Science Fiction Book Qlub 7: The Return

It happened!

After a bit of a stretch due to travel and summer vacations and whatnot we finally reconvened the SFSFBQ for yet another great installment.

We met down at the Chieftain at Howard and 5th, where we had Irish Nachos, Fried Mashed Potatoes, and beer! Yum!

Up for discussion this time around: Frederik Pohl's 1976 Nebula Award winning Man Plus. We chose this because someone requested we read a robot book. Unfortunately, while robots certainly show up in many books and are even main characters (Dan Simmons' Ilium and Olympos, Iain Banks' Culture series and Against A Dark Background, China Mieville's Perdido Street Station), the books out there that are classics and about robots are penned mostly by one guy mostly: Asimov. His Robot Series, and the contributions by Silverberg (Positronic Man) are definite must read classics, however some people in the Qlub had already read those books and the consensus was: they are fucking boring. They are. Come on, you have to admit it, they are. And they are hard to reread. So, we ended up more in the cyborg genre, which was close enough.

Man Plus is the story of changing a human into a being capable of surviving on Mars, via technological implantation and augmentation. The book brings up many questions of identity, manipulation via the senses and data, sexuality, and acceptance.

Some of the topics that came up were:

-Social acceptance and Manpons:

-Alien intelligence, evolution, and xenopsychology
-The trope of "Emergent" intelligence: The Terminator, Ken MacLeod's The Star Fraction.
-Proper bedside manner.

The general consensus of the group was: Man Plus was definitely not a bad read. It was quick, straightforward, and light, though none of the characters were very realistic and the ending left many lose threads dangling (they emasculate the main character... literally, but with the intention of someday returning him to a human body... but where were they going to get replacement parts for his junk?). It introduced to the reader many topics and ideas, and did not attempt to answer any of them, and portrayed some pretty dated ideas on future sexuality. That being said, that book is screaming to be updated.

We concluded SFSFBQ with a new genre to explore: Space Opera!

Science Fiction Book Qlub 6.5

We continued on with Book Qlub 6.5, reading the latter half of John Joseph Adams' collection of dystopian stories, Brave New Worlds.

This entry may be updated later, when recollection of the meet-up is fleshed out, but we eventually chose our next novel to read:

Frederik Pohl's 1976 Nebula Award winning Man Plus.

Book Qlub 6

For Book Qlub 6 we met up at The Sycamore over on Mission Street. It was chilly, and the yummy French fries ran out, but there was beers and conversations, so it was a success! Yesssss!

We had many great discussions on the short stories we read out of the Brave New Worlds dystopian collection edited by John Joseph Adams. We covered a good foundation of dark and heavy stories, most of us agreeing that while they were awesome, one could only read so many in one sitting. Some of them ("O, Happy Day!", "Pop Squad") were quite intense, but great!

We had a long discussion of Shirley Jackson's classic "The Lottery." For many of us the signifigance and point of the story seemed pretty maleable. Here's what Jackson said about her own story in the SF Chronicle (July 22, 1948):

"Explaining just what I had hoped the story to say is very difficult. I suppose, I hoped, by setting a particularly brutal ancient rite in the present and in my own village to shock the story's readers with a graphic dramatization of the pointless violence and general inhumanity in their own lives."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lottery

At any rate, there were so many good stories that we didn't get to (it's a pretty big collection) that we went ahead and decieded to split the stories in half and read the latter for Book Qlub 6.5.

Science Fiction Book Qlub 5!

The Qlub made it out to Pakwan on Monday. February 21.

Here's a short (and probably misremembered) recap of book qlub 5:

The book: The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson

The overall assessment: thumbs up

The discussion: here's where I get a little foggy, the conversation jumped around a lot, but the conversation rambled through topics, including but not limited to: the rise of technology; the fall of interpersonal communication; the intrigue in the overlap of the primer and real life (both in moving the story along and the literal intersection of the two); the references of child soldiers; simultaneous classism and communism; the writer's engaging style; the abrupt ending and the possible reasons; and the author's overall writing style.

The location: Pakwan - we enjoyed delicious Indian/Pakistani food while discussing The Diamond Age. I believe everyone thought it was a good book qlub meeting location.

All in all, it was a successful book qlub, once again!

As for the next sci-fi book qlub reading, there was agreement to try out a book of short stories, but we did not settle on any particular book. Please send me suggestions by Friday and I'll send out an aggregate list for a vote. Remember we'd like to stick to Hugo and Nebula award winners, although I believe it was decided that this is not a rigid rule.

Onward to the next book!
Kristina

Germination!

Yea! The San Francisco Science Fiction Book Qlub has germinated!

After 3.5 meet-ups and 4 books, things are getting more established, and it looks like this little seedling is going to make it into the new year!

Born out of conversations amongst friends falling along a spectrum of Sci-Fi fandom, the SFSFBQ started as an exploration of Feminist Sci-Fi, and as an excuse for rabid Science Fiction fans to finally get around to reading classics that fell through the cracks.

Using the Nebula Award winners and nominees as a guide for choices (but not limited to), we've continued to read strong feminist writers as well as classics of the field and promising new writers. So far we've read:

The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin
The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five, by Doris Lessing
The Parable of the Sower, by Octavia E. Butler
The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi

Next up as the first SFSFBQ book for 2011 is a Sci-Fi staple: The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer, by Neal Stephenson. So, grab a copy, get to reading and get ready for a meet-up sometime in February!

-SFSFBQ

ps- the previous posts are mostly for recording our meetups and books, you know, like a log. the format from here on out is to use this to record discussions and minutes of the our awesome Qlub, and for people to post comments to continue our mind-blowing discussions. so, please! comment! post! go for it!

pps- also, anyone in the Qlub can be an administrator, just contact me (mark) and I will knight ye.

Book Qlub 4.5: The Windup Girl

We made it out to Toronado on a rainy sunday, we finally had a quick half-assed discussion of Connie Willis' Doomsday Book, and though it was brief, we had a great discussion of Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl. Once again, it seemed that while everyone had issues with different aspects of the book, over all (and excepting what appears to be a glaring plot hole on Page 201) people really enjoyed the book, and as a debut novel, it was pretty impressive.

I personally recommend people follow up with Bacigalupi by reading his 2004 short story "The People of Sand and Slag."

Also, we decided that our next book would be sci-fi staple The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer, by Neal Stephenson, and for a meet up the first Sunday of February, tentatively.

Book Qlub 4: Doomsday Book

Do to us being lame, we didn't actually get this book qlub off the ground. T'was very sad, but all it did was redouble our efforts to commit to book qlub!