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 this months selections?
The City and the City by China Miéville (17 points) - Inspector Tyador Borlú, of the Extreme Crime Squad in the fictional East European city-state of Besźel, investigates the murder of Mahalia Geary, a foreign student found dead in a Besźel street with her face disfigured. He soon learns that Geary had been involved in the political and cultural turmoil involving Besźel and its "twin city" of Ul Qoma. His investigations, which start in his home city of Besźel, lead him to Ul Qoma to assist the Ul Qoman police in their work, and eventually result in an examination of the legend of Orciny, a rumoured third city existing in the spaces between Besźel and Ul Qoma.
Disbanded by Frances Pauli (18 points) - From the amazon page: Sookahr the architect is just one of many snakes within Serpentia, an underground society where snakes and their rodent companions have lived in peace for as long as anyone can remember. Their destinies are preordained at birth, when they are fit with skymetal bands to enhance the telekinetic powers that aid them everyday.
Given an opportunity unheard of for a snake of his caste, Sookahr and Kwirk, his mouse aid, venture to a recently-destroyed outpost at the far edges of Serpentia, hoping to redesign the structure and prove his skill as an architect. But something watches from the jungle, and whatever attacked the outpost is poised to strike again. Will Sookahr's drive to rise above his station get his team killed? Or will he respond to the call he's heard since birth, and be the hero who can save them all?
Storm Front by Jim Butcher (20 points) - Harry Dresden is the best at what he does. Well, technically, he's the only at what he does. So when the Chicago P.D. has a case that transcends mortal creativity or capability, they come to him for answers. For the "everyday" world is actually full of strange and magical things - and most of them don't play well with humans. That's where Dresden comes in. Takes a wizard to catch a - well, whatever.
There's just one problem. Business, to put it mildly, stinks. So when the police bring him in to consult on a grisly double murder committed with black magic, Dresden's seeing dollar signs. But where there's black magic, there's a black mage behind it. And now that mage knows Dresden's name. And that's when things start to get... interesting.
Machine of Death, an anthology (15 points)- The stories 'Flaming Marshmallow' to 'Aneurysm.' It's a reread for me. Might be hard to find. Deals with many themes of death--cancer, war, starvation, suicide, etc.--and has some sex. Nothing gratuitous in either department, but it can be intense. "Machine of Death" is a collection of short stories from different authors about a world in which a machine can prick your finger and print a small piece of paper that is factually related to your death.
Quote from the back "'OLD AGE, it had already turned out, could mean either dying of natural causes, or shot by a bedridden man in a botched home invasion.'" Contributors include internet people like Ryan North (who is also the editor), Randall Munroe, Christopher Hastings, Dean Trippe, and Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw.
As always, the points are the end result of ranked voting from all 5 of our members.
My first vote was for The City and the City. I've heard good things about China Miéville. I'm interested in a high-concept story that explores a futuristic world through the lens of an investigation. I mean, when we read this, I hadn't had my perceptions of detectives on the edge completely re-created by watching The Expanse.
Thomas Jayne was really good in that. It was just a trope until I watched him make it work. Dude is messy and conflicted.
Disbanded was such an interesting concept I had to pick it second. There's the telepathic headband angle which, truth be told, I didn't love (read: "had mild distaste for"). The idea of a snakes + rodents society had a lot of potential. And the part slipped in at the end about the price of ambition and rising above his station gave me hope that the story itself would deal with foundational aspects of character instead of being a sequence of events in a novel world.
I wasn't 100% on that, but I was willing to roll the dice.
My own selection, Machine of Death, was my last pick. Honestly, it's a good read. I also know that it doesn't have an audio book and that reading half of something--even an anthology--might be jarring. No one wants to pay for half of a book OR commit to reading the second half.
The topic is morbid as well. I mean, I dig it, but most folks don't. The ideas though.
My third choice was our winner, Storm Front. It's the first book in The Dresden Files series. Looking back, that blurb is as mediocre as the book. It's soundly constructed, but dreadfully broad.
Later, Grym said that Jim Butcher had intentionally written it broad. He made it a simple, basic story and it sold like gangbusters. It's sad, but true. Allegedly, the later Dresden Files books get a little deeper, but I couldn't imagine it being that much better.
It's a stock-as-hell story. The tension is kept tight--almost too tight to be honest, which reflects the craft of the book.
And while the magic has rules, it's hard to balance characters forgetting the rules of magic with new rules seeming to come out of nowhere. It feels squishy and not satisfying for me.
The romance plots are fucking woeful and the whole thing is laden with straight guy...straightness, especially when it comes to women. The worst I can say about it is that it's a book straight out of the year 2000 which was written for me and only defined a genre.
You can find The Book Club at the Edge of Forever here: https://bookclubontheedgeofforever.podbean.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment