"The Return of the Incredible Exploding Man" by Dave Hutchinson

Dave Hutchinson is a weirdly good writer, and I don’t quite know how to characterize The Return of the Incredible Exploding Man precisely because of that skill. Absorbingly readable, it’s nonetheless doing some very odd things at the meta level, things that left me with a definitive feeling of “huh” when it was all over.

Alex Dolan is a recently out-of-work science writer, a Scot, who is offered a lucrative book deal by an eccentric American billionaire, Stan Clayton. Reluctantly signing on, Dolan makes his way to the still-developing Sioux Crossing Supercollider in Iowa, Clayton’s pet project. Lightly enmeshed in the lives and politics of the science team and native Iowans, Dolan is also roped into light espionage by the British government, and faces an escalating series of threats from an unknown antagonist. Finally, three-quarters through the novel, Dolan must deal with a bizarre accident at the supercollider, and its aftermath.

Think Galactic: The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor Lavalle

November TG notes brought to you by Michael Tax.

This month, Think Galactic returns to familiar territory: horror. Although the reading list states clearly the Victor LaValle novella The Ballad of Black Tom (2016) as the TG November selection, LaValle’s Ballad is inextricably linked with it’s intellectual, if not ideological, progenitor: H. P. Lovecraft’s The Horror at Red Hook (1927). The works share kinship in setting and characters, but could not be more different in artistic intent. Black Tom is written by a person of color, and LaValle’s perspective can be assumed to be diametrically opposed to such as that espoused by Lovecraft. In the dedication of his novella, LaValle attributes this: “For H. P. Lovecraft, with all my conflicted feelings.”

It is in this very same spirit that virtually all participants at Think Galactic’s November group meeting have taken on both works, and we realized the tremendous opportunity presented of a side-by-side comparison. Our progressive feminist sensibilities of necessity bristle at the outright objectification of person that informs the plot of Lovecraft’s classic novella. But I was fixated on how its horror is not coexistent with, but seems to be dependent on the author’s xenophobic point-of-view, and wouldn't stop until everyone in the group either agreed or told me to cool it. Ultimately, we think the horror of The Horror at Red Hook actually originates precisely with this perspective of an incomprehension of other cultures. This view must be truly horrifying for one such as H. P. Lovecraft, given his novella’s multicultural melting-pot setting of contemporary 1924 Red Hook, Brooklyn.

Chicago Nerds- The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe

For the November meeting of the Chicago Nerd Social Club, we discussed The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe (2016) by Kij Johnson.

The short novel takes place within one of H.P. Lovecraft's worlds, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath (1927, pub. 1943), and includes some crossover characters. Possible spoilers below:

Chicago Nerds- Central Station

For June's meeting of the Chicago Nerd Social Club, we discussed "Central Station" (2016) by Lavie Tidhar. It's a "fix-up" novel, stringing together a number of his previously-published short stories.

This should come with a disclaimer if you don't already know: there's no over-arching plot here, so don't hold your breath for one. But at the same time, it's not just an unrelated collection--Tidhar uses a series of interconnected anecdotes to sketch out a setting and his cast of characters with surprising depth.

With the exception of the "no plot" caveat, this was a really well-received book. Possible spoilers below!