December Meeting

And so we came to the final meeting of 2011, and the theme of "The Unmissables."

With this, we came to the end of the themes picked out during the old regime. Next month, we move to the topics picked out after the changeover of leadership earlier this year a changeover that did not come without surrounding unfortunate circumstances.

"The Unmissables." During November, I defined the term somewhat more firmly by putting it in the context of the popular BBC radio show "Desert Island Discs," and its premise that if you got marooned on a desert island with (IIRC) one book and eight pieces of music on disc, what book - and what music - would you pick? Which unmissable book would you take with you if you had to go through a literal Hell?

I'd made my pick a long time before the meeting itself, since of all the books in my collection I can only think of one that has never strayed far from my side, and never bored me even though I'd read it a thousand times before.

And to some, I seem to have made some sort of wrong choice (?) - but I'll expand on that in a separate post, or quite possibly on my blog The Serpent's Tongue.

And so we came to the choices.



John Rennie chose First Lensman, in this case representing an entire series, the Lensman Series as written by E E "Doc" Smith. In his own words, "... if you like hard scifi/space opera you must read the Lensman series by E E Doc Smith as that's where it all started." In this case, John chose First Lensman as an example of a foundational series; along with Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy (and only the trilogy, no disrespect intended), the Lensman series form the base of any well-informed science fiction fan's reading experiences.

The works of Isaac Asimov would crop up again, later in the meeting.



Fiona chose a similar foundational book - The Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner. This book, along with others penned by Garner, encapsulates mythologies both local, Celtic and Norse, bringing them into a seamless whole and setting it amid the real world geographical landscape of Alderley Edge, not more than a dozen miles from his home there - for the most part.

That apparently seamless blending of the real and the unreal, the mundane and the mythical, and that sense of pilgrimage when a Garner fan visits the Edge, marks Weirdstone as unmissable.



An alternative book, 2001: A Space Odyssey, had personal significance for Fiona, as well; her personal experience made this book unmissable (though I could personally add Rendezvous with Rama, Profiles of The Future (non-fiction), Childhood's End and The Fountains of Paradise to this list of unmissable Arthur C Clarke books for various reasons).



Tibor Fischer's The Collector Collector, Geoff's choice, concerns the events surrounding a unique artifact, described by the book's publisher as "unquestionably the finest novel ever narrated by a bowl."

Geoff's alternates included Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451, and a story called "Pit Stop" about a group of people stuck in a remote diner waiting for a certain visitor ...



Penny had a hard time choosing her favourite - with such a range of choices available, who could blame her? - before settling for (author of Game of Thrones) George R R Martin's Fevre Dream, his vampire novel set on the Antebellum Mississippi. Alternative choices included Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy series, PKD's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and Clifford D Simak's City.



For John Oakes, between the choices of I, Robot by Isaac Asimov, On A Pale Horse by Piers Anthony, and the non-fiction The Science of Science Fiction and Carl Sagan's seminal Cosmos, eventually chose I, Robot - with some lively debate as to whether the Will Smith movie counted as a decent portrayal of the book (with an overwhelming, near-unanimous verdict of "NO!")

Asimov's books would appear again, later in the meeting.



Rodney chose the whimsical, yet compelling Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde, laying out the bizarre world of Eddie Russett. The link above connects directly to Jasper FForde's website, written in "vintage HTML" rather than letting "professionals" handle the coding, thereby losing something in translation and letting a certain "corporate distancing" creep into his hand-crafted web pages.

Completely understandable, and I can see Rodney's passion for the author and his works.



Next came Nick's choice of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast, the collection of three books Titus Groan, Gormenghast and Titus Alone (why did I almost type in "Forever Alone" there instead?)

If you would consider Alan Garner's fantasies as the foundation of any well-informed fantasy reader's library, perhaps reinforced by Ursula K LeGuin's Earthsea books, then Gormenghast builds upon that foundation to provide a solid base for any beginning fantasy reader. However hard it might seem to get through, every reader must have at least one challenging book to get through - whether the Illuminatus! Trilogy of Robert Anton Wilson, Heinlein's Time Enough for Love or, indeed, Nick's choice of Mervyn Peake's masterwork.



Kyle, too, had a hard time choosing a truly unmissable book. After Consider Phlebas by Ian Banks, Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon and George R R Martin's Game of Thrones he settled on Joe Abercrombie's The Blade Itself (above); by its description, a trilogy which outshines George R R Martin's above work, posing a possible challenge to readers to pick up the works of both authors for careful perusal and comparison ... perhaps a topic for some future meeting of the club, or even TEBS.



Marco, a newcomer to the club, unfortunately did not have as much time to prepare as the others, though he chose I, Robot as his book in the end, describing it as a book about relationships between man and machine, and a first departure from the then-traditional "robot goes berserk" stories making their rounds in SF at that time.

Which left only one other speaker; only one other choice.

And for that choice ... I'll leave mine for the next blog.