Our next meetings will be on Thursday 8 September & Tuesday 27 September 2005 at 12.00 noon in UBSA when we will be discussing Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut Copies available from Waterstone’s on campus The real disaster of the timequake occurs when it is over on February 13th, 2001, when free will kicks in again. The population, so used to running on automatic pilot for ten years, is slow to respond to the sudden need for purposeful action. Free will is back, but nobody does anything with it. Planes and automobiles crash, people fall down midstride; general chaos ensues for a time. Timequake is indeed the stew Vonnegut describes in the prologue. He muses about misuses and abuses of free will the world has seen, including the development and deployment of nuclear weapons. He tells us of the worldviews, both cynical and optimistic, of the people he has loved the most. He considers favorably the comforting powers of religion, although he himself is not a religious man. He waxes nostalgic about his life as a writer, a humanist, and a human being. What comes through most strongly in Timequake is Vonnegut's frustration with a world that doesn't try to make living life the best possible experience for all of its inhabitants. http://www.curledup.com/quake.htm Next book: The Telling by Ursula K Le Guin If you would like to join us please contact : Yvonne Aburrow ext 6022 or email [email protected] http://people.bath.ac.uk/ccsya/sfrg/ Previous books: Empire of Bones by Liz Williams, Virtual Light by William Gibson, The Book of Skulls by Robert Silverberg, The Player of Games by Iain M Banks .