Genre Book Club
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The Avid Readers Genre Book Club will make its debut on Thursday September 4 in the Shiloh Room 6:30-7:30PM. This group will meet the first Thursday of each month. The idea behind the Genre Club is to highlight a literary genre each quarter, reading three titles from that quarter’s chosen genre. This quarter, we’ll delve into a genre that is near and dear to my heart: Science Fiction.
I’ve picked some titles that will hopefully appeal to afficianados of the genre as well as novices. First, on Septmber 4, well discuss Alastair Reynolds’ Chasm City. Besides being a personal favorite, Reynolds has become a leading voice in the genre, garnering rave reviews and award nominations for nearly all of his works. Chasm City, Reynolds’ second novel, injects his usual space opera and technopunk trappings into a noir framework.
Next up, for October 2, is Alfred Bester’s classic The Stars My Destination. Bester has the distinction of being the recipient of the first Hugo award. He worked in virtually every medium open to Science Fiction, writing novels, short stories, comic books, screenplays, and radio play episodes. The Stars My Destination is classic Sci-Fi from the golden age of the genre, giving the reader high adventure set in the cold depths of outer space. It is a swiftly paced novel of revenge and redemption that is a certified classic.
Rounding out the quarter November 4, we’ll take a look at Neal Stephenson’s cyberpunk classic Snow Crash. Often mentioned alongside William Gibson’s Neuromancer as the prototype of the cyberpunk Science Fiction movement, Snow Crash is the story of a near future in which a pizza deliveryman named Hiro Protagonist must rescue a friend whose brain may have been destroyed by an experimental drug. Employing everything from plausible technological innovations to ancient Sumerian mythology, Snow Crash is a big, ambitious novel that maintains a fast pace throughout.
After that? Why we’ll explore another literary genre. Stay tuned for details. They will be forthcoming (I promise this time).
Comment by Brad Carter — August 28, 2008 #