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Our discussion of The Daedalus Incident

The group met on Wednesday evening to discuss The Daedalus Incident by Michael J. Martinez.   I'll try to hit some of the highlights of what readers had to say:

  • Glenn wasn't able to join us in person, but had texted a few comments over.  He said that he liked the 1770's part, but felt like the 2132 section was "a poorly planned attempt to make the past make sense in the real world.   And the French guy was skeevy."
  • More than one reader wasn't quite enamored with the book.  Menolly said she didn't finish it, and just couldn't get into the story.   She liked some of the concepts, like the lodestones and the ships sailing around the planets, and said that it felt a bit like a throwback to 1950s science fiction.  However, she was bored by the 2132 storyline.   Nathan mentioned that he struggled with the book, as well.  He said he had grown up being interested in the planets, so for him, the author seemed to go not only against what we know about the planets, but also didn't seem to explain very much.
  • Hola, on the other hand, enjoyed the book.  She was reminded of Cherie Priest's Boneshaker and liked the slow buildup of the story, which made it feel like a mystery.  The characters, on the other hand, were a mixed bag.  Weatherby seemed "one can short of a six pack," although she liked Anne very much.   She also enjoyed the historical figures in a completely weird alternate universe.
  • Terry also enjoyed the book, and said that while she doesn't always like the back-and-forth of alternate timelines/storytelling, she enjoyed it here.  
  • Furry also liked some of the same elements that Menolly mentioned, and what made it a fun story for her was the sailing ships going into space with alchemy, as well as the alternate history.  However, she felt it took some heavy lifing to get the two storylines to come together.
  • Derek said that if he approaches a book like this with the idea that it will be a fun ride, then it works.  He noted that in a lot of science fiction, there is a tendency to make it very believable and here, the author treats things more like in a fantasy book.  He said that depending on what you enjoy in a story, this book can either be enjoyable or a complete turn-off.  He also felt that the author could have tightened up the pacing a bit more.    Derek also noted that if a story is good enough and fun enough, he can suspend his disbelief and enter the world.  If it's a good story, he'll miss any plot holes, etc.  However, like many other readers, if the story isn't quite good enough, then he finds that he can pick out a lot of issues with a book.
  • aNON felt like the cover was misleading, and he expected it to lean more towards science fiction.  He said, "Spaceships! Great!  Alchemy .... hmmm." He also didn't like that the two viewpoints didn't overlap for 150 pages, especially since it didn't seem like there was much cause/effect going on, either.    Derek said he wondered if introducing the journal sooner into the 2132 timeline would have helped.   Ed also found that the book took too long to get to the point where he found it to be fun. 
  • Burt Macklin, FBI said that he really liked the book and that it reminded him of Zelazny's Amber campaigns.  He also echoed Menolly's statement about how the book had a 1950's science fiction feel to it, with life on other planets.
  • We had some general discussion about some of the characters and their development throughout the book.   Some readers noted that they found the characters, especially the women, to be pretty realistic.  For example, Miss Baker is intelligent, but not also beautiful, talented, kick-ass, etc etc.  Readers also noted that the characters seemed to have pretty realistic development throughout the story.   
  • Burt Macklin, FBI did say that the audiobook was done quite well by two readers, and that it felt more like listening to an audio drama.
  • Lastly, we talked about the cover art, which we don't usually tend to do.  aNON had noted that the cover art made it seem like the book would be more science fiction-y than it was.  Theresa noted that the cover was a lot like the one for Ares Express, with a large object and tiny people.  We talked generally about cover art and how it can make a difference on whether a reader might pick up the book or not (or expect something different from the story based on the cover art).

These are just some highlights from our discussion (because I can never quite capture what everyone is saying ---- our discussions are pretty active!)  We gave the book these codes: BAC, LEL, XEN, ATT, SOP, HRO, MAG and the averaged-out rating was a 3.5.  

As always, we welcome more discussion.  Please feel free to leave a comment!

Comments

Good book and good discussion, Jen. I ended up reading both the sequel and the novella.

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