We meet on the first Saturday of the month at 1:30 PM Eastern Time to discuss the selected topic, which could be a science fiction book, short story, movie, TV show, or theme. Detailed information on topic selection, meeting times and locations can be found on the meetings page.
Yevgeny Zamyatin's We is a pioneering dystopian novel set in the totalitarian 26th-century One State, a glass-enclosed city where emotion and individuality are suppressed under total surveillance by the Benefactor, with citizens identified by numbers. Mathematician D-503, chronicling his life in a journal, falls for the rebellious I-330, who introduces him to feelings, a world beyond the walls, and a plot to overthrow the regime, ultimately leading him to question his logical existence and embrace freedom before facing the state's mandatory imagination-removing "Great Operation".
The translation by Natasha Randall is preferred. Reta Shayevic's translation is also satisfactory.
Availability Available from book stores e.g. Chapters/Indigo or Amazon or local used book shops. Also available as a free download from Project Gutenberg.
Eleven secret government expeditions and few have returned unscathed-the first book in VanderMeer's exciting new Southern Reach Trilogy and soon to be a major motion picture.
Area X has been cut off from the rest of the continent for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization, and the government is involved in sending secret missions to explore Area X. The first expedition returned with reports of a pristine, Edenic landscape; all the members of the second expedition committed suicide; the third expedition died in a hail of gunfire as its members turned on one another; the members of the eleventh expedition returned as shadows of their former selves, and within months of their return, all had died of aggressive cancer.
Annihilation opens with the twelfth expedition. The group is composed of four women, including our narrator, a biologist. Their mission is to map the terrain and collect specimens; to record all of their observations, scientific and otherwise; and, above all, to avoid succumbing to the unpredictable effects of Area X itself.
What they discover shocks them: first, a massive topographic anomaly that does not appear on any map; and second, life forms beyond anything they're equipped to understand. But it's the surprises that came across the border with them that change everything-the secrets of the expedition members themselves, including our narrator. What do they really know about Area X-and each other?
Availability Available from the London Public Library or from book stores e.g. Chapters/Indigo or Amazon or local used book shops.
A Dystopian Tale of Human-Animal Communication. An Epidemic that Bridges Species.
In this unique dystopian narrative, a new disease transforms society by enabling communication between animals and humans. This extraordinary change redefines the way people interact with the world around them, introducing both challenges and opportunities as the boundaries between species blur. The story vividly explores the relationships that develop between humans and animals in the wake of this epidemic. Detailed descriptions of these interactions highlight how communication alters traditional dynamics, leading to both unexpected alliances and conflicts. At the heart of the tale is the protagonist's journey to find her missing granddaughter. Accompanied by a dingo, she navigates not only a transformed world but also her own interpersonal issues. Her quest is both entertaining and thought-provoking, offering insight into human resilience and the complexities of connection in this new reality.
Winner of several awards including the 2021 Arthur C. Clarke award. "In many ways Laura's book could be considered as a first contact novel, only the multiple alien species that humanity encounters have been sharing the Earth with us all along," Award director Tom Hunter said (as quoted by the Guardian). "In this way the novel speaks for the silent victims of our real-world climate crises, but while the environmental and social themes are deeply serious, our judges also praised the book's dark humour, sense of character and place, and its active opposition to easy genre tropes."
Availability Available from the London Public Library or from book stores e.g. Chapters/Indigo or Amazon or local used book shops.
Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world’s great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous World War II firebombing of Dresden, the novel is the result of what Kurt Vonnegut described as a twenty-three-year struggle to write a book about what he had witnessed as an American prisoner of war. It combines historical fiction, science fiction, autobiography, and satire in an account of the life of Billy Pilgrim, a barber’s son turned draftee turned optometrist turned alien abductee. As Vonnegut had, Billy experiences the destruction of Dresden as a POW. Unlike Vonnegut, he experiences time travel, or coming “unstuck in time.”
Availability Available from the London Public Library or from book stores e.g. Chapters/Indigo or Amazon or local used book shops.
Winner of the prestigious Prometheus Award and listed an "essential" book in the category of science fiction by TOR and SyFy.
After having frozen himself before dying of cancer, Justin Cord a brilliant and fiercely independent 21st Century industrialist awakens from a centuries--old cryogenic chamber to a future of extraordinary human social and economic achievement, where he is successfully resurrected into a healthy, younger body. Justin soon discovers the corporate nature of this new utopia in which following a catastrophic global economic collapse society has rebuilt itself through a system called Individual Corporation. Viewing personal incorporation as a polite form of voluntary slavery and having been born before the system existed Justin owns 100% of his own shares and he refuses anything less, making him unique and the world's only "unincorporated man". As powerful corporate interests plot Justin's compliance, his continued refusal shakes the foundations of the global economic system and becomes a rallying cry for the disadvantaged ""Penny Stock"" people to whom he becomes a folk hero and a symbol of liberty to the lower classes, who are heavily invested and have lost literal control of their own lives. Justin Cord will have to bring to bear all of his brilliance and business acumen if he is not to succumb to what seem insurmountable forces lined against him in a futuristic and unimaginably complex civilization that not only encompasses all of Earth but has established past the boundaries of the Solar System and even beyond the Oort Cloud.
Availability Available from book stores e.g. Chapters/Indigo or Amazon or local used book shops.
For centuries, the barren, desolate landscape of the red planet has beckoned to humankind. Now a group of one hundred colonists begins a mission whose ultimate goal is to transform Mars into a more Earth-like planet. They will place giant satellite mirrors in Martian orbit to reflect light onto its surface. Black dust sprinkled on the polar caps will capture warmth and melt the ice. And massive tunnels drilled into the mantle will create stupendous vents of hot gases. But despite these ambitious goals, there are some who would fight to the death to prevent Mars from ever being changed.
Availability Available from the London Public Library or from book stores e.g. Chapters/Indigo or Amazon or local used book shops.
Topic selection for March 2027 to August 2027 will also be decided at this meeting. Please use the Topic Proposal form to submit an idea.
A traditional American woman, a beautiful wife and mother who sells her pioneer lifestyle of raw milk and farm-fresh eggs to her millions of social media followers, suddenly awakens cold, filthy, and terrified in the brutal reality of 1855—where she must unravel whether this living nightmare is an elaborate hoax, a twisted reality show, or something far more sinister in this sensational debut novel.
A gripping, electrifying novel that is as darkly funny as it is frightening,Yesteryear is a gimlet-eyed look at tradition, fame, faith, and the grand performance of womanhood.
Availability Available from the London Public Library or from book stores e.g. Chapters/Indigo or Amazon or local used book shops.
Set in a dangerous near future world, The Book of M tells the story of a group of ordinary people caught in an extraordinary catastrophe who risk everything to save the ones they love. It is a sweeping debut that illuminates the power that memories have not only on the heart, but on the world itself. It explores fundamental questions of memory, connection, and what it means to be human in a world turned upside down.
One afternoon at an outdoor market in India, a man’s shadow disappears—an occurrence science cannot explain. He is only the first. The phenomenon spreads like a plague, and while those afflicted gain a strange new power, it comes at a horrible price: the loss of all their memories.
Availability Available from the London Public Library or from book stores e.g. Chapters/Indigo or Amazon or local used book shops.