 1976 ·   Hugo Award for Best Novel and Locus Award for Best Novel, both 1977	Amazon.com Review The spellbinding story of an isolated post-holocaust community determined to preserve itself, through a perilous experiment in cloning. Sweeping, dramatic, rich with humanity, and rigorous in its science, Where Later the Sweet Birds Sang is widely regarded as a high point of both humanistic and "hard" SF, and won SF's Hugo Award and Locus Award on its first publication. It is as compelling today as it was then.
Her Smoke Rose Up Forever James Tiptree, Jr. (Alice Bradley Sheldon) Omnibus collection 1990	The James Tiptree, Jr. Award is given in her honor each year for a work of science fiction or fantasy that expands or explores our understanding of gender. The award-winning science fiction authors Karen Joy Fowler and Pat Murphy created the award in February 1991. Novels such as "Half Life" by Shelley Jackson and "Light" by M. John Harrison have received the award. Amazon.com Review These 18 darkly complex short stories and novellas touch upon human nature and perception, metaphysics and epistemology, and gender and sexuality, foreshadowing a world in which biological tendencies bring about the downfall of humankind. Revisions from the author's notes are included, allowing a deeper view into her world and a better understanding of her work. The Nebula Award–winning short story Love Is the Plan, the Plan Is Death, the Hugo Award–winning novella The Girl Who Was Plugged In, and the Hugo and Nebula Award–winning novella Houston, Houston, Do You Read? are included. Note: We could limit our reading to just the short story and 2 novellas mentioned above.
The Story Until Now Kit Reed 2013	Amazon: Called "one of our brightest cultural commentators" by Publishers Weekly, Kit Reed draws from life--with a difference. This new collection brings together thirty-four of her strong, original stories, from early classics like "The Wait" and "Winter" to six never-before-collected short stories, including "The Legend of Troop 13" and "Wherein We Enter the Museum." An early favorite, "Automatic Tiger," is the first in a series of Reed's stories about animals. There's a monkey who grinds out bestsellers with the help of a "creative writing" app. Her uncanny black dog can enter a crowded room and sit down at the feet of the next man to die. Her characters confront war in various arenas: mother/daughter battles, the war of the sexes, the struggles of men scarred by war. Kit Reed's self-described "transgenred" fiction is confirmation of an "extraordinary talent" (The Financial Times). The range and complexity of her work speaks for itself in The Story Until Now. "The title of Kit Reed's selection of her own short stories, 'The Story Until Now', reminds us that although she has been writing award-winning fiction for some 50 years, she's still accelerating. The scope of these 35 stories is immense, their variety unmatched. ... Her fictions are layered, their hearts revealed retrospectively."--Wall Street Journal
Ubik Philip K. Dick 1969 Time’s 100 Best Novels	Amazon: “From the stuff of space opera, Dick spins a deeply unsettling existential horror story, a nightmare you’ll never be sure you’ve woken up from.”—Lev Grossman, Time Glen Runciter runs a lucrative business—deploying his teams of anti-psychics to corporate clients who want privacy and security from psychic spies. But when he and his top team are ambushed by a rival, he is gravely injured and placed in “half-life,” a dreamlike state of suspended animation. Soon, though, the surviving members of the team begin experiencing some strange phenomena, such as Runciter’s face appearing on coins and the world seeming to move backward in time. As consumables deteriorate and technology gets ever more primitive, the group needs to find out what is causing the shifts and what a mysterious product called Ubik has to do with it all. “More brilliant than similar experiments conducted by Pynchon or DeLillo.”—Roberto Bolaño Time: An accident has occurred. Joe Chip and his colleagues—all but one of them—have narrowly escaped an explosion at a moon base. Or is it the other way round? Did Joe and the others die, and did the one fatality, Glen Runciter, actually survive? If Glen is dead and Joe alive, why does Joe keep getting weird messages from Glen? Is Joe’s experience of his post-accident life just a hallucination, played out as his flash-frozen body lies in suspended animation? Joe’s reality begins to fall apart, and a mysterious, vaguely mystical substance called Ubik—available in a handy spray can—appears to be the only thing that can stabilize it. From the stuff of space opera, Dick spins a deeply unsettling existential horror story, a nightmare you’ll never be sure you’ve woken up from.

May and June

Date                        Author/Book                                    Discussion Leader                                   Recommender for Future Meeting

5/21                        Scalzi - The Android's Dream               Adam                                                     Phil for July

6/18                        Banks - Consider Phlebas                  Janet Rae                                               TBD for August

7/16                        TBD

Janet Rae's Recommendations and Compilation of previous

(Janet boosted her recommendation for Banks' Consider Phlebas once she learned he is terminally ill. - PZ)

Suggested reading for June:
Throwback Pick:
I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov
Kindle: $7.99
The three laws of Robotics:
1) A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come
to harm.
2) A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would
conflict with the First Law.
3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with
the First or Second Law.
With these three, simple directives, Isaac Asimov changed our perception of robots forever when
he formulated the laws governing their behavior. In I, Robot, Asimov chronicles the
development of the robot through a series of interlinked stories: from its primitive origins in the
present to its ultimate perfection in the not-so-distant future--a future in which humanity itself
may be rendered obsolete. Extra credit: The Bicentennial Man.
JRM editorial comment: It is difficult to read these stories with a fresh eye, but Asimov invented
the “rules” of robots in the 1940s and ‘50s (the collection was originally published in 1950), and
today’s stories still follow these rules, or depart from them for shock effect. Note that there is
now a U.S. Robotics manufacturing computer stuff. (Technical term: Stuff.)
Amazon reviewer: “Dr Ike wrote more books than most people have read. Despite the fact that
they are hopelessly outdated in so many ways to be laughable, they are classics in every way. He
created and defined a new science in the robot stories. Want to be a writer? Want to be a
scientist? Hell, want to be a robot? You will need to first read this book. As Stan Lee would say,
‘Nuff said!”
Gamers Pick
Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline
Kindle: $8.99
At once wildly original and stuffed with irresistible nostalgia, READY PLAYER ONE is a
spectacularly genre-busting, ambitious, and charming debut—part quest novel, part love story, and
part virtual space opera set in a universe where spell-slinging mages battle giant Japanese robots,
entire planets are inspired by Blade Runner, and flying DeLoreans achieve light speed.
It’s the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place. Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes
his grim surroundings by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual
utopia that lets you be anything you want to be, a place where you can live and play and fall in love
on any of ten thousand planets.
And like most of humanity, Wade dreams of being the one to discover the ultimate lottery ticket that

lies concealed within this virtual world. For somewhere inside this giant networked playground,
OASIS creator James Halliday has hidden a series of fiendish puzzles that will yield massive
fortune—and remarkable power—to whoever can unlock them.
One reviewer on Amazon: “This one's for all the nerds, g33ks and phreaks out there!” (5 stars)
Another reviewer on Amazon: “I must agree with some of the other reviewers that the writing is
pretty substandard for a book that will ostensibly be placed on several "Best Of" lists by the end of
the year. The dialogue is forced and unrealistic, and the narrative style is far too expository. Also,
beware of McGuffins, at least one major Deus ex Machina, and preachy monologues just as the
tension is building for the final act. I feel that this book should be classified as "Young Adult
Fiction." Not only is that a better description of the reading level, but I can see teenagers being
captivated by the themes of escapism more than adults. Having said all of that, the plot did capture
my imagination as well as my attention. I thought about giving four stars, but there were just too
many glaring problems to do so. I have recommended the book to my geeky friends, but probably
won't bring it up to the ones that are more interested in literature.” (3 stars)
JRM read and enjoyed it, although probably did not get but about 8% of the nerdy references, and
does not play (and has never enjoyed playing) on-line games. Strong plot that moves very quickly.
Strong Female Characters Picks (3, but only one by a woman)
On Basilisk Station, by David Weber
Kindle cost: $0.00 (on April 8, 2013)
“On Basilisk Station” (or "HH1" as it's known to the faithful) is the first installment in David
Weber's cult hit Honor Harrington series, which has charmed the socks off schoolgirls and sailors
alike. Honor--the heroine of this fast-paced, addictive space opera--is a polished, plucky bulldog
of a naval officer, part Horatio Hornblower, part Miles Vorkosigan, part Captain Janeway, and with
a razor-clawed telepathic cat thrown over her shoulder for good measure. The series' kickoff puts
Commander Harrington at the helm of her first serious starship, the HMS Fearless. Her excitement
quickly fades--political maneuvering by top brass in the Manticoran navy has left her light cruiser
outfitted with a half-baked experimental weapons system. Against all odds, she still manages a
clever coup in tactical war games, a feat that earns her accolades--and enemies. The politicians she's
offended banish her to a galactic backwater, Basilisk Station. But that outpost soon proves to be a
powder keg, and it's up to Harrington and the Fearless crew to thwart the aggressive plans of the
Haven Republic. A perfect mix of military SF and high adventure.”
David Weber’s first published novels grew out of his work as a war game designer for the Task
Force game “ Starfire”. His novels range from epic fantasy (Oath of Swords, The War God's Own)
to space opera (Path of the Fury, The Armageddon Inheritance) to alternate history (1632 series with
Eric Flint) to military science fiction with in-depth characterization.
One Amazon Reviewer: “Ayn Rand in Space Starring a Cat Lady”
Another one: Full of techno-babble.
Another one: “I was planning to read a good piece of Science fiction literature, instead I got a video

game manual”
All one-star reviews.
My response: DON’T CARE. LOVE IT.
JRM editorial comment: Military SF (in the tradition of C.S. Forester’s Horatio Hornblower) this
is the first in a popular series based on the main character Honor Harrington (Honorverse
books/related stories number about 25 now). As my brother told me when he sent the book to me:
“I envy you getting to read this for the first time.” I have recommended it extensively and have yet
to be told it was not enjoyable. It is one of my favorite books, and one of my son’s favorite books,
and one of my gay girlfriend’s favorite books. So, something for everybody (or should I say it
appeals to everybody for something).
More military SF (with female main characters):
Cordelia’s Honor, by Lois McMaster Bujold
Shards of Honor and Barrayar both on Kindle – Barryar won the Hugo
Once a Hero, by Elizabeth Moon
Iron Sunrise, by Charles Stross
Kindle: $7.99
Begins with the death of a star, has as a main character, a disaffected teenager Wednesday
Shadowmist (upon whom, I swear, the main character in the Girl with the Dragon Tatoo was based),
and has a lot of techno-babble. Nevertheless, interesting read. The book begins with the death of
a star – and the panicked evacuation of the world orbiting it. But something is left behind.
Stross was “first code monkey on the team of a successful dot-com startup” and has a Scottish
anarchist’s view point of the future (which makes for some different takes on it).
Darkship Thieves, by Sarah A. Hoyt
Kindle: $6.83
(hey, a woman author)
Athena Hera Sinistra is the daughter of one of Earth's most rich and powerful men. She accompanies
him on a routine trip, playing the dutiful social accessory despite her naturally rebellious nature.
However a mutiny on her father's spaceship forces her into an escape pod headed directly for the
ancient and deadly Powertree Ring that "grows" power pods for Earth's energy needs. Despite the
risk of crashing into an explosive pod, she instead crashes into a dark and furtive ship that is stealing
power pods for a colony that Earth doesn't know exists. These "darkship thieves" are the descendants
of Earth's aborted attempt to genetically engineered a race of superior humans many hundreds of
years ago.
Libertarian author and blogger (“According to Hoyt”) and occasional guest blogger for Instapundit.
Naturalized American (born and educated in Portugal).

ADDITIONAL BOOKS previously suggested (including by me), but not picked:
Schild’s Ladder, by Greg Egan

Diaspora, by Greg Egan

Foundation, by Isaac Asimov

Consider Phlebas, by Iain M. Banks

The Man in the High Castle, by Philip K. Dick (it is Dickesque)

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. Dick (upon which Blade Runner is based)

Love in the Ruins, by Walker Percy

The City & the City, by China Mieville

The Sheep Look Up, by John Brunner

Her Smoke Rose Up Forever, by James Tiptree, Jr. (really, Alice Sheldon) [not on Kindle]

The Empress of Mars, by Kage Baker

Parable of the Sower, by Octavia Butler

To Say Nothing of the Dog, by Connie Willis (warning: time travel)

Cyteen, by C.J. Cherryh [not on Kindle] (Hugo award)
Alternate Realities, by C.J. Cherryh
Foreigner, by C.J. Cherryh
“I believe in the future: I'm an optimist for good reason---I've studied a lot of history, in
which, yes, there is climate change, and our species has been through it. We've never faced
it fully armed with what we now know, and if we play our cards right, we'll use it as a
technological springboard and carry on in very interesting ways. I also believe a writer owes
a reader a book that has more than general despair to spread about: I write about clever,
determined people who don't put up with situations, not for long, anyway: people who find
solutions inspire me.” This author has an asteroid, 77185 Cherryh, named after her.
Referring to this honor, the asteroid's discoverers wrote of Cherryh: "She has challenged us
to be worthy of the stars by imagining how mankind might grow to live among them."

Red Mars, by Kim Stanley Robinson

Ilium, by Dan Simmons
Simmons returns to sci-fi with this staggering variation on the alternate history theme. Three
storylines linked by Homer's Iliad come together in a riveting adventure that takes us from
post-tech Earth, to a Mars inhabited by scholarly Greek 'gods' and to Jupiter where sentient
robots quote Shakespeare. Absolutely dazzling modern sci-fi.

Hyperion, by Dan Simmons

Store of the Worlds, by Robert Sheckley

Deathbird Stories, by Harlan Ellison

The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells

War of the Worlds, by H.G. Wells

Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury

Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell

The City at World’s End, by Edmond Hamilton (yummy PULP!)

The Sparrow, by Mary Doria Russell
Priests in Spaaaace
(alternates: A Case of Conscience, by James Blish OR A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter
M. Miller, OR “The Star” by Arthur C. Clarke)