Super Relaxed Fantasy Club - March 12th 2019

Sangu starts the first reading

I thought it was about time there was some record on the WWW of SRFC. So here is a brief write up of the evening. Please feel free to drop me a line if I have got something wrong or missed any thing. If you have better pictures do share.

This evening was our first event at The Star of Kings and it went very well. Finding a new space for a regular event had not proven to be easy. The Star offered a compromise between cost and space. On announcing the event the take up was quite large. On the night we had 35 attendees, 3 readers a few guests and Kristina, Magnus and I. It was a bit of a squeeze, but with a few of us standing at the back we were all accommodated.

Kristina took the role of host for the evening. Our guest speakers were Sangu Mandanna, Tasha Suri and Natasha Ngan. To have three women for the evening was great, to have three women of colour was amazing. During their time talking with us they shared their backgrounds as Indian, settled in Britain, British Indian and Chinese Malaysian respectively. I summarise some of the discussion below, but there was a huge range of subjects discussed, including women's issues.

We opened the evening with a reading from Sangu from her book A Spark of White Fire . A science fiction novel. the first in a trilogy, where gods walk among men. Sangu explained she had based this writing around her fascination with the Mahabharata. This epic tale of war is the longest poem ever written  arising in the 9th or 8th century BCE. I have never read the original, but suspect Sangu has her work cut out. Her novelisation sounded very intriguing, labelled YA, this is one I have added to my TBR. A Spark of White Fire  is out in hardback from Sky Pony Press now and available later in the year as a paperback.

Tasha Suri Reading

Tasha Suri was next up with a reading from Empire of Sand, again first in a trilogy. Tasha introduced her work as being set in a medieval India that was inspired by the Murghal Empire. I really enjoyed the reading and became fascinated as Tasha said her magical system was based on ritualistic movement and dance. I had already bought a copy of this one and Tasha kindly inscribed it for me. Empire of Sand is out now in Paperback from Orbit

Natasha Ngan closed the evening with a reading from Girls of Paper and Fire. After a short reading Natasha answered questions and talked a fair bit about the themes in the book: being a prisoner, small rebellions in a closed world, losing one's you love and also sexual assault. Natasha was very forthright and said that she was a sexual abuse survivor and had included this aspect with care and thought.  In a book about people taken hostage as concubines it was not there to deliberately shock, but it was important to her. Girls of paper and Fire is out now In Hardback from Hodder, with paperback due in July 2019.

Kristina (K.K.) Perez and Natasha Ngan

A great evening, three very different authors who bought new ideas, themes and understandings of history and personal experience to their books. Usually SRFC is fun, but tonight it was excellent. It highlighted how much more is out there untapped and waiting to be written by new authors. I think the future of speculative fiction is looking good.

Simon Seabag Montefiore - Sashenka

The pain and pleasure of belonging to a book group is encountering new books and authors that displease or delight, or even just pass you by. I have to say I was quite enthused when this book was chosen by a friend as our next read. We had recently read A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles which I at first was doubtful about, but was entranced by it and would thoroughly recommend it.

Mr Montefiore tells a much darker tale, but it was not one that drew me in. There is no question of doubt that the author knows his history and has bound together elements of his knowledge to create this story. A tale of a young aristocrat, Sashenka, who becomes a revolutionary. Eventually falling foul of, and into, the self-consuming maw of the USSR's communist party. The novel contrasts well the Tsar's secret police and the party's similar agents or Checkists being much the same. There are a wealth of facts within the novel. For example I was not aware that the core of the parties revolutionary efforts were mostly Russian-based Georgian Bolsheviks.

The novel failed for me in several ways. I never became concerned with any of the characters. I felt they were very simple caricatures: too upstanding, too loyal, too cute, too horrible. The book was slow, meanders through some pointless scenes and a good third of the novel was just a repeat of what has gone before. Some of the descriptive language was just weird, for example: "Lala could savour the leather and cigars even in her tears". The final sin was Simon Montefiore's obsession with breasts, busts and bosoms. The first thing we learn about the protagonist is that she has the most prominent bust in here class at school. Similar references are made throughout the book. The most ludicrous being when Sashenka is being strip searched prior to a KGB interrogation and thinks what nice breasts she has!

Overall some great history, but frustrating and repetitive. Far too long but elements in here of a potentially good book. This is the first book in a trilogy, so perhaps better things follow.

Matt Ruff - Lovecraft Country

Matt Ruff tells us a series of Lovecraftian tales highlighting the state of racism in 1950s America. I am quite a fan of stories in the mould of H.P. Lovecraft. Not in his style, but that grasp the ideas that appear in his stories: the haunted house; the murderous cult; travel in time and space; the scientist; other body experiences etc. Matt Ruff takes these ideas and places an African American family in the middle of them. The obvious comparison is that the day to day horror of the racism they face is often far worse than the supernatural or other-worldly terrors they are confronted with. Well written and evocative of the time I felt he painted a realistic picture of the racism. Much to my surprise Matt is not African American, but he is complemented by other reviewers on not pulling his punches and writing the uncomfortable truth. I am not sure this is a novel, more a series of novellas linked by the common characters of two brothers, George and Montrose, their friends and family. While the book lagged a bit in the middle and was a bit of a stitch up at the end, it was both shocking and enjoyable.

As a footnote I also enjoyed the book cover.