Rainbows End Discussion Post

If anyone would like to discuss Rainbows End, you can post your discussion in the comments below.

November Book Discussion

We will be reading and discussing Vernor Vinge’s Hugo Award Winning novel, “Rainbows End”.  Rainbow’s End won the award for Best Novel in 2007.  Copies are available at the Circulation Desk.  The write up at www.amazon.com reads:

Four time Hugo Award winner Vernor Vinge has taken readers to the depths of space and into the far future in his bestselling novels A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky. Now, he has written a science-fiction thriller set in a place and time as exciting and strange as any far-future world: San Diego, California, 2025.

Robert Gu is a recovering Alzheimer's patient. The world that he remembers was much as we know it today. Now, as he regains his faculties through a cure developed during the years of his near-fatal decline, he discovers that the world has changed and so has his place in it. He was a world-renowned poet. Now he is seventy-five years old, though by a medical miracle he looks much younger, and he's starting over, for the first time unsure of his poetic gifts. Living with his son's family, he has no choice but to learn how to cope with a new information age in which the virtual and the real are a seamless continuum, layers of reality built on digital views seen by a single person or millions, depending on your choice. But the consensus reality of the digital world is available only if, like his thirteen-year-old granddaughter Miri, you know how to wear your wireless access--through nodes designed into smartclothes--and to see the digital context--through smart contact lenses.

With knowledge comes risk. When Robert begins to re-train at Fairmont High, learning with other older people what is second nature to Miri and other teens at school, he unwittingly becomes part of a wide-ranging conspiracy to use technology as a tool for world domination.

In a world where every computer chip has Homeland Security built-in, this conspiracy is something that baffles even the most sophisticated security analysts, including Robert's son and daughter-in law, two top people in the U.S. military. And even Miri, in her attempts to protect her grandfather, may be entangled in the plot.

As Robert becomes more deeply involved in conspiracy, he is shocked to learn of a radical change planned for the UCSD Geisel Library; all the books there, and worldwide, would cease to physically exist. He and his fellow re-trainees feel compelled to join protests against the change. With forces around the world converging on San Diego, both the conspiracy and the protest climax in a spectacular moment as unique and satisfying as it is unexpected. This is science fiction at its very best, by a master storyteller at his peak.

The next meeting will be November 18th, at 5:30 pm in the Technology Lab.  Each subsequent meeting will be on the 3rd Tuesday of each month at 5:30 pm.  The aim is to alternate between genre classics and titles hot off the shelves.  Please contact Doug Kolpien (419-874-3135 x106) if you are interested in participating.

Starship Troopers discussion

I hope you have all been enjoying Starship Troopers.  If you would like to post your final thoughts here prior to the discussion, feel free to do so in the comments.

Rossford Library Sci-Fi Book Club

Hey,

if you are all looking for a second book club to take part in, Rossford Library has started a science fiction book club as well.  They will be reading Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  Here is their website to find more information.

Our groups aren't mutually exclusive, so you can participate in both!

Ready Player One: Last minute discussion

If you want to have any last minute discussion prior to our meeting on the 17th, here's the place to have it!

Just a warning though, there will be spoilers posted.

September 17th Book Discussion

First off, thanks to everyone who came and discussed Ender's Game last night.  I enjoyed the discussion, and I hope you all did too.

We will be reading and discussing critically acclaimed "Ready Player One", by Ernest Cline.  Ready Player One was released August 16, 2011, and was one of Amazon's Best Books of August, 2011.  It was also a New York Times and national best seller.

The amazon.com review reads:

Ready Player One takes place in the not-so-distant future--the world has turned into a very bleak place, but luckily there is OASIS, a virtual reality world that is a vast online utopia. People can plug into OASIS to play, go to school, earn money, and even meet other people (or at least they can meet their avatars), and for protagonist Wade Watts it certainly beats passing the time in his grim, poverty-stricken real life. Along with millions of other world-wide citizens, Wade dreams of finding three keys left behind by James Halliday, the now-deceased creator of OASIS and the richest man to have ever lived. The keys are rumored to be hidden inside OASIS, and whoever finds them will inherit Halliday’s fortune. But Halliday has not made it easy. And there are real dangers in this virtual world. Stuffed to the gills with action, puzzles, nerdy romance, and 80s nostalgia, this high energy cyber-quest will make geeks everywhere feel like they were separated at birth from author Ernest Cline.

--Chris Schluep


The next meeting will be September 17th, at 5:30 pm.  Each subsequent meeting will be on the 3rd Tuesday of each month at 5:30 pm.  The aim is to alternate between genre classics and titles hot off the shelves.  Please contact Doug Kolpien (419-874-3135 x106) if you are interested in participating.

My Contact Information

In case any of you want to get a hold of me, here is my contact info:

Email: dkolpien (at) oplin.org
Phone: (419)-874-3135 ext 106

This information is also listed here.

If you stop by the library with hopes to see me, please let the Circulation Desk or Information Desk know that you are here, and they will get into contact with me.