Month End SF Book Group (Paramus, NJ) - 2006 Books Read Thread

[Phil]

This Thread is for Books Read by the Month End Book Group in 2006:


WAY STATION.................................Clifford Simak.........................11/30/06
THE ILLUSTRATED MAN..................Ray Bradbury...........................10/31/06
THE KEEPER...................................Sarah Langan..........................09/29/06

[Phil]

The following accounts are reprinted with permission from THE STARSHIP EXPRESS Copyright 2006 Philip J De Parto.


WAY STATION
The group enjoyed this Hugo Award Novel about a man who maintains a secret transport station for aliens traveling through our spiral arm. This is a quiet book, and Pam felt that the lead character reminded her of Gary Cooper. About the only negative we came up with was that the book relied on convenient plotting in the form of the special abilities of the heroine, Lucy.

[Note: This book won the 1964 Hugo Award for Best Science Fiction Novel.]

THE ILLUSTRATED MAN
Three different editions of the collection were brought to the gathering. They differed slightly in content with Barry's hardcover including the story "The Illustrated Man" which was omitted from the editions Elizabeth and Phil brought with them. On the other hand, "The Fire Balloons" was missing in Barry's copy but present in those of Liz and Phil. A similar sidebar concerned Mars set stories like "The Other Foot" which were not present in THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES.

As for the stories themselves, many are classics. If you have never read "The Veldt," "Kaleidoscope," "The Highway," "The Man," "The Exiles," and so on, buy or borrow a copy of the book and give yourself a treat.

THE KEEPER
Sarah Lagnan's debut horror novel, THE KEEPER, was the featured book. Unfortunately, Phil was the only one to have actually read it (although Pam was half way through), and he was by no means at the top of his form, so the evening became a series of enjoyable digressions. These included Barry's announcement that he expected to have the third book in this series, THE KEEPEST, in about 18 years. (In Barry's reality, Sarah Langan's THE KEEPER is the sequel to F Paul Wilson's THE KEEP.) There was also an in depth analysis of Phil's eating habits ("Do you always eat the white half of the cookie first? Is it racial, or is it a comment on the Frank Gorshen episode of STAR TREK?") An analysis of Pam's decision to eat her broccoli and then her chicken was forestalled by the declaration, "I eat in alphabetical order." All in all, it was a pleasant, if not terribly informative, first meeting.

[Note: Sarah Langan spoke at the August 2006 Meeting of the Science Fiction Association of Bergen County.]