Upcoming Discussions
The books listed below are scheduled to be discussed at the group. We're always keen to see new faces so if any of the titles take your fancy please feel free to come along.
Translation State (Ann Leckie)
31 July 2024 19:00
iCafe (72 Ingram Street, Glasgow, G1 1EX)
Qven was created to be a Presger translator. The pride of their Clade, they always had a clear path before them: learn human ways, and eventually, make a match and serve as an intermediary between the dangerous alien Presger and the human worlds. The realization that they might want something else isn't "optimal behavior". I's the type of behavior that results in elimination.
But Qven rebels. And in doing so, their path collides with those of two others. Enae, a reluctant diplomat whose dead grandmaman has left hir an impossible task as an inheritance: hunting down a fugitive who has been missing for over 200 years. And Reet, an adopted mechanic who is increasingly desperate to learn about his genetic roots - or anything that might explain why he operates so differently from those around him.
As a Conclave of the various species approaches - and the long-standing treaty between the humans and the Presger is on the line - the decisions of all three will have ripple effects across the stars.
Poor Things (Alasdair Gray)
28 August 2024 19:00
iCafe (72 Ingram Street, Glasgow, G1 1EX)
A life without freedom to choose is not worth having.
Godwin Baxter's scientific ambition to create the perfect companion is realised when he finds the drowned body of the beautiful Bella, who he brings back to life in a Frankenstein-esque feat. But his dream is thwarted by Dr. Archibald McCandless's jealous love for his creation . . .
But what does Bella think?
This story of true love and scientific daring whirls the reader from the private operating-theatres of late-Victorian Glasgow through aristocratic casinos, low-life Alexandria and a Parisian bordello, reaching an interrupted climax in a Scottish church.
The Library of the Dead (T. L. Huchu)
25 September 2024 19:00
iCafe (72 Ingram Street, Glasgow, G1 1EX)
When ghosts talk, she will listen . . .
Ropa dropped out of school to become a ghostalker – and she now speaks to Edinburgh’s dead, carrying messages to the living. A girl’s gotta earn a living, and it seems harmless enough. Until, that is, the dead whisper that someone’s bewitching children – leaving them husks, empty of joy and life. It’s on Ropa’s patch, so she feels honour bound to investigate. But what she learns will change her world.
She’ll dice with death (not part of her life plan . . .) as she calls on Zimbabwean magic and Scottish pragmatism to hunt down clues. For Edinburgh hides a wealth of secrets. And in the process, she discovers an occult library and some unexpected allies. Yet as shadows lengthen, will the hunter become the hunted?
The Day Tripper (James Goodhand)
30 October 2024 19:00
iCafe (72 Ingram Street, Glasgow, G1 1EX)
It's 1995, and Alex Dean has it all: a place at Cambridge University next year, the love of an amazing woman named Holly and all the time in the world ahead of him. That is until a brutal encounter with a ghost from his past sees him beaten, battered and almost drowning in the Thames.
He wakes the next day to find he's in a messy, derelict room he's never seen before, in grimy clothes he doesn't recognise. A glimpse in the mirror tells him he's older-much older-his features ravaged by time and poor decisions. It's 2010-fifteen years since the fight.
After finally managing to sleep, Alex wakes the following morning to find it's now 2019, another nine years later. But the next day, it's 1999. Never knowing which day is coming, he begins to piece together what happens in his life after that fateful night.
But what exactly is going on? Why does his life look nothing like he thought it would? What about Cambridge, and Holly? In this page-turning adventure, Alex must navigate his way through the years to learn that good decisions can have untold impact. And that might be all he needs to save the people he loves and, equally importantly, himself.
Him (Geoff Ryman)
27 November 2024 19:00
iCafe (72 Ingram Street, Glasgow, G1 1EX)
“Women, of course, can not be sons of God,”
In the village of Nazareth, virgin Maryam and the wife of Yosef barLevi gives birth to a miracle: a little girl. She is named Avigayil, after her grandmother.
But as Avigayil grows, it’s clear she believes that she is destined to be someone greater than just the daughter of Maryam. From leading a gang of village boys to challenging the priests in the temple, Avigayil is determined to find her way as Yeshu, a man.
Yeshu can work miracles. He can see futures. He can speak for God.
A gripping, thoughtful sci-fi novel, tackling family, the multiverse and the survival of love through immense change and crisis.
The Annual Banquet of the Gravediggers’ Guild (Mathias Enard)
29 January 2025 19:00
iCafe (72 Ingram Street, Glasgow, G1 1EX)
To research his thesis on contemporary agrarian life, anthropology student David Mazon moves from Paris to La Pierre-Saint-Christophe, a village in the marshlands of western France. Determined to capture the essence of rurality, the intrepid scholar shuttles around on his moped to interview local residents. Unbeknownst to David, in these nondescript lands, once theatres of wars and revolutions, Death leads the dance. When an existence ends, the Wheel of Life recycles its soul and hurls it back into the world as microbe, human or wild animal, sometimes in the past, sometimes in the future. Only once a year do Death and the living observe a temporary truce, during a gargantuan three-day feast where gravediggers gorge themselves on food, libations and language. Brimming with Mathias Enard’s characteristic wit and encyclopaedic brilliance, The Annual Banquet of the Gravediggers’ Guild is a riotous novel where the edges between past and present are constantly dissolving against a Rabelaisian backdrop of excess – and a paradoxically macabre paean to life’s richness.
The Last Hero (Terry Pratchett)
26 February 2025 19:00
iCafe (72 Ingram Street, Glasgow, G1 1EX)
It stars the legendary Cohen the Barbarian, a legend in his own lifetime. Cohen can remember when a hero didn't have to worry about fences and lawyers and civilisation, and when people didn't tell you off for killing dragons. But he can't always remember, these days, where he put his teeth...
So now, with his ancient sword and his new walking stick and his old friends - and they're very old friends - Cohen the Barbarian is going on one final quest. He's going to climb the highest mountain in the Discworld and meet his gods. The last hero in the world is going to return what the first hero stole. With a vengeance.
That'll mean the end of the world, if no one stops him in time.
Redshirts (John Scalzi)
26 March 2025 19:00
iCafe (72 Ingram Street, Glasgow, G1 1EX)
Ensign Andrew Dahl has just been assigned to the Universal Union Capital Ship Intrepid, flagship of the Universal Union since the year 2456. It's a prestige posting, and Andrew is even more delighted when he's assigned to the ship's Xenobiology laboratory. Life couldn't be better ... although there are a few strange things going on:
(1) every Away Mission involves a lethal confrontation with alien forces
(2) the ship's captain, the chief science officer, and the handsome Lieutenant Kerensky always survive these encounters
(3) at least one low-ranked crew member is, sadly, always killed.
Suddenly it's less surprising how much energy is expended below decks on avoiding, at all costs, being assigned an Away Mission. Andrew's fate may have been sealed ... until he stumbles on a piece of information that changes everything ... and offers him and his fellow redshirts a crazy, high-risk chance to save their own lives ...
Asunder (Kerstin Hall)
30 April 2025 19:00
iCafe (72 Ingram Street, Glasgow, G1 1EX)
We choose our own gods here.
Karys Eska is a deathspeaker, locked into an irrevocable compact with Sabaster, a terrifying eldritch being--three-faced, hundred-winged, unforgiving--who has granted her the ability to communicate with the newly departed. She pays the rent by using her abilities to investigate suspicious deaths around the troubled city she calls home. When a job goes sideways and connects her to a dying stranger with some very dangerous secrets, her entire world is upended.
Ferain is willing to pay a ludicrous sum of money for her help. To save him, Karys inadvertently binds him to her shadow, an act that may doom them both. If they want to survive, they will need to learn to trust one another. Together, they must journey to the heart of a faded empire, all the while haunted by arcane horrors, and the unquiet ghosts of their pasts.
And all too soon, Karys knows her debts will come due.