Meets on the second Monday of the month at 7 p.m. at locations to be announced due to construction at the Peoria Public Library Main Library. Please call 497-2000 and ask for the sci-fi fantasy book club coordinator.
January 11: Robert Redick The Red Wolf Conspiracy
For 40 years the Mzithrin and Arquali Empires have been gridlocked in a cold war over a wealth of resources in the Crownless Lands. In Chathrand, a hovering city constructed by sorcerers and shipwrights, a young woman named Thasha is forced into marriage with an enemy prince. None of the Empires’ inhabitants are certain whether this marriage is a candid attempt to unite the rival kingdoms in peace or whether a darker political chess match is being played. Tensions soar as god-kings, warriors, and creatures alike become engaged in a bloody war over a powerful ancient artifact.
February 8: Robert Charles Wilson Spin
When the sky goes dark, Tyler Dupree and his teenage friends, twins Diane and Jason, find themselves faced with an uncertain future in which the world they know may cease to exist. In this apocalyptic saga, three friends find themselves headed down divergent paths as they struggle to cope with what could potentially be the end of days. Jason, in an attempt to save the people he loves, entrenches himself in scientific research to study the galactic Hypotheticals whose spin determined the fate of earth, while Diane joins a religious doomsday cult.
March 8: Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Arthur Dent is an unlucky Englishman who does not realize that his best friend is an alien who has been trapped on Earth. Arthur, accompanied by his alien friend and writer of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Ford Prefect, escapes the destruction of Earth by an alien race called Vogons. Arthur and Ford Prefect visit Magrathea, the planet once home to the now-collapsed planet building industry. On Magrathea the characters meet Slartibartfast, the genius behind the construction of the Norwegian fjords. Slartbartfast recalls the story of a race of super intelligent and pan dimensional beings who designed a computer named Deepthought to calculate the answer to the “Ultimate Question of Life the Universe, and Everything.”
Deepthought determines the answer to be “42” and predicts that a new and more powerful computer will be built to reveal the question to the answer. The computer is actually Earth, and because Arthur was part of the Earth’s Matrix moments before the computer’s destruction he is believed to have a part of the ultimate question lodged in his brain and therefore the target of two Vogons who want to dissect his brain to insert a phony question.
April 12: Frederick Pohl Narabedla LTD
Nolly Stennis is an accountant whose clientele includes singers, dancers and other performers. Nolly himself is a major in the arts and a promising baritone anticipating a bright singing career before a bad case of the mumps destroys his beautiful voice and renders him impotent. When some of his clients vanish shortly after being offered a career with Narabedla Ltd., Nolly embarks on an investigation to uncover the truth behind the mysterious corporation behind the entertainment gigs. What he discovers is out of this world.
May 10: Patrick Rothfuss The Name of the Wind
The Name of the Wind traces the journey of a talented young magician named Kyvothe who grows up as an orphan in a crime-ridden city and successfully applies to enter a legendary magic school. Kyvothe goes on the run after the murder of a king and soon finds himself transforming into the most powerful wizard the world has ever seen.
June 14: Thomas A. Day Grey Moon over China
When army engineer Eduardo Torres discovers imprints for a quantum battery that could solve Earth’s energy crisis, his first thought isn’t to share this newfound information. Instead, he decides to establish his own rogue state with a fleet of starships and shoot them through a wormhole into the Holzstein system. Much to his surprise he is attacked, first by humans and next by an alien race intent on destroying the planet.
July 12: Laura Ann Gilman Flesh and Fire
Jersey is a young vineyard slave of unknown origin who possesses the most prized ability of the Vinearts, the ability to transform potent grapes into spellwines. Strange disappearances, plagues, and terrifying creatures begin plaguing Jersey’s master’s land, and Jersey is the only Vineart who senses the danger. The Master must assist Jersey in developing his magic abilities within if he is to save the Vin Lands from being completely destroyed.
August 9: Melissa Scott Shadow Man
Five distinct sexes are formed in a future world as the side-effect of a new drug allowing faster than speed of light travel. In the Concord worlds the new sexes have been recognized, but on the isolated planet of Hara the new sexes are regarded as mutations that must learn to live their lives as one of the two traditional sexes. When Concord and Hara come into contact with one another, a “herm” named Warreven sees an opportunity to break out of the mutant label society has forced upon him. Breaking out of his forced identity proves to be a more challenging undertaking than first thought.
September 13: Michael Chabon Yiddish Policemen’s Union
The plot of Chabon’s novel is crafted into a historical “what if?” scenario following the plight of the Jews after World War II. In Yiddish Policemen’s Union Sitka, Alaska is presented as the temporary refuge for two million displaced Jews who now struggle to survive and maintain their cultural identity in a changing world. In actuality, President Franklin Roosevelt proposed such a settlement on the eve of World War II, but the Sitka plan never came to fruition and Israel was formed. In Chabon’s alternate reality however, Israel fails to gain a foothold in the Middle East and because the Sitka solution is fleeting, Alaskan Jews are at risk of losing their new homeland. Meyer Landsman, the hero of the story, is a rogue cop who discovers that one of his neighbors has been murdered. Landsman and his half Native American, half Jewish partner and attractive but tough boss who also just happens to be his ex-wife must investigate a shady underworld of crime-lord rabbis and black-hatted Orthodox gangs.
October 11: John Wynham The Chyrsalids
After a catastrophic nuclear war devastates modern society, a young man named Daniel lives in a closely guarded community that condemns anything or anyone it perceives to be outside of the norm of creation. Abnormal plants and humans are burned or destroyed, accomplanied by singing of hymns. The only humans to survive are those who can escape to the Fringes, an uncertain wilderness where authorities say the devil does his work. At first Daniel follows in lock-step with the community, until he discovers that he has an abnormal power that will either lead him to freedom or condemn him to death.
November 8: Mike Carey Devil You Know
Felix Castor is a freelance exorcist who has decided that perhaps taking on otherworldly beings was not the right career choice after all. In order to make some money, Castor accepts what appears to be a seemingly simple ghost hunting case, but the exorcism soon evolves into a competition among all sorts of spirits to see which can kill him off first.
December 13: Justina Robson Keeping it Real
A quantum bomb at Texas' supercollider blows a hole into the fabric of spacetime, unveiling five other realities previously unknown to Otopia's (formerly Earth's) inhabitants. One of the realities, Alfheim, is a home to elves. Zal, the leader of a rebel elf rock band is targeted by Alfheim extremists for being successful among the humans. After a series of cryptic notes is sent to Zal's manager, Special Agent Lila Black of the Odonians goes undercover as a bodyguard to investigate.
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