Book Club on the Edge of Forever - Piranesi

A few of us decided to start a book club for genre fiction (science fiction/fantasy). And while we were discussing, we thought we'd record it. The podcast is called The Book Club on the Edge of Forever.

The first months selections?

All Systems Red by Martha Wells (18 points) - "In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by  Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety.

But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn't a primary concern. On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests shadowed by their Company-supplied 'droid, a self-award SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as "Murderbot." Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is.

But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth."

Hard Magic by Larry Correia (13 points) - The story follows Jake Sullivan, a "Heavy" who has the ability control and manipulate gravity, density and mass. During a routine operation to take down a fellow "active", Sullivan becomes caught up with a secret society of "actives" called The Grimnoir as they try to save the world.

The Warrior's Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold (19 points) - Story is about a fellow named Miles, the son of a lord of Barrayar, who due to some physical issues wasn't able to get into the military academy like he was expected to. So while feeling down he finds himself stumbling into trouble, and after some escalation finds himself leading a mercenary group sort of by accident. Part of a series, but none of the other books before or after are necessary to enjoy as its the first to focus on Miles (previous one featured him not quite born yet).

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke (20 points) - Piranesi’s house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house.

There is one other person in the house―a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known.

The point values were the books' final points in a ranked voting system. I find ranked voting works great for small numbers of people with a submission for each one. The numbers rarely ever land evenly.

My first vote was for All Systems Red, which was my submission. It was a light, informal book that typifies trends I've noticed in 'modern' fiction. "Informal" is the best word I can think of for it. It's one of those things I don't hate, but I'm not used to. 

When a book isn't too worried about presenting itself as not a book, I find it's hard for me to get engrossed in it, as though I'm not reading an overly long pamphlet, or breathless recounting of an TTRPG campaign or round of video gaming. The value it lacks is "pretentiousness" and I missed that when reading.

But it was still fun. I've read it before and enjoyed it quite a bit. Because of its unpretentiousness I was constantly aware of the tropes and shortcuts and plot points that became inevitable.

Sometimes when I read a good book, I'll put it down and savor the tension. Ask myself what might happen next. Absorb a plot twist. I tore though ASR and figured the structure out while taking a piss and eating dinner. It was an okay book at best, but that's not faint praise after two seasons of Star Trek: Picard.

Piranesi was my next choice. It seemed unique. A high concept speaking in the language of stories told around campfires, whether they were told about Zeus or hook-handed convicts. Piranesi didn't disappoint. It falters a bit at the end, but it's hard to keep the excitement up after the mystery is revealed. 

I teared up at the end because the story and characters had earned it, but the final act was 'merely' a well-told story in an exotic location. The climax lacked the mystery of the first half of the book and the emotional gut-punch of the wrap-up. 

A good book, and one I recommend.

The Warrior's Apprentice sounded like a typical story of an atypical hero being thrust into heroism. That it was a book in a fantasy series did whatever the opposite of "excite" is. It "cold water to the junk"-ed me.

But if TWA was cold water to the junk, Hard Magic was a jet of North Atlantic seawater shot into my pants until my testicles were test-icicles. My favorite part of HM's pitch was the conjunctions. If I was a vampire my crucifixes would be phrases like "secret society," "the ability to control," and "during a routine operation," along with any proper noun which literally has the word "grim" it.

Add to that that implication of some boorish magic system, and I practically bared my pens at it and hissed the title of Poe story before recoiling into the shadows of a nearby writers circle.

You can find The Book Club at the Edge of Forever here: https://bookclubontheedgeofforever.podbean.com/