Edinburgh SF Book Group

Mon, Sep 19, 2005

The next meeting of the Edinburgh SF Book Group will take place on Tuesday the 4^th of October at 6pm in Henderson’s 94 Hanover Street (the very tasty wholefood and veggie restaurant/café) in the New Town. The book under discussion in October will be V For Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd.

This once futuristic tale (set in a time period that is now past) may have been written at the height of the greedy, Thatcherite/Reaganite 80s with the omnipresent Cold War background, but although it does retain some flavours of the period it was created in, V For Vendetta remains a work about politics, repression and freedom which are as relevant as ever; perhaps even more relevant given our troubled present times, the use of violence for political/ideological ends and restrictions on liberties.

Soon to be a motion picture, the film has been dogged by problems; the leading man being replaced shortly after shooting commenced, co-creator Alan Moore publicly decrying it and severing his association with it (and indeed from DC) and discussion over the possible ‘dilution’ of some scenes where Codename V attacks the fascist state which controls this dystopian Britain because of their similarities to ‘terrorist’ attacks.

Is Codename V a terrorist? An Anarchist? A freedom Fighter? Come along and join in the discussion – all are welcome. The Edinburgh SF Book Group normally meets on the first Tuesday of each month; it covers science fiction, fantasy and graphic novels and has covered books as diverse as Richard Morgan’s Altered Carbon, R L Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Neil Gaiman’s Sandman – the Doll’s House, Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake and Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination to name a few. The books are chosen by the members themselves.