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CAROL CHASE
MEETING SUMMARY:
Meeting Date: April 13, 1991
Meeting Site: Saddle River Valley Cultural Center, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.
Official Attendance: 17.
Meeting Program: Talk by Fantasy Writer.
Notes:
Meeting Memories:
Newsletter Account:
The following account is reprinted with permission from THE STARSHIP LOCAL Copyright 1991 Philip De Parto:
Author Carol Chase, whose first novel, HAWK'S FLIGHT, will be published by Baen Books in June of 1991, was the guest speaker at the April 13, 1991 meeting of the S.F.A.B.C. The meeting was held at the Saddle River Valley Cultural Center at approximately 8:20 PM. Early arrivals watched STAR TREK, THE NEXT GENERATION on the club television.
As expected, the no-newsletter / bad weather / income tax blues combo kept the attendance down. Our originally scheduled guest was a last (4/12/91) minute cancellation due to a serious family illness.
The usual set of announcements was made. Robert Yeager mentioned that there are some hotel programs associated with I-Con (4/19/91 - 4/21/91) hotel space. Alan Reid asked that he be contacted by anyone with a copy of an ORBIT anthology in which a R A Lafferty story appeared. Warren Davis, James La Barr, and Patricia Nash won free books.
Remembering a remark to the effect that members of most science fiction clubs never discuss science fiction, Director Philip De Parto began asking what books/stories had recently been read by a random selection of club members. The replies appear below.
Mark Blackman
............................DESERTED CITIES OF THE HEART by Lewis Shiner, mystical mushrooms and magic realism.
Charles Garofalo
............................THE EIGHT SKILLED GENTLEMEN by Barry Hughart, latest book in the series set in ancient fantasy China.
James La Barre
............................The STAR COMMANDOS series by P M Griffin (Ms Griffin is the S.F.A.B.C. May scheduled speaker).
Lissanne Lake
............................BLIND JUSTICE by S N Lewitt, science fiction revolutionary intrigue.
Eileen Madison
............................SILICON MAN by Charles Platt; Eileen was only a third of the way into this book but liked things so far.
Alan Reid
............................"Shadow and Flash" by Jack London. This 1906 short story about invisibility may have influenced Gygax and D&D invisibility. Alan said nice things about London's lesser known work in general.
Thomas Purdy
............................WILD CARDS # 8: ONE EYED JACKS, a shared world anthology. Thomas recommends the entire series.
Bobbie Smith
............................THE EAGLE AND THE RAVEN by James Mitchner, a dual biography of Sam Houston and Santa Ana.
............................SILENT WINGS by Gerard Devlin, about glider pilots in the millitary in World War II.
............................A NATURAL HISTORY OF THE SENSES about how taste, touch, vision, etc work.
Feedback about whether or not this spur-of-the-moment should be continued is welcome.
Carol Chase was very reluctant to say much about HAWK'S FLIGHT. She instead wanted to get into a discussion of what she called "magic," which is what most people in science fiction call "sense of wonder." She talked about certain special moments in her life when she had experienced that wonder, read a passage from SURPRISED BY JOY by C S Lewis, and then threw the matter open to discussion.
Conversation wandered all over the place, with various members stating which books and experiences evoked this sensation. Lissanne Lake and, to a lesser degree, Alan Reid, opined that less good stuff was being printed than in the past because of the need to pander to the lowest common denominator. A number of others concurred. Philip De Parto pronounced this a case of thirty-something nostalgia and that it ws not the writing which had lost its sense of wonder, but the reader. (The example given was the experience of seeing an ocean for the first time. The initial sighting by a child induces awe. An adult who has been exposed to the sea has a different reaction. It is not the object which has changed, but the observer.)
After the break, Phil De Parto pursued a line of investigation which unearthed a few details about the author and the book. The story is written in third person with multiple viewpoints. The level of technology is early renaissance. The story is set in a land being colonized by a more technologically advanced people than the natives. While there is some magic, including shape changing, it is basically the province of an evil priesthood.
The author is a double major in English and Geology, although she considers the geology research papers a better teacher on how to write than the English. She supports herself by temping when money is tight. She went as a traveling companion for a woman writing about southern Asia. She first submitted the book to DAW, was rejected, and then submitted it to Baen where it was accepted without too many changes.
After the meeting was over, most of us hung around the Center for around 45 minutes. John Upton arrived after having gone to the circus earlier in the day. He joined Mark Blackman, Warren Davis, Philip De Parto, Richard Factor, James La Barre, Eileen Madison and Bobbie Smith at the Horizon Diner afterwards.
Postscript: The Casa Maria Restaurant is now an El Toritos. We had dinner there before the meeting. There were no problems with the food. A number of people were prevailed upon to help themselves to the back issues of OMNI Philip De Parto has been lugging around for years.