Book for August: Dread Empire's Fall: The Praxis

Our book for August 17 2006 will be Dread Empire's Fall: The Praxis by Walter Jon Williams.

Meeting to discuss The Disappeared by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

All votes:

Abe: 6 (and 3, 3, 6 for the later novels)
Chris: 8
Dru: 8
Ignacio: 6*
John: 8
Lisa: 8
Raja: 7
TC: 8
Tracy: 6

* Ignacio sent his vote by email later (September 2).

TC Bradley's summary statements were echoed by several other people. Overall, it was considered to be a professionally written and fun book, though Tracy pointed out that certain core aspects really didn't stand up to close examination, and Raja complained that the setting was underused, and he would have trimmed a section or two. Almost everyone wished the author had spent more time examining and explaining the alien races (though TC wouldn't want the book to grow too much).

John Gallman posted the following to the mailing list (since he wasn't able to attend):

I thought it quite good, a professionally told yarn. One cares about the characters, some of them, anyway. My only complaint is that both alien civilizations had the same kind of claim on humans. Seems to be there should have been different issues (than trying to retrieve "criminal" humans. I'd read another book by her. This one I didn't feel the need to scan. Grade of 8.

Video

The video of TC Bradley, Chris Stanley, and Raja Thiagarajan giving their votes and opinions can be downloaded from http://moria.uits.indiana.edu/sfdg/uploads/theDisappeared.wmv . This is a Windows Media file (so I assume it can only be played with Windows Media Player running on Windows). You will need to log in and give the password in order to download this file; the login name and password have been posted on the mailing list.

Audio

The audio recording of the group discussing The Disappeared can be downloaded from http://moria.uits.indiana.edu/sfdg/uploads/theDisappearedMeeting.mp3 . As with the video, you will need the correct login name and password.

Meeting to discuss Old Man's War by John Scalzi

I audio-recorded the meeting, and also video-recorded people who were willing to give their votes "on camera".

All votes:
Abe: 8
Alek: 9
Chris: 8
Dedaimia: 9
Dru: 9
Jeff: 8
John: 7
Lisa: 7
Raja: 8
TC: 8
Tracy: 7

The consensus seemed to be that this was a fun book, despite the high body count, but perhaps a bit lightweight.