Review: 21st Century Science Fiction by David G. Hartwell, Patrick Nielsen Hayden

21st Century Science Fiction is a collection of short stories curated by Patrick Nielsen Hayden and David G Hartwell. They set out to create an anthology of stories by authors who rose to prominence since the year 2000 (regardless of whether the authors had published anything before that). For each of these authors, one story is included, preceded by an introduction by the editors.

The list of authors is impressive: every one of the writers included in the anthology is respected, influential within the scifi genre, and critically acclaimed / award winning. Many are also bestselling writers.

Readers of my blog may know that I rarely review short story collections. The reason is simple: I rarely finish reading them, even if they are full of brilliant stories. They are just too easy to put down between stories and then not pick up again. However, 21st Century Science Fiction is our February read in my Scifi & Fantasy Book Club in Cardiff, which helped nudge me into reading the whole lot. Even with additional motivation, it's an unusual achievement: the last few times we read short story anthologies in the group, I failed to read all tales.

The reason I was able to complete 21st Century Science Fiction, despite its hefty size, is that the stories were of a really high standard. Even the two or three that I didn't enjoy were well crafted and well written, so I could at least appreciate the craftsmanship that went into them, even if they didn't make me want to read anything more by their authors.

As such, 21st Century Science Fiction is exactly what we were looking for in our book club: a taster introducing us to contemporary writers. A collection of trailers that will hopefully help us pick some future reads. A broad spectrum overview of the best of the genre. Oh, and in many cases, it was good fun / thrilling / exciting / thought provoking, too.

I look forward to our discussion tomorrow - I'm sure everyone found some stories they loved and some they didn't, and it'll be interesting to see what everyone thinks of the stories.

Highly recommended.

Rating: 4.5/5
(The intros before the stories did, in my view, give away too much about the stories themselves in many cases)

Review: The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson / AND: Cardiff Booktalk

I run a book club: the Cardiff Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Club. So, when I heard of a Cardiff BookTalk on a genre novel, I was very curious about it - both the book and the BookTalk - and decided to attend. This is a review in two parts: first the book, then the BookTalk.

The Haunting of Hill House is an influential classic of the horror/suspense genre. Ignorant as I was, I thought it must have been written in the 19th century. As a matter of fact, it was written and published in the 1950s - and quickly established itself as the ultimate haunted mansion story. It was rapidly turned into a movie (itself a classic of the horror genre, remade in 1999 when a movie studio wanted to revive the horror genre & re-established a classic horror brand).

So, if the basic premise sounds a little familiar, that's because it is. Whether you've seen House on Haunted Hill, or Haunted Mansion, or The Shining, or Monster House, or any of the other haunted house movies (or computer games!), chances are, it will owe some of its story-DNA to The Haunting of Hill House.

Doctor Montague is an eccentric academic with an interest in the supernatural. Once he hears about Hill House and its hauntings, he becomes obsessive about investigating it for his book. He makes arrangements with the owners to stay in the house for a summer with a few selected guests. He picks the guests by looking for people who have been involved in supernatural phenomena before. Before Google, this involves searching of newspaper archives and detective work, but eventually he has a list of people to invite, and two of his invitees do take him up on the offer.

Eleanor is a woman in her thirties whose life is undergoing changes: her mother has just died, and until her death, Eleanor had been looking after her controlling mother, secluded and isolated from the world. Theodora is a younger, extroverted independent woman who has had an argument with her flatmate and decides spontaneously to take up Dr Montague's offer primarily to take some time out and give herself and her friend some breathing space. The final guest is Luke, a nephew of the owners of the house (the Sandersons), who is imposed upon Dr Montague because the Sanderson family are worried that Luke is turning into a bit of a lazy layabout and cad, so they want him away from mischief and in a role of supposed responsibility for the summer.

The book follows Eleanor most closely (allowing itself occasional sojourns to very briefly follow another character). Eleanor is a shy, repressed woman, meek and quite needy. She's been living with her sister's family since her mother's death, and she's a bit bullied by her sister (and her husband), just as she'd been bullied by her mother before. Even taking the car - which she has half paid for - to Hill House is an act of rebellion she can only carry out in secret as her sister decides she "cannot allow" Eleanor to use the car.

En route, Eleanor submerges into her imagination a bit - daydreaming about a future, a home, but also having premonitions that this might be her "last chance" to turn around. When she arrives at Hill House, the sense of wrongness is all-pervading, not helped by the sinister groundsman and his equally sinister wife. Before long, Eleanor is frightened almost out of her mind, only brought back to a semblance of equilibrium when Theo shows up. (No other guests or hosts had arrived before them).

From then on, the story takes the form of a series of nights and days in the house, with increasingly creepy incidents each night terrorising the residents, while each morning the elation of having survived turns the night into distant memories that seem far removed from reality. Meanwhile, Eleanor fixates on Theo and Luke, seeing them as instant best friends / family / potential lovers, and flipping to and fro between subservient affection and fierce jealousy. Her social awkwardness isn't helped by the playful pattern of conversations in the group, which is half-imaginary-play, half self-mockery: Eleanor tries to take part, but is out of her depth, fretting over everything.

The house, described as insane in the book (it is very much a character in the story, with agency and a mind), soon zooms in on Eleanor and makes her the focus of its warnings and hauntings. As a meek person, Eleanor resents this. Oddly, the more the house focuses on her, the less the others think of her, as if they barely remember she exists when she doesn't do something to demand their instant attention.

The Haunting of Hill House is a novel of rare effectiveness at unsettling the reader. It's a bit old-fashioned in terms of the supernatural events, but it's psychologically all the more powerful because of the characters, their interactions, their dialogue, and the sense that people minds and memories are being subtly corrupted by the house. The story builds and builds tension, not through the hauntings, but through what happens to Eleanor's thoughts...

As perfect as a haunted house horror novel can be.

Rating: 4/5

Cardiff BookTalk

Cardiff BookTalk, which is run by Cardiff University, describes itself as "The book group with a difference". That difference being its use of expert academics to give talks at the group.

The format is described as follows:

BookTalkers listen to diverse interdisciplinary research topics which expand on themes in the very best classic and contemporary literature. Each speaker addresses the books from their own specialism, and this can lead to fascinating insights about the literary, social and cultural implications of the novels we read. The talks, given by University academics who are specialists in their field, as well as other expert speakers, will be followed by an open discussion session with the audience, and we want as many people to share their perspectives as possible. If you’re interested in discussing the big ideas behind great books, and want to discover new ways of looking at novels, then join us for our next session!

So, what is it like? Well, there were three academic giving 15-20 minute talks. The first talk was very much about The Haunting of Hill House (and the female gothic). The second talk was about how Haunting of Hill House compares with a novella that no one else had read (and which there is no reason to believe that Shirley Jackson had read). And the third talk was about the psychosocial aspects of the book and Eleanor's character in particular. (The academic didn't like Eleanor, or any of the characters, or the book as a whole, as she made clear at the start of her talk, apparently agreeing to give the talk only to find it an annoying chore to prepare for when the time came)

The talks did illuminate some things. The names of characters are riffs on other famous gothic stories. The book is not just an influential horror novel, it is also a bit of a parody of haunted house novels. (I was completely oblivious to the book being anything but earnest when I read it). The name Theodora is intentionally chosen to be ambiguous about gender, and she is called Theo throughout the book (which I had not noticed). The extent to which Eleanor is an odd-one-out in her society was another thing I had not really thought about when reading the text. I had not realised how needy Eleanor really was (and how much of a daydreamer) until the talks - largely because I probably have some character flaws in common with Eleanor! And the relevance of an early incident, in which Eleanor bumps into an old lady, flummoxed everyone - an incident I had largely forgotten. (I'd read it as an example of Eleanor basically being very meek and a bit gullible, easy to take advantage of. I did not realise that another reference later on to an old woman praying for her was the same old woman she'd bumped into). So yes, lots of things to think about, which gives real value to the talks.

However, on the whole, the event was also very frustrating. Turning up a few minutes early, the building was locked and security were unaware that there was going to be a talk. Eventually, someone unlocked the doors, only to leave everyone to wait for half an hour beyond the start time in an atrium. Hot drinks were provided, but it was bizarre - the audience just had to wait and loiter. The talks themselves were preceded by an advert for another University event, and an academic giving intros. Some of the talks were in academese, rather than plain English - but needlessly so. And I could not help but be alienated at being given a talk about a text no one had read (what does it add learn that there is another story, which neither the author of the book nor the attendees at the Booktalk had read, which also features some gothic stuff and a wallpaper? Fair enough as an essay topic, but as a talk?),  or a talk which was built on dislike for the book and a sense of having to do a chore?

Finally, while the website describes the post-talk time as a discussion, it was actually firmly presented as a Q&A. Don't you hate it when people at a Q&A are only interested in making their own points and not actually asking questions? Well, if the website tells you it'll be a discussion (so you think your points are welcome) and the host asks the audience for questions (rather than points), what are you supposed to do? People did make points and ask questions, but it definitely wasn't what I expected - and it did not feel like a group discussion at all, to have a sizeable audience in a tiered lecture theatre and three academics at the front.

In principle I very much like the idea of having expert academics at reading groups. Listening to a well-informed, relatively brief talk is great. And I love the idea of the discussion of the book being chaired or guided by an expert / academic. However, the actual event itself fell far short of my expectations. An embarrassing delay at the start, three lectures, and a brief Q&A rather than a discussion - it did not do what it said on the tin, and I had the distinct sense that it was organised by people who would struggle to organise a proverbial piss-up in a brewery.

Rating: 2/5
(Some good points in the academics' talks, let down by very poor organisation)

Cardiff SFF Book Club: November Read

The small but lovely scifi / fantasy / speculative fiction book club I've been running in Cardiff since last winter has run out of chosen books!

For our next meeting, we'd like to read something scary. Something which will make us hide under the blanket, chill us and make us shiver, but not cause anyone to get anxiety attacks...

The only problem? None of us could think of the right book to suggest, and the three of us at the meeting today didn't come to any conclusions about what to pick. So we decided to pick our November book by vote. 

Here is a list of book suggestions. I put the list together. One book, I remembered us mentioning during our meeting, others got my attention in Waterstones, some listings stem from a desire to include some Welsh authors on the list, and some I added after realising that my initial list had zero female writers, so I wanted to make it a bit more balanced. 

• To vote, please sign up for the email newsletter, join us on Facebook or on Goodreads, and I'll send you the link. 
• Feel free to discuss the suggestions in the comments, or on Facebook, or on Goodreads. 
• If you want to come along to the next meeting, but want to veto one of the suggestions (e.g. because it might tap into a phobia you have), send me an email, and I'll take it off the list. (Obviously I can't do that to every book!!!)
• I haven't read these books (except for Through the Woods), so I'm presenting their covers and back-page blurbs.
• Voting will be open until Wednesday 21st October
• I suggest the meeting should be on Sunday 15th November, but in the email I'm sending out, I'll also ask whether Sundays are still the best day for meetings...

Ghost Story by Peter Straub

It began shortly after the party at which one of their members, Edward Wanderley, had died - or was killed. The Chowder Society, who for years had met in customary evening dress with the object of telling each other tales of every kind, now found themselves drawn towards the supernatural. It was some sort of solace for Edward's loss. They began to tell ghost stories, extraordinary ghost stories ... ghost stories that did not always stop when the teller finished speaking ... Then came the dreams, shared simultaneously by the Chowder Society members, forecasting horrors the four ageing men can scarcely bring themselves to discuss. And now they are about to learn what happens to those who believe they can bury the past - and get away with murder.

The Rats by James Herbert

It was when the bones of the first devoured victims were discovered that the true nature and power of these swarming black creatures - with their razor sharp teeth and the taste for human blood - began to be realized by a panic-stricken city. For millions of years man and rat had been natural enemies. But now for the first time - suddenly, shockingly, horribly - the balance of power had shifted . . .

'The effectiveness of the gruesome set pieces and brilliant finale are all its own' Sunday Times

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. And a strange collection of very curious photographs. It all waits to be discovered in Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children;, an unforgettable novel that mixes fiction and photography in a thrilling reading experience. As our story opens, a horrific family tragedy sets sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the crumbling ruins of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. As Jacob explores its abandoned bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that the children who once lived here - one of whom was his own grandfather - were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. They may have been quarantined on a desolate island for good reason. And somehow - impossible though it seems - they may still be alive. A spine-tingling fantasy illustrated with haunting vintage photography, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children will delight adults, teens, and anyone who relishes an adventure in the shadows.

The Silence by Tim Lebbon

In the darkness of a underground cave, blind creatures hunt by sound. Then there is light, voices, and they feed... Swarming from their prison, the creatures thrive; to whisper is to summon death. As the hordes lay waste to Europe, a girl watches to see if they will cross the sea. Deaf for years, she knows how to live in silence; now, it is her family's only chance of survival. To leave their home, to shun others. But what kind of world will be left?


Welsh Author
Tim Lebbon lives near Newport. I don't know what our chances are of inviting him along to a meeting, but I thought I'd mention this if any of the book bloggers among us are interested in interviewing him.

The White People and Other Weird Stories by Arthur Machen

Machen's weird tales of the creepy and fantastic finally come to Penguin Classics. With an introduction from S.T. Joshi, editor of American Supernatural Tales, The White People and Other Weird Stories is the perfect introduction to the father of weird fiction. The title story "The White People" is an exercise in the bizarre leaving the reader disoriented and on edge. From the first page, Machen turns even fundamental truths upside-down, as his character Ambrose explains, "there have been those who have sounded the very depths of sin, who all their lives have never done an 'ill deed'" setting the stage for a tale entirely without logic.

Welsh Author / Classic
Arthur Machen was a Welsh writer. His books are classics. Some of his works are available for free via Project Gutenberg as they are out of copyright.

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

The best-known of Shirley Jackson's novels, and the inspiration for writers such as Neil Gaiman and Stephen King, The Haunting of Hill House is a chilling story of the power of fear.

Four seekers have arrived at the rambling old pile known as Hill House: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of psychic phenomena; Theodora, his lovely assistant; Luke, the future inheritor of the estate; and Eleanor, a friendless, fragile young woman with a dark past. As they begin to cope with horrifying occurrences beyond their control or understanding, they cannot possibly know what lies ahead. For Hill House is gathering its powers - and soon it will choose one of them to make its own. The Haunting of Hill House is a powerful work of slow-burning psychological horror.


'An amazing writer ... If you haven't read her you have missed out on something marvellous' Neil Gaiman

'As nearly perfect a haunted-house tale as I have ever read' Stephen King


'Shirley Jackson is one of those highly idiosyncratic, inimitable writers...whose work exerts an enduring spell' Joyce Carol Oates

Through the Woods by Emily Carroll

'It came from the woods. Most strange things do.'

Five mysterious, spine-tingling stories follow journeys into (and out of?) the eerie abyss.

These chilling tales spring from the macabre imagination of acclaimed and award-winning comic creator Emily Carroll.

Come take a walk in the woods and see what awaits you there...

Robert's Note

This is not a novel, but a series of illustrated short stories / graphic novellettes. It's very beautiful. but you can read it in about an hour. I've reviewed Through The Woods a few months ago.

Cardiff Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Club: THE MARTIAN!!!

I've been distributing new flyers around Cardiff this weekend to encourage new people to join our Science Fiction & Fantasy / Speculative Fiction Book Club.

If you're visiting my blog because you found a flyer, hello!

Book Club Background

Our book club is fairly small. Meeting sizes over the past year have ranged from two to nine people - the last two meetings had three attendees, so we decided to renew our efforts to recruit our pool of book clubbers and inject some fresh blood. Hence the flyers.

We're a relaxed book club: not everyone reads every book.

The more regular attendees include myself (Robert), Nikki, Thomas, Sarah and Kelly. Several others have come along from time to time.

You can also find our book club on Facebook and on Goodreads.

October: The Martian

The book we're reading for the next meeting is Andy Weir's 'The Martian'.

We're also planning to see the movie in a cinema. UPDATE: We'll see the film this Saturday, 10th October, at 11:20am in Cineworld Cardiff. This should be early enough for some of us to watch the rugby afterwards.  :-)

November: Halloween Read?

For all existing members and those showing up at our next meeting: Should we read something scary for Halloween / our November meeting?

If so, any recommendations?

Next book club meeting - update

I just sent out the following email to those who signed up for Cardiff Speculative Fiction Book Club email updates:

Thank you to everyone who turned up yesterday - record turnout, good discussion about Ringworld, plenty of exciting book recommendations... on the whole a great meeting with a really nice group of people!

The next meeting of the Cardiff Speculative Fiction Book Club will take place:

• on Sunday 7th June at 3pm in A Shot In The Dark, a coffee shop on City Road in Cardiff (next to the Ernest Willows Wetherspoons pub)
• The next book will be Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky (suggested by Nikki)

After that, the planned books are:

• One Night in Sixes by Tex Thompson (suggested by Kellie) in July
• Soul Music by Terry Pratchett in August

See you in June!

Ringworld by Larry Niven

Ringworld is the Cardiff Speculative Fiction Book Club selection for our May meeting, which is taking place tomorrow. I haven't read Nikki's review yet, but I'm sure tomorrow will offer opportunities for lively discussions, especially if any of the book clubbers are feminists... ;-)

Ringworld is a Hugo winning novel. Published in 1970, it's also a remarkably old-fashioned book. It doesn't read like post-New-Wave science fiction. It reads like the sort of book I'd expect from Golden Age 1930s-1940s pulp science fiction.

Louis Wu, our hero, is 200 years old. He's celebrating his birthday when Nessus, a two-headed, three-legged alien, approaches him and hires him to join an exploration mission. Humans have been interacting with different aliens for a while, but this particular species, a Puppeteer, was thought to have mysteriously left the galaxy in a mass exodus, many years ago.

A second alien is recruited into their team: a Kzin. Called Speaker in the common tongue, he's basically an advanced kind of tiger. His purpose is to be the muscle of the expedition. The final member of the team is human - Teela Brown.

After a brief stint visiting the puppeteer exodus fleet, they make their way to their destination - the Ringworld. This is an ancient artifact, an artificial world that encircles a sun, with five artificial internal moons to create nights on the inner surface of the ring. A thousand miles thick and hundreds of thousands of miles wide, the ring has millions of miles in circumference - it's millions of times bigger than Earth or any known planet, with a surface area big enough to sustain every known life form many times over. So, naturally, our explorers are interested in who created it, and why, and whether its creators pose a threat.

But things don't quite go to plan, and their spaceship crash lands. Now they have to find a way to either leave or contact someone to request help...

Ringworld is really a novel about imagining a world. As such, I would expect it to be a complex, staggering world. full of fascination, originality, aliens and wonder...

Well, the main innovation of Ringworld is that it is... wait for it... a ring!

The book goes into lots of detail in imagining how a ringworld would be different from a spherical planet, but that's about as far as the thought experiment goes. It's an artificial world, without geology and with slightly different climate effects due to having no coriolis force. But it's got all the same sort of things that Earth has. Forests, mountains, deserts, oceans. There are curious sunflowers, but other than that, it's a surprisingly, disappointingly mundane world.

The explorers, meanwhile, are fairly simple characters. Louis Wu is there to theorise and figure things out. He talks to himself quite often, so we can hear all the exposition being spoken aloud in automonologues. The Kzin is a barely repressed fierce warrior. Think tame Klingons from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Nessus, the Puppeteer, is cowardly and risk-adverse and manipulative. And Teela is there for sex and luck.

Yes, you read that right. The main female character is only brought along for sex and luck. She has been bred for luck, she's naive, wide-eyed, child-like, kitten-ish and in constant need of protecting and regular need of shagging: little more than a cutesy cardboard cutout of a glamour model.

In fact, there are plenty of quotes that could make people who prefer female characters to be even vaguely like human beings cringe. Or anyone who likes good dialogue, or a vaguely respectful attitude in men.

In fact, let's go on a bit of a quoting spree...

He was sure now. Teela Brown had never been hurt; had never learned caution; did not understand fear. Her first pain would come as a horrifying surprise. It might destroy her entirely.

 She'd be hurt over Louis Wu's dead body.

The gods do not protect fools. Fools are protected by more capable fools. 

Louis decides that Teela is a fool who must be protected at all cost on page 108 or 109. Then, by page 151, he decides she needs to be taught a lesson about pain and lets her walk on hot lava without protection, for her own good. In fact, he tells her as much, on page 157/158...

"You wanted me to burn my feet!"
"That's right. Don't look so surprised. We need you. We don't want you killed. I want you to learn to be more careful. You never learned before, so you'll have to learn now. You'll remember your sore feet longer than you remember my lectures."
"Need me! That's a laugh. You know why Nessus brought me here. I'm a good luck charm that failed."
"I'll grant you blew that one. As a good luck charm, you're fired. Come on, smile. We need you. We need you to keep me happy, so I don't rape Nessus. (...)"

Yeah, the quote goes on, and he makes another few 'jokes'. I guess people in the 1970s must have been different. For some strange and mysterious reason, few of the women I have come across these days appreciate 'lectures' by men, nor 'being taught lessons', nor indeed rape jokes.

But then, Teela Brown is a special kind of woman. Here's a little gem from page 220/221:

He had realized a thing about Teela Brown. She had never learned how to resist. She could not say no and make it stick. She could not deliver reproofs of calculated intensity, humorous or jabbing or deadly vicious, as other women could. Teela Brown had not been hurt socially, not often enough to learn these things. Louis could browbeat her until doomsday, and she would never know how to stop him.

How good to hear that she's not as calculating and vicious as other women. Fortunately, Teela is not the only female character. There is in fact a second one in the book...

"Certainly, she could have done nothing complex nor crucial to the wellbeing of ship or crew. She is not very intelligent, Louis."
"Did you think to ask about the ratio of sexes aboard ship? How many of the thirty-six were women?"
"She told me that. Three."
"You might as well forget about her profession."

Yup. the only other woman we meet in this book is a "not very intelligent" space whore. (If the word 'whore' makes you uncomfortable, I should say that I am using it because Louis calls her that, to her face, later in the book. Not as an insult, of course. Just casually.)

Fortunately for Louis, she, too, decides to seduce him. Fortunately for her, she never finds out just what goes on in his mind during foreplay...

He was on fire. If she pushed him away now, he would use force; he must have her-

Ringworld has not dated very well. It's infused with a view of women that would not be considered very healthy these days, if ever. They exist for sex, to be protected, to be lectured, to be taught lessons, and for more sex. And that's the good ones - all the others are vicious and calculating and say "no" to men too often. They are foolish or not very intelligent. Their main skills and sole purposes are sexual. In fact, late in the novel, after Teela has learnt some lessons and undergone what the author seems to think was character development, we get this little gem, in the middle of a battle:

Seeker was a dangerous, skillful swordsman. The natives knew about swords. Teela stood behind him, safe for the moment in the ring of fighting, looking worried, like a good heroine.

...Because that's what a makes a good heroine who has finally grown up: LOOKING WORRIED AND BEING PROTECTED BY MEN.

No wonder I thought Ringworld had been written in the 1930s or 1940s. I was vaguely impressed with the liberal sex lives alluded to early in the book, thinking it was quite a liberal outlook for something written in the Golden Age. Then I saw it was published in 1970, after the hippies.

This sort of stuff didn't raise eyebrows in 1970? Who am I kidding. In Hollywood, this sort of characterisation still happens now. And probably in lots of contemporary books I don't read.

Thinking of recent events, I guess Ringworld is exactly the sort of book that Sad/Rabid Puppies feel should be winning Hugos in 2015. Personally, I'm a little disappointed that it won one as late as 1970. Flat characterisation, casual misogyny, and, to make things worse, a single-gimmick world, with a gimmick that is given away in the title and never really used to deliver the wonderment I would hope for in a book about a mission to explore a world.

On the bright side, some of the thought experiments as to what a ringworld would be like are plausible enough.

Rating: 2.5/5

Next Cardiff Speculative Fiction Book Club read: Ringworld!

I sent out an email to those on the mailing list yesterday. If you haven't received it (and would like to be on the list), sign up for emails here. Here's the update I sent out:

Nikki and I had a good chat about Angela Carter's Fairy Tales on Sunday - but we missed everyone else! Kudos to Nikki for cutting short a trip to Yorkshire just to attend the Book Club meeting. I'm hopeful a few more people will be able to come along next time.

• The next book is Ringworld by Larry Niven.

• The next meeting will be on Sunday 10th May, at 3pm, in A Shot In The Dark on City Road in Cardiff. (I know at least one person is not a native to Cardiff - please get in touch if you'd like directions!)

Hope to see you then!

Useful Links

• Book Club (sign up) page
• Book Club Meeting as event on Facebook
• Book Club Meeting as event on Goodreads

Book Club update: Angela Carter's Fairy Tales

I just sent out the following by email. If you haven't signed up, you can do so here - and if I accidentally missed anyone out, sorry. (I hope I haven't!)

I'm not quite sure whether I'll be able to finish reading the entire Book of Fairy Tales by the time of the next book club meeting. It may also be a bit tricky to chat about an entire book full of tales in one go.

So I thought things it might be good if everyone who's planning to come along to the next meeting nominates one or two of the tales for discussion. All of us can then make sure to read those specific ones, even if we don't all finish the entire book.

(Anyone who hasn't bought / borrowed the book yet could search for the specific tales - some are likely to exist elsewhere for free on the web)

Here's one I really enjoyed:
Vasilisa The Priest's Daughter

(I'm still only about 90 pages into the book & I still intend to read it all, so I'll probably nominate a second story later on...)


Also, re: Terry Pratchett novel for August - Monstrous Productions are about to announce their next play, which will be performed this autumn. It'll be a Sam Vimes one. How about we pick whichever play they announce and then go to see it when they perform it?


Addendum: for July, the nominated book will be One Night in Sixes by Arianne "Tex" Thompson.

Cardiff SFF Book Club - April and Beyond!

So we had another small get-together on Sunday to chat about Lock In again - and it was great.

This time, the meeting comprised of Nikki, Kelly and myself - check out their book blogs, too!

Thank you very much to both, and to Sarah and Emer for turning up to the meetings so far - both meetings were really great, and I can't wait to have a meeting that all of us can attend at the same time!

I've put the details of the next meeting on the Cardiff Speculative Fiction Book Club Page, which will be the place that always has the most up-to-date details on it.

Next Meeting

The next meeting of the Cardiff Speculative Fiction Book Club will take place:

• Sunday 12^th April, in A Shot in the Dark on City Road, at 3pm.
• The next book is Angela Carter's Book of Fairy Tales, which was suggested by Emer 

After that, we'll discuss:

• Ringworld in May (suggested by Sarah)
• Roadside Picnic by by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky in June (suggested by Nikki)
• Meanwhile, Kellie is pondering which book to nominate for July...

Reviews

I'll get back to writing book reviews shortly - I've been a bit swamped with other matters over the past fortnight.

Cardiff SFF Book Club Update

I sent out the following by email to everyone yesterday, but thought I'd quickly post it in case I missed anyone or in case the email got disappeared by any spam filters:

Tuesday's Meeting: It was "klein aber fein" as they'd say in Germany - a nice meeting, a little small in numbers (3 people in total). But all three of us intend to go on and books were suggested!

Sunday Meeting: For anyone who couldn't make it on Tuesday, or who wants to meet other people interested in scifi/fantasy literature, there'll also be a chance to meet up this Sunday, 8th March, at 3pm, in Waterstones Cardiff, in the Cafe upstairs. The book for discussion is still Lock In.

Next Books: The easiest way to pick upcoming reads is for those who (intend to) attend our book club meetings to suggest a book each. Rather than have votes, I'll just put them in a queue. So far, three books have been suggested. If everyone's okay with this process, we'll alternate between Scifi / Fantasy books. I'll send out a list after the Sunday meeting. In the meantime, feel free to suggest a book on FB, Goodreads, my blog, by email or in person.

Next Meetings: As the number of people who showed up on Tuesday was actually smaller than the number of people who told me they'll show up on Sunday, I'm now thinking we'll meet on Sunday afternoons in future. That would mean the next few meetings would be scheduled for 12th April, 10th May, 7th June, etc, but I'll confirm after the meeting on Sunday. It's also possible that the meeting venue will shift towards Roath, but again, I'll see what the people on Sunday think about that...

Goodreads: It was suggested that a Group on Goodreads would be nice, so here it is: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/158541-cardiff-speculative-fiction-book-club

Your Email Address: I may have been overthinking my approach to email by BCC'ing everyone. So, from next week onwards, I'll simply put addresses in the "To:" field, which means all of us can use "Reply All" and it won't be just me talking at everyone. If you don't want me to include your address visibly (or if you want me to stop emailing you entirely), please let me know by the end of the week! For info, there are currently 15 email addresses on the list.

Other Meet-ups: Would you like to organise any outings that might appeal to people who enjoy science fiction and fantasy? Cinema trips, theatre performances, book festivals, conventions, exhibitions? Please do get in touch & suggest things – I'd love for others to help out / organise things / suggest stuff. (That's why I set up the Facebook Group & Goodreads Group and why I'll change the way I send emails). For inspiration, I've put together a list of various things below.


Upcoming Events that may be of interest to SF/F readers:

(Mostly local, but I also included a small number of further afield ones, just in case)

• 4th-7th March: A Theory of Justice: A Musical about 2500 years of philosophy! (Not really SF/F, but it sounds intriguing): http://www.cardiffstudents.com/events/6295/5208/  - anyone can buy tickets, but you'll have to sign up to the Cardiff Students' Union website to do so. I'll be watching the Saturday performance.
• 13th March: An Evening of Ghastly Delight at Chapter: http://www.chapter.org/wyrd-wonder-presents-evening-ghastly-delight
• 19th-22nd March: SciFi Weekender in Pwlhelli: http://www.scifiweekender.com/
• 21st-22nd March: Cardiff Film and Comic Con: http://www.filmandcomicconcardiff.com/
• 24th-29th March: Cardiff Childrens Literature Festival: http://www.cardiffchildrenslitfest.com/content.asp 
• 28th March: The King and the Corpse at Chapter (storytelling / fairy tale performance): http://www.chapter.org/beyond-border-king-and-corpse
• 3rd-6th April: Eastercon / Dysprosium in London Heathrow: https://www.dysprosium.org.uk/ (I'll be going to that – anyone else?)
• 8th-11th April: Witches Abroad – a play based on a Terry Pratchett novel, staged by Monstrous Productions Theatre Company in aid of Alzheimers Society: http://7889269b08cd.fikket.com/ (I'll be watching the Saturday evening performance with a  friend)
• 21st-25th April: Mermaid at Sherman Cymru: http://www.shermancymru.co.uk/performance/theatre/mermaid/
• 26th April: Wales Comic Con in Wrexham: http://walescomiccon.com/
• 30th April: Peter and Emma Newman in Bristol: https://forbiddenplanet.com/events/2015/04/30/peter-newman-and-emma-newman-bristol/
• 21st-31st May: Hay Festival in Hay-on-Wye: https://www.hayfestival.com/
• 23rd May: Cardiff Mini Con: https://www.facebook.com/CardiffMiniCon
• 8th-9th August: Newport Geekedfest: http://www.geekedfest.com/
• 26th September: Bristol-Con: http://www.bristolcon.org/?page_id=1327 

If you're not yet on the mailing list and you want to get involved with the book club, please visit the Cardiff Speculative Fiction Book Club page and sign up for email updates!

Cardiff Speculative Fiction Book Club: First Meeting Time & Place

It's time to fix the first meeting of the fledgling Cardiff Speculative Fiction Book Club, based on the results of the form.

• The most popular meeting time is Tuesday 3rd March, 6pm.
• The book for the first discussion will be Lock In by John Scalzi.

The easiest place to meet is probably the first floor of Wetherspoons Central Bar (the one sort of behind the KFC in Queen Street). It tends to be reasonably quiet there. After chatting about the book, we can then figure out where to meet for the second meeting (and what to read!)

I've created an event on Facebook: 

https://www.facebook.com/events/528975587239343/

If you use FB, please do pop by, ask any questions, start conversations... or if you use Twitter, use a hashtag #cardiffsff to converse & make posts easy to find. Or use the comments on this blog.

Theoretically, there should be seven of us turning up on Tuesday 3rd March - that's a nice number if everyone turns up! (If you have filled in the web form and indicated that you can make it that day, please do get in touch if your plans have changed: it would be a bit awkward if there were 4 or 5 no-shows!!!)

Cardiff Book Club: book choice and meeting locations

I just sent out a quick book club update by email.

• So far, 11 people (including myself) are interested. 
• Three people can’t make either of the suggested dates  
• Seven people can make it on the suggested Tuesday
• Five can make it on the suggested Sunday
• People have suggested venues in Roath, central Cardiff and Chapter. (I’m afraid I’m claiming organiser’s privilege and not going to include Canton / Chapter in the short list, as that’s awkward for me to get to)
•  “Lock In” is now well in the lead (7 to 4). It’s the more popular option for those who can make Sundays and also for those who can make Tuesdays. To give people time to read it, let’s firm up the choice now: Lock In by John Scalzi is our first book!

I figure the sooner we fix a date, the better. So…

• I’d like to check if more people can make the first meeting if it’s on a later Tuesday or Sunday. Could you let me know? Please use the form: https://bastianbalthasarbooks.wufoo.com/forms/cardiff-speculative-fiction-book-club-2/
• I'm also trying to find out whether Roath or Cardiff Town Centre is the best place for meetings.
• I’d like to see if another day of the week would be better for more people in the long run (i.e. for second and further meetings). I excluded Wednesdays as an option because there’s an existing speculative fiction book club which meets on Wednesdays
• Would you like to help out in some way? Please let me know!
• Please do feel free to tweet / share on Facebook / spread the word to any local fellow SFF readers you know. Here’s a link that should include all book club updates on  my blog: http://www.bastianbalthasarbooks.co.uk/search/label/book%20club

I'm also going through my previous blog posts and replacing links to the registration form with links to the new form.

By the way, do feel free to say hello in the comments!

Cardiff Book Club Update

I thought I'd post a quick update about my attempts to start a Speculative Fiction Book Club in Cardiff.

Here's how things are going so far:

• You can look at the registration / voting form results in an online report. It has colourful charts! (Not sure if it updates "live" - i.e. the data could at times be a little behind). After Lock In's early lead, The Invisible Library has caught up and is now neck-and-neck with Lock In! 
• I've had some flyers made, which I am putting in booky places around Cardiff today (Monday, 26th Jan 2015). See above for what the flyers look like. As I don't have professional software on my home PC, I had to resort to MS Word to create it, so please don't judge it too harshly!
• IMAGE CREDITS: I used creative commons photos from FlickR for the flyers. These are:
• Magic Book by Mike Haufe
• Books by Victoria Nevland
• I'll email those who indicated they can't make it but would still like to join today or tomorrow, to figure out what the best options are.
• I'll send out a proper email update to everyone who registered by the end of this week.
• If you're interested but haven't signed up & indicated availability yet, please do so: here's a link to the sign-up & voting form. [edited: a time, place and book for the first meeting has now been announced. You're very welcome to come along, but the web form is no longer needed]
• In the meantime, I'm grateful for any and all assistance with spreading the word, whether on Twitter, Facebook, or everyone's own blogs. 

I've also been contacted by two people who let me know there is already a Speculative Fiction Book Club in Cardiff, which has been running for seven years. I'm still going ahead with my attempt to start a new one: I think it's nice to start up something with an entirely new group where no one feels like an outsider as everyone is equally new. So far, it looks like there may be enough people interested for a brand new book club to work. However, if this attempt should flounder, or if the date we ultimately settle on for meetings does not suit you, it's good to know that there is another option that people can join (they do accept new members). The other book club meets "around 7ish in the Rummer Tavern on the 1st Wednesday of the month. The next meeting is February 4th, and the book is Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie".

Cardiff Speculative Fiction Book Club 2.0

UPDATE (March 2015): If you'd like to get involved with the book club, please see the Book Club page for the latest details & to sign up!

UPDATE (1st February 2015): As Lock In got a convincing lead, it'll be the first book to be discussed. 

I posted about the possibility of launching a Cardiff-based book club / reading group with a focus on speculative fiction, but probably made things a bit too complicated (and the time frame for a first meeting a bit too short)

I would still love to have a speculative fiction reading group around Cardiff, but to give it a proper shot, I decided to take a little more time to get this going. That way, I can make a half-decent stab at promoting the first meeting.

Over the next fortnight, I’ll produce a few promotional postcards and ask people to share this post around on Twitter etc.

If you'd be interested in joining, please fill in the form at the end of this post. 

Meeting Logistics

To keep things simple, I figured we could either meet on Tuesdays (early in the evening) or on Sundays (in the afternoon), once a month or so, with the first meeting around the end of February / the start of March

If you'd like to join but can't make it at those times, please don't be shy - let me know and I'll see if alternatives would be more popular!

Book Choice

I figured I'd suggest two books that we can choose from. I'll leave the poll open until 8th February - that way, there should be enough time to get and read the winning book. (I may post updates earlier - especially if there's a clear favourite early on).

Which of these books would you rather read and discuss?

• The Invisible Library is a light read. A bibliophile has swashbuckling adventures featuring parallel dimensions, magic, vampires and a steampunky Victorian London! It's great fun - but not by any means a challenging read.

• Lock In is a good science fictional whodunnit crime novel. It's set in a world where some people have suffered a debilitating disability - similar to lock in syndrome - but science enables them to control (and experience life through) avatar robots. It's a novel full of ideas and offers rich grounds for discussion - but it's accessible and not too challenging.

Update:

A time, place and book for the first meeting has now been picked. 

A SF/F Book Club for Cardiff?

UPDATE: Please see my new update about this (posted January 20th 2015)

Someone asked on Twitter if there are any book clubs in Cardiff. There are... but I'm not aware of any focusing on science fiction, fantasy and other speculative fiction.

So I figured I'd try to see if there's any interest in starting one?

Here's a Doodle to help schedule a first meeting (Link Removed). (Probably just a meeting to suggest & pick books, and firm up times and locations for the book discussion meetings)

(I'm away the first week of February... I imagine the book club could meet monthly after the first meeting.)

Who's interested?

(If none of the times in the Doodle suit you, let me know, and propose other times that would suit!)

Also, if you're interested, please feel free to get in touch in the comments or through the email form on the right!