Thomas’s Comments (group member since Jun 07, 2016)

Thomas’s comments from the SFF180 presents the Virga Readalong! group.

The "official" period for the Virga readalong ends today, and I want to thank everyone who participated as well as Karl Schroeder for joining in and interacting with readers. I've enjoyed reading everyone's commentary (mainly I wanted to keep a hands-off approach to the group and not try to influence any discussions — my own reviews of these books can be found on my old site at sfreviews.net).

The goal here was to get everyone to try something new, by a writer new to most of you, and even if the books turned out to be not your thing, trying something new is always a worthwhile endeavor.

For those of you who would like to continue the series with the three remaining volumes — PIRATE SUN, THE SUNLESS COUNTRIES and ASHES OF CANDESCE — naturally I encourage you to do so. Let me know if you'd like me to open up discussion threads for those books, or you could just talk about them in this thread and the "Questions for Karl" thread.

Well done, everyone, and thank you all again.

Virga author Karl Schroeder has joined the group, and is delighted we're all doing this. Apparently this is the first readalong anyone's ever held for one of his books, so I'm pleased to be doing the honors. In this thread, Karl will be happy to answer any questions you may have about the stories, the characters, the series and the future it portrays, or just engage with you generally. This thread allows spoilers. You can ask pretty much anything, so be aware of that before you step in if you aren't ready.

I'd also like to reassure anyone who might feel a little intimidated by an author's presence in a readalong. We're all aware that every book impacts its readers differently — some people will love it, some not so much. And that's okay. The important thing is you're all trying out a new series and a new writer telling a different sort of story, and that's a great experience. And part of that experience is that in each book's general discussion thread, everyone feels free to offer their impressions, pro or con.

Thanks again to everyone for participating and to Karl for bringing us new realms of SF to enjoy.

Hey Cheryl and June. Thanks for taking part! Here's how I visualize Virga: Imagine you're in a plane looking out the window, so there's sky just everywhere. Now, delete the ground from below, and space from up above, so it's all sky, all the time. That's what you're surrounded by, clouds and sky above and below you. Now, you're not in a plane, but you're a skydiver in free fall, but you have no chute. Except you aren't in danger because it's all zero-G. So there you are, afloat in a world of sky.

Off in the distance you see a large bubble of water, like those videos from the space station where the astronauts are having fun swatting around water blobs. But this one is massive, like really, really huge. That's an ocean.

Look the other direction and you'll see something like a huge cluster of plant life. Many years ago, dirt from one of the habitats broke free, and over the years more dirt accumulated until it was a big dirt clod. The moisture in the air helped the random bits of plant life attached to these dirt clods grow and thrive. It's now a couple of miles across. This is a forest.

Far off in the distance you see the sun. This is Candesce, at the very center of this airy space balloon. It's actually a huge artificial light powered by fusion, and it gets brighter and dimmer at intervals conforming to a day/night cycle. All around you see smaller lights farther off. There are tinier artificial suns like Candesce, located out near the distant "skin" of the balloon where it's darker and colder than near the center.

Finally, look right ahead of you. There's an immense machine, a man-made wheel, that is spinning at its hub. It's huge. Along the inner rim of the wheel, you see buildings, enough of them to fill Manhattan, teeming with people. This is a city, and the spinning of the wheel creates normal gravity for the people living in it. In fact, because this one is so huge, it's a nation.

Now you're no longer just floating in the sky. You're straddling a tiny craft like a flying motorcycle, sort of like those cycles they used in Return of the Jedi to fly through the forests of Endor. You throttle up and fly towards the city on the wheel, going home.

Virga itself is an SFnal concept, as are elements within its environment (the fusion "suns"). The story itself operates within a classic adventure template. Part of why I chose this series for an SF readalong is that it tells the sort of story that might be more accessible to fantasy readers as well as noobs to science fiction generally, whereas a traditional hard SF story might have been a bit too technical to have broad appeal. So it's fair to say Sun of Suns straddles a few genres.

Now that it's time to start this reading journey, it's time we introduced ourselves! I assume most of you know me... Thomas, long-time book reviewer for SFReviews.net (soon to be SFF180 itself) and booktubing host of this readalong. I live in Austin, and am very happy to have you all along on this voyage. Take a moment, why don't you, to say hello and let us all know something about yourselves.

This thread is for open discussion of QUEEN OF CANDESCE, the second VIRGA adventure. What are your thoughts on the new direction Schroeder has taken the story?

This thread is for open discussion of SUN OF SUNS, the first book in the VIRGA series and the first half of the bind-up edition Virga: Cities of the Air. What are your initial impressions of the world that Schroeder has created?