"The City in the Middle of the Night" by Charlie Jane Anders

This was a real treat to read! I seriously could not put this down. I loved the characters, and the worldbuilding is deep, weird, and inventive. The whole novel is an adventure—something I forget that I'm always looking for, until I find such a good example. Although there's plenty of darkness—dystopia, struggles for survival, tragedy and betrayal—the work as a whole has tons of exuberance. It's a sophisticated but unpretentious take on classic science-fictional topics, and I devoured it.

The story takes place on January, a tidally-locked planet colonized by humans. In the narrow strip between perpetual day and perpetual night, humanity has adapted to the world's challenges. Our main characters meet as a revolution is brewing, travel to a rival city, make forays into the night, encounter some of January's original inhabitants, and generally have an exciting time.

No plot recaps, but possible spoilers below:

"Phoresis" by Greg Egan

Fantastic short novella from the master of hard SF. I'm particularly happy with this because I finally have a short Egan work to suggest people start with; it's light enough for people to get their toes wet, but still rich in Egan-y big ideas.

This reads a lot like the "lite" version of The Clockwork Rocket: interesting aliens, entire civilization threatened, find a solution using science & the peculiarities of their world. Egan does a good job of getting the characters comfie in your head as just people before their (extreme) biological differences become apparent.

If you find the phrase "ice-world xenobiology" enticing, look no further! Here's your book. Twin Europa/Enceladus-like planets with intelligent, modest-tech-level inhabitants who have to figure out how to move between the two. Great fun.

Phoresis feels like a spiritual successor to Hal Clement's short SF novels--Mission of Gravity and the like. Fun aliens, big-but-graspable astronomical ideas. Character and plot are not super-deep here, but the scientific premises are enjoyable enough to carry you through. And, I can't help thinking, this style of story--bold, takes existential crises seriously, uses both engineering and social movements to forge a better future--is a welcome strain of science fiction alongside climate disaster fiction & fact.

Chicago Nerds- Binti

For the November book discussion of the Chicago Nerd Social Club, we read Binti and Binti: Home by Nnedi Okorafor.

The first two parts of a novella trilogy, these works follow the titular character, a mathematically-gifted young woman who is the first of her people to travel off-planet for education. Along the way, she becomes a kind of unintentional liason with the warlike Meduse; Binti: Home follows her first return to Earth.

Brief notes and possible spoilers below:

Chicago Nerds- Embassytown

For the August meeting of the Chicago Nerd Social (book) Club, we discussed by Embassytown by China Miéville. His most strictly science fictional tale to date, Embassytown is all about language--a race of aliens with a very weird language, who can't lie, and a disastrous story that plays out when the humans who communicate with them screw it up.

Brief notes and possible spoilers below:

Chicago Nerds- Leviathan Wakes

For the last 2016 meeting of the Chicago Nerd book club, we discussed Leviathan Wakes (2011) by James S.A. Corey, the first book in "The Expanse", an on-going series that is also going into its second season as a SyFy television show.

Leviathan Wakes is set in a fairly-near future where humans have colonized chunks of the solar system using an extremely efficient new impulse engine, but have not yet moved on to interstellar exploration. At the book's start, there's a bit of three-way political tension between Earth, a partially-terraformed (and militarily well-equipped) Mars, and the inhabitants of the outer asteroid belts, moons, and dwarf planets. The novel alternates viewpoints between James Holden, who becomes captain and unwitting political player after his original civilian ship is destroyed, and Joe Miller, a detective on Ceres whose hunt for a missing young woman leads him to a plot that killed Holden's ship and threatens the solar system.

Notes & possible spoilers below!

Review: A Closed and Common Orbit

In reviewing Becky Chambers' new novel, I find myself in the strange position of having to write a negative review of a book I very much wanted to like, that I do like in many ways, and which I don't necessarily want to discourage people from reading.

The good news is, whether or not you should read A Closed and Common Orbit (2016) is easily determined if you've read The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet (2014), the novel which precedes this. While structurally a bit different—Common Orbit has barely more than two characters, braids time-lines, and is essentially linear, where The Long Way is a meandering ensemble tale—the tone and intention of the two are very close. I find it very unlikely that one's reception of Common Orbit will vary much from The Long Way, with the possible exception that some might like (or dislike) that more time is spent with fewer characters.

Also, I should note that, although A Closed and Common Orbit follows immediately on the heels of The Long Way, plot-wise, it's by no means a sequel in the conventional sense. It could easily be read first, or as a standalone novel, with the caveat that having some of The Long Way's worldbuilding under your belt will make Common Orbit a little easier, albeit in a very minimal way. In her first novel, Chambers usually drops a lot of factoids about her alien species very quickly on meeting them, but the absence of this up-fronting of exposition in Common Orbit is hardly a weakness.

Plenty to love here; unfortunately, I find that to be outweighed by the novel's shortcomings. Possible spoilers, and many comparisons between the two novels, below:

Think Galactic- Blindsight

For July's Think Galactic discussion, we talked about "Blindsight" (2006) by Peter Watts.

This book is awesome (says I) and this discussion was awesome (so say we all). So much so, in fact, that it's been a psychic block clogging up my Positron posting schedule, because I despair of trying to flesh out everything my notes record us saying without it turning into a book-length meditation. SO, without further ado, mostly unvarnished notes:

Megatext 2: Octavia Butler

Megatext 2: Octavia Butler

Thursday, August 25th, 7pm

Open Books, 651 W. Lake St.
(Facebook Event Page)

For our second Megatext discussion, we're going to be talking about Octavia E. Butler (1946-2008), who's had a powerful impact on the genre. This discussion is being supported by Open Books, who are hosting, and by Think Galactic.

The idea behind the "Megatext" book club is that we talk about an author as a whole, rather than one specific book. Feel free to come if you've read everything Butler's written, if you've only read one book, or if you're just interested!

photo via Joshua Trujillo

Classic Sci-Fi- Her Smoke Rose Up Forever

We had a first for the April's Classic Sci-Fi Meetup, discussing a short story collection instead of a novel. And a truly classic selection: "Her Smoke Rose Up Forever", collecting many of the best short works of James Tiptree, Jr.

While published in 1990, it collects work originally printed between 1969 & 1980; something we commented on for many of the stories was how ahead of their time they feel.

Much talk of sex, gender, and death surrounding these stories. Spoilers below!

Think Galactic- Elysium

For the March convocation of Think Galactic, we discussed "Elysium" by Jennifer Marie Brissett.

This novel is *really* difficult to describe without spoiling. And also just difficult to describe...The key feature that strikes one first is the gender-swapping of all the main characters, from chapter to chapter, sometimes from sentence to sentence. As it goes on, there are elements of dystopia, alien invasion, and AI.

Spoilerific and intriguing discussion points below:

Classic Sci-Fi- Roadside Picnic

For the March Classic Sci-Fi Meetup, we discussed Arkady & Boris Strugatsky's 1971 novel "Roadside Picnic".

I had this pretty fresh in my mind from Weird & Wonderful's discussion. It also helped our discussion that many of us had been present for Classic Sci-Fi's discussion of "Solaris" last year: Lem's novel has many resonances with this one. We also talked about "Roadside Picnic" in comparison to its film and video game adaptations.

To recap, if you're unfamiliar with the novel: a mysterious alien force briefly visits Earth, leaving behind several "zones" full of impossible-to-understand artifacts, physics-defying and often lethal abnormalities, and a wide range of strange phenomena among people who lived in or visit the Zone. Governments nominally control the Zones, but there is a brisk trade in artifacts harvested by "stalkers" who sneak in.

More discussion below:

Weird & Wonderful- Roadside Picnic

This SF Masterworks cover
presumably depicts a (full?) empty.

City Lit's most recent Weird & Wonderful discussion was "Roadside Picnic" by Boris & Arkady Strugatsky, written in 1971 but with a mildly convoluted publication/translation history.

The novel sketches out a few different characters in relation to one of the "Zones", areas that have been transmuted by an ambiguous alien visitation. The source of ineffable (but sometimes highly-profitable) technology as well as strange and deadly disasters, the Zones are studied and salvaged by government bodies as well as criminal organizations, with "Stalkers"--people who specialize in illegally entering the zone to procure artifacts--selling to both.

Short, stylish, rich in ideas, and highly weird, this was a fun novel to discuss. And we also had a delightful picnic ourselves! Possible spoilers below:

Windycon Panel notes- Species Creation

While at Windycon, I went to a pretty good panel on "Designing Species in SF &F". The panel included:

• Jonathan Sneed (astrogeologist/paleobiologist at University of Chicago; he had a nice post on Pluto on Ada Palmer's blog a little bit ago)
• Rachel Neumeier (fantasy/YA writer)
• Richard Garfinkle (SF/F writer)
• Katherine Wynter (fantasy writer)
• Susan Weiner (biologist at Roosevelt)

Pretty fun discussion, probably most interesting if you're looking for a good reading list full of non-humans. Notes below are mostly titles of works to check out and some comments:

Windycon Phandemonium Discussion- "The Three-Body Problem"

I recently had the pleasure of attending the 42nd Windycon (appropriately, Hitchhiker-themed), and as a result I got to attend two bookclubs as well as a few fun panels.

First on deck was Cixin Liu's "The Three-Body Problem", hosted by Phandemonium, the folks who run Capricon in the spring as well as SF/F book clubs in Evanston & Elgin. It's the most recent winner of the Hugo Award for best novel; notable for being the first translated work so honored. Lots of fascinating drama around that, actually, but enough! To the book itself!

"The Three-Body Problem" is the story of Earth's contact with an advanced and (currently) distant alien race, and how that contact will inevitably bring about great change. It's also steeped in Chinese culture, particularly the fallout from the Cultural Revolution.

It's an interesting, somewhat tough read, with our most frequent questions revolving around issues of translation and culture--what was being lost with the idiom, how much was Cixin's personal style versus SF or fiction norms in its original language. A wonderful discussion. Notes in brief and possible spoilers below:

Chicago Nerds: Lagoon

For the last meeting of the Chicago Nerds book club, we read and discussed Nnedi Okorafor's 2014 novel "Lagoon". It's an unusual first contact story--shape-shifting, primarily ocean-based aliens land just off the shore of Lagos, Nigeria, and then...stuff happens.

There is a lot, a confusing lot, going on in this novel--intentionally so, it would seem, with the chaos of the story meant to reflect, perhaps even praise, the chaotic nature of Lagos. Unfortunately, I  found that the intersection of many different codes, coupled with some rough areas in the writing, deflated the novel's impact. I'll try to expand that a bit below.

The biggest consensus from the group, I think, was something along the lines of "we really wanted to like it", but had too many issues in actually reading it. Definitely a worthy discussion, our reservations notwithstanding--possible spoilers below!

Think Galactic: Vampire Junction & Annihilation

For October's meeting of Think Galactic, we had a Monster Mash: a double-header book-club featuring S.P. Somtow's "Vampire Junction" (1984) and Jeff VanderMeer's "Annihilation" (2014). Spooky stuff.

While we had a fairly low completion rate for "Vampire Junction", we had a pretty interesting discussion, especially qua horror novel.

"Annihilation" generated a ton of discussion--it's a really engaging novel from a literary angle, and doing a lot of interesting things with genre as well. We got pretty far out on some possibly shaky but definitely fruitful theoretical branches for this one.

Probable spoilers, Monster Mash MIDIs below:

Weird & Wonderful: Stories of Your Life

For the last meeting of City Lit Books' "Weird and Wonderful" club, we discussed Ted Chiang's "Stories of Your Life and Others" (2002).

What a collection! This is a book I frequently recommend to people--it's a great example of some of the best kinds of things being done in SF today. It doesn't hurt that Chiang is one of the strongest short-form writers out there. The collection also frequently makes it into SF/F reading groups: I know at least Think Galactic & Chicago Nerds have discussed it.

We read and discussed (at least briefly) all the stories herein,  and given the nature of short stories there may be SPOILERS BELOW!

Classic Sci-Fi Meetup: Foreigner

Whence the pointy ears, Whelan?

For the last convocation of the Classic Sci-Fi Meetup, we discussed C.J. Cherryh's 1994 novel "Foreigner", which is the first of an on-going series. Cherryh had come up as a potential Classic read, and I pushed for Foreigner as a better introduction than her big award-winners, "Downbelow Station" (1981) and "Cyteen" (1988).

Cards on the table: I adore Cherryh's work; I've written and presented critically on it, and I continue to revisit and re-read much of her body of work. So I tried very hard not to jump to "Foreigner"'s defense at every moment--besides wanting to share what I think is an excellent and appropriately classic/influential novel, I also genuinely wanted to hear what other people thought on reading it for the first time. Cherryh isn't quite an author that "you love or you hate", but she perhaps is an author "you become obsessed with, or perhaps it just doesn't click". Which perhaps explains her status within the SF community--award-winning, prolific, best-selling, but one also encounters a lot of serious SF fans who have never heard of her, or didn't finish the one book of hers they've started (often "Cyteen" or "Downbelow Station").

Good discussion, lots of criticism, lots of tangents & recommended works, and possibly SPOILERS BELOW:

Weird & Wonderful: The Humans by Matt Haig

Matt Haig's "The Humans" (2013) is the story of an alien sent to Earth to impersonate a mathematician who has solved the Riemann Hypothesis, in order to destroy all evidence of the solution. However, the mission goes awry when the complexity and emotional richness of the titular hoo-mans seduces our narrator. A fun though aggravating read, and a great discussion with City Lit's "Weird & Wonderful" book club.

Spoilers below!

Classic Sci-Fi Meetup: Solaris

Stanislaw Lem's 1961 novel “Solaris” is probably his most well-known work, having been adapted multiple times—most notably the Tarkovsky (1972) and Soderberg (2002) film adaptions. It's a pretty influential work, and thus a pretty good selection for the Chicago Classic Sci-Fi Meetup.

I think Solaris is an important book to read in terms of the history and ideas of science fiction, although user enjoyment may vary—a number of folks at the meeting expressed the idea that they “enjoyed having read it more than they enjoyed reading it”, which is perhaps fair. I've found the work kind of haunting, though, and I've returned to it quite a few times over the years—so I wouldn't want you to think that everyone will find this tough going.

The novel is set in a distant, space-faring future. One planet—Solaris—has evaded human comprehension for many decades. It's covered in an ocean—possibly one superorganism—that creates strange and inexplicable constructions, and can change basic physical constants (altering the planet's gravity to maintain a stable orbit in its binary system, for instance). Our story begins when our narrator—a psychologist—arrives at the main research station hovering over the planet, to find that a whole new class of phenomena has begun—“manifestation” of people seemingly pulled from the researchers' minds. Possible spoilers below!

Think Galactic: 40,000 in Gehenna

Perhaps the least-bad
of the cover illustrations.

So it's no secret: C.J. Cherryh is one of my favorite authors, and I've read, re-read, and written about her work pretty extensively. Thus, I felt a little trepidation leading up to the last Think Galactic meeting-- not everyone is a fan of Cherryh's style, and as the book-suggester (and lover) I was worried about how the group would receive it. Then, I started reading "40,000 in Gehenna" (1983) for the nth time, and forgot all my fears, because it's really an excellent novel, rich in themes and ideas. We had a great discussion about it, ranging all over the place.

"Gehenna" is a great example of "future history SF". Rather than following a particular character or plot, the novel instead explores a place and situation over a good deal of time--in this case, the founding, foundering, and evolution of the Gehenna colony over about three centuries. It's set within Cherryh's large, consistent, but not very series-based "Alliance-Union" universe. Union's settlement of Gehenna, composed primarily of the cloned "azi" workers, is designed to fail--but Union doesn't account for the intrusion of the supposedly non-intelligent native life, the pseudo-reptilian calibans. When the planet is ceded to the Alliance government, they find human cultures that have developed in strange directions. That's just a rough synopsis, and there are likely to be SPOILERS BELOW:

Chicago Philosophy: Aliens and Ethics

Zach Weinersmith's "Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal"

Last Saturday the Chicago Philosophy Meetup hosted a really delightful session on "Aliens and Ethics". I'd wanted to put it on the upcoming events list, but the RSVP list filled to capacity almost immediately. It was definitely a philosophy discussion with a slight science fictional twist, as opposed to the other way around, but with a lot of genre relevance. I've consistently found SF to prepare me think about philosophy and vice versa; there's some interesting parallels in their at-least-purported commitment to rationality and using consistent but imaginative thinking to explore "what-ifs".

Weird & Wonderful: "Oryx & Crake" (and "The Sparrow", actually)

Small meeting last night, but we had a good discussion--discussions plural, really. Paul & I had both missed last month's meetings on Mary Doria Russell's "The Sparrow" (1996), and wanted to talk about it--Conrad wanted to chew on it some more, also. So that was good! Then we turned our attention to Margaret Atwood's "Oryx & Crake" (2003) as well. Spoilers below!