Center for Inquiry Austin

April 29, 2010 7:00 PM - 1 attended

Science &Religion in Fiction Book Club: "In the Country of the Blind"

Barnes & Noble Cafe/Arboretum Area (map)

Michael Flynn "In the Country of the Blind"

From Amazon.com review: "This novel of big ideas explores the consequences of manipulating history. When Sarah Beaumont moves into an old Denver house, she learns that a previous owner, Brady Quinn, was killed in 1892 during a gunfight between two cowboys, seemingly an innocent bystander. Sarah's research into the mysterious Quinn leads her to a building where she finds some strange, abandoned machines, which turn out to be Babbage Analytical Engines (i.e., 19th-century computers). Soon Sarah is on the trail of the Babbage Society, founded before the Civil War, whose members use the science of Cliology to tamper with history. Some of them have formed a splinter group and created Ideons (later called memes) to control an unsuspecting public. With several friends, Sarah continues her research, only to find that they have all become targets of a relentless enemy. Intrigues and double-crosses abound, as various competing factions justify and adjust their practice of Cliology. Plot and character development, as one might expect, matter only insofar as they further the philosophical argument."

Your coordinator is Elze Hamilton.

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1 attended

4.001 (1 ratings)

Event Host

Elze H

We thought the book was entertaining enough, but rather mediocre. We agreed that the premise of scientifically manipulating history was interesting, but (a) implausible, and (b) not integrated into the plot. The characters talk about manipulating history, but don't actually do it. "Show, don't tell" would have been enormously helpful in this book, and would have made it an order of magnitude more interesting.