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Attending: Don Pelton, Kent, Terry, Mem, Joe, Jack, Connor, Cary, Richard Karsh, James, Ben, Melissa, Cethy, Erin, Ted.

VP called the meeting to order at 8:33. President is missing. VP reports that there are brownies and Kent wanted her to solicit for more vice, but she turned him down. Secretary had sent out the minutes to the First Friday list. Minutes accepted. Teasureer says we have money and that memberships for COSine are trickling in. We have about $2400.

Book Committee: Next month is Ursula LeGuin's Left Hand of Darkness and this is available at the library.

Trustees: Looking for volunteers for officers. Please contact Kent, Cary, and Melissa with suggestions for a slate of officers to nominate.

Dues are due in January and it's $10 for the year. Jack moved to reduce the dues to $5. Died for lack of a second.

Book Discussion: Lots of people had read the book. Dick had read the two stories that were in a Martin anthology. Terry found the book very boring. She found Tuf unemotional and boring. Mem found Tuf interesting. This devolved into a discussion of Asperger's Syndrome and whether the Tuf character exemplified this. Kent says that the point of the story is that Tuf falls into this God Machine and in learning to use it, has to deal with becoming godlike. Mem thought that Tuf's treatment of some of the monsters gave an interesting insight into his character (that Terry said he didn't have). Jack felt that Tuf should have dispersed birth control in his initial new food preparation. Mem and Kent thought it was more interesting that first time he provides food, second time he provides food and advice, and third time he provides food and imposes birth control. The only characters who seemed to grow and change were Tuf and Molly Tune.

Cosine Report: Cethy reported the art show is all good. Would like the website to say we don't take mail-in art. Very close to being sold out of as much room as we have available. Ted says we will have a convention. All is well with the hotel. Need to let them know if we will reserve a screen. We need to do room setup. Jack says they sold the hotel as of 1 January. Ted says he will call on Monday and talk to them about it. First Friday and COSine websites will be updated this weekend. Programming will be done next week in Hawaii. Cary is working on video scheduling. He does need a screen and a projector. TChris said that he could provide the projector. Kent Reg says that we are getting reg by mail and by PayPal. He is going to need relief at the Reg table. Please contact him to sign up. Jack says he has sent George mail confirming our arrangements but has not heard back. Jack will send mem George's address for programming. Jack is handling dealers. George is available to have dinner with the convention staff on Sunday night. We get the con suite by 3pm on Friday - but probably earlier. Robin is doing publications. Need to discuss with her the mechanics of getting information to her and having the book and badges done the weekend before. Meeting at the hotel on Wed Jan 14 to decide on facilites use and do the resume. Ted will be out of town 31 Dec through 10 Jan. Terry is taking over during that time.

November 2008 Minutes

Attending: Spring Lea Henry, Ray Henry, Jeanne Vincent, Don Pelton, Kent, Terry, Mem, Joe, Jack, Ted, Robin, Brendan, Connor, Melissa, James, Ben, TChristopher Gardner, Cary.

Robin called the meeting to order at 8:18 pm. She will continue working on the COSine and First Friday pages as time is available. Terry (Vice) reports chocolate Sundays at MileHiCon. There were also many cookies at MileHiCon. There are cookies and brownies on the table this evening - and many sodas. This is as viscious as she intends to get.

Mem (Secretary) says she will try to work with Robin on the web. Joe (Treasurer) says we sold 14 memberships plus eight tables for COSine. Our membership is up to about 50. Membership for COSine is $40 from now until the end of the year. We have about $2300 in the account and this is larely COSine money.

Who are the trustees? Kent and two others. They must come up with a slate of officers for officers in January. Jack thinks he is one. We are not sure because Jack lost the paper plate that the minutes were written on. Ted found an email dated January 2008. The trustees are Melissa, Eric Schwartz, Cary.

COMMITTEES
Book Committee: Cary is not here but we are going to set a reading list anyway.
The November book is the August book, Austin Grossman's "Soon I Will Be Invincible".
The December book is George RR Martin's "Tuf Voyaging". Mem purchased three copies so we could all read it. She is reading one. Jack took a copy and Melissa took a copy.
The January book is "Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula LeGuin.
The February book is "Bloodwing Voyages" by Diane Duane
The March book is "Neverwhere" by Neil Gaiman.

The committee to find the bylaws found the bylaws and Terry Adams presented a written petition to replace Eric Schwartz as Trustee - since he has moved to Chicago. Petition was signed by Terry, Joe, Ted, and Jack. Other members of the board agree. Robin appointed Kent as a replacement. Kent is now a trustee. Now Cary showed up at 9:04pm.

COSine Committee: The hotel contract is signed and in place. You have to call the hotel to book a room. We have reserved the con suite and adjoining bedroom and reserved a suite with outside access for George so Parris can come and smoke. Ted spent $60 on a banner and flyers for MileHiCon. Robin can stick the year on the banner. Our table at MileHiCon was very successful. Gave lots of flyers and cookies. Spring Lea just volunteered to do press releases. Karen is doing the art show again this year. What will we do for equipment for the video room. TChristopher says he has a computer projector that he can volunteer. Terry agrees to be deputy chair (or possibly ottoman). Ted will talk to the hotel about having a meeting at the hotel and will give us a date in early December.

The December First Friday meeting will be on 12 December (2nd Friday) because of SMOFcon. Mem and Kent leave the next day for Hawaii.

New business: Ted would like to request an approval for and reimbursement for having the large foam core poster reprinted at cost of $30. Mem seconds. Motion passed and Ted will give receipt to Joe.

Terry Adams (2010 chair) is working on soliciting a guest of honor. The secretary is taking dictation for this and will write the letter.

It was suggested that we do the January meeting (with elections) at COSine on Friday night. Terry moved, Mem seconded. Unanimously passed. We will have a First Friday meeting and book discussion on 2 January.

Book Discussion: No one but Cary had read "Soon I Will Be Invincible". He recommends it to all as a deconstruction of the SuperHero plot from the viewpoint of the SuperVillain. Jack made the requisite Heinlein reference by asking if the SuperVillain tries to pound Colorado Springs with rocks from the sky. Spring Lea said that since we were all young at heart we could be known as Friday's Children. Rude noises were made in response.

Spring Lea is reading "Black Arrow" by Vin Suprynowicz. TChris is reading "The Cache" by Philip Jose Farmer and "Chasm City" by Alastair Riddle. Mem just finished Wen Spencer's "A Brother's Price". Joe is reading the first book in the Dresden series - "Storm Front" - by Jim Butcher. Cary is planning to read "Of Dice and Pen" by Fred Putter. Ted is reading Iain Banks "Accession". Melissa is reading George Martin's "Tuf Voyaging".

Cary wants to know if anyone likes steampunk. There is a steampunk meeting at Montegue's downtown. TChris is interested. Spring Lea mentioned big cities on wheels that go around eating each other - this is likely also a Heinlein reference.

September 2008 Minutes

Attending: Ted, Terry, Robin, Erin, Karen, Mem, Jack, Don, Kent, Connor, Brendan.

Meeting called to order by President Robin at 8:34pm. President reports she is working on the web page but it is not done yet. She is trying to learn DreamWeaver. VP Terry says she was too busy at Worldcon for much vice - although she did room with Ted one night at the Brown Palace. Our culinary vice for the evening is chocolate cake with custard. Treasurer Joe says we bought flyers that were out at worldcon - about $100. We have one new membership for COSine. Secretary Mem unfortunately does not have minutes from the August meeting as she was dealing with a last minute Denvention problem and could not attend.

COSine Chair Ted says we have an agreement with the Academy hotel to have all of the meeting rooms for COSine - the Academy room, the Tower rooms, and the Rockies rooms (upstairs). $3800 basic fee for all three days. Goes down to $1150 if we have 20 room nights, $950 if we get 40 room nights. Our con suite and GOH rooms count towards the 20 room nights. We expect to make the 20 room nights with no problem. Room rates are $69 for standard rooms and $99 for deluxe and $135 for jacuzzi suites - all rooms include free internet and breakfast buffet. We get two hours reserved access to the pool for the regatta. All meeting rooms also have free internet. However, no way to prevent them for renting out the center space for a wedding or suchlike if they get an offer. Jan 23-25th - week before SuperBowl - no football being played that week. Tentatively the week before the local Candlemas event. DASFA should be meeting on the 17th of January. At the moment the hotel has no reception scheduled for our dates - but it's early days yet. We do not have a room block - which means we can have our prices up to the last minute. There's no way to book online - they need to call the hotel to be part of our block.

Moved by Mem that we pay Denvention3 $228 for various pieces of durable convention equipment that we are buying for use at COSines. Seconded by Ted, passed by acclamation.

Moving on to COSine jobs. Terry doing events and consuite. Kent doing reg. Mem doing programming. Ted is chair. Cary is doing videos. Karen is art show. Jack is guest liaison. Robin is program book. Gaming - mem has some people who may help but no one from the club stepped up to be in charge. Dealers is Melissa with Jack to assist. Publicity is a distributed effort. Someone needs to join the GRRM fan groups and talk up the con. Discussed purchasing a computer projector for the video room at Tech for Less.

We are looking for a Friday night event to replace Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream which has been done to death. Mem and Terry will do a treasure hunt.

Terry volunteered to do COSine 2010 - she was approved by acclamation. Steven Brust, Spider Robinson, and Elizabeth Moon have been suggested for guests. Jack suggested Emma Bull (who lives in Tucson). Joe suggest Kristine Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith. Erin suggest Eric Flint or David Weber. Robin suggested R.A. Salvatore.

The October book is The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman. The November book is the August book, Austin Grossman's Soon I Will Be Invincible. The December book is George RR Martin's Tuf Voyaging.

July 2008 Minutes

It is 8:32 and Robin started the meeting. Joe, Erin, Jack, Cary, Kent, Mem, Karen, and T erry were also present. Everyone was eating chocolate cake except Mem who was typing with her broken hand. Mem read the minutes and Jack objected to the fact that Sappho was referred to as a person. He wanted Sappho altered. Mem said Sappho had already been altered. Joe says we have about $1800 - about half dedicated to COSine. The VP delivered pasta and chocolate cake, that was all the vice for the day.

Robin says Ted is working on a contract for COSine but Worldcon is getting in the way. Kent says he is old business. Mem pushed Joe to get the paypal account opened up again. Mem got a fan table for COSine/First Friday Fandom. People who are not running Denvention will have to man the table.

August 1 meeting will be a Denvention work meeting starting at 5pm. We will be doing laminating of badges and organizing things for the truck to Denver. September will be the 5th and we will keep that date.

June 2008 Minutes

We spent some time talking about Denvention and looked up art show information for Don Pelton who is thinking of putting some of his little castles in the show. We got a little bored waiting for Robin and Ted so we explored the 1919 Influenza Pandemic, the world population counter, the doomsday clock, and a live web cam of corn growing in Iowa. Not to mention pictures and videos of glowing cats.

Terry the VP called the meeting to order at 9:12pm. No report from the president, who was absent. The VIP said she was tired. Mem read the minutes from last month and everyone waived. Joe says money is the same place as last month and he has no COSine report yet because he is dawdling. He hasn't done the the PayPal stuff yet either. Terry chastized him for his negligence. Cary for the book committee says that he knows we had a book but he doesn't remember which book was on the list for next week. But he found it. The July book is Three Days to Never by Tim Powers. The August book is Austin Grossman's Soon I Will Be Invincible. The September book is whatever wins the best novel Hugo at Denvention. The October book is The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman.

Since Ted and Robin are not here, we do not have the COSine committee for 2009. The Trustees have nothing to report. We all told each other how old we were for the Old Business section. Sappho is the youngest person here and Kent is the oldest. Under new business we discussed getting a fan table at Denvention. Jack will contact the con about getting a fan table. We had an ad exchange for COSine and need to have an ad in the Quick Reference Guide for Denvention.

Jack requested a viewing of a Hugo rocket. Terry declared the meeting closed at 9:40pm and Kent went and got a rocket to show people.

May 2008 Minutes

Since our president Robin is in New Jersey doing a student internship in ultrasound, VP Terry chaired the meeting. We waited around for Ted to arrive. We discussed late night programming for Denvention and came up with some good ideas. Our requisite Heinlein reference was to cannibalism in Stranger in a Strange Land. This led Kent to suggest the Alfred Packer memorial panel on "Cannibalism in Science Fiction", and Terry and Mary followed up with "Sex and Perversion in The Lord of the Rings".

The meeting was called to order at 9:21 or something like that. No report from the absent President. The VP says there are brownies and cake and that's enough vice for anyone. This is the first time the secretary has been at a meeting since she was elected so she has no minutes. Before the evening is out Ted will show Mem how to update the website. Mem signed to club up for "meetup.com".

Joe says $1700 in the bank about $900 of which is designated for next cosine. PayPal acct has been suspended pending better documentation of our non-profit status which means people can't give us money. Joe and Ted will need to work on this. Joe needs to send a voided check, our state paperwork, and our bylaws. Right now we can get payments but can't take money out.

BOOK COMMITTEE: Cary is the only committee member present so he has to tell us what to read for next month. June meeting will be the Hugo nominated short stories which should be available on the web. We talked a bit about the nominations for the various categories and the fact that four of the five nominated novels are available free for download to Denvention members.

July meeting will be on the SECOND FRIDAY because Mem and Kent are going to Westercon. August meeting will be 1 August First Friday.

Ted gave a COSine report. Cethy will do artshow, Jack will do guest liaison, Robin will do Program Book. Kent will do registration, Mem will do programming. Terry will do events. Cary will do video. We need someone for dealers, con suite, and publicity. We are looking at using the Academy Hotel again despite the problems with access. George RR Martin is our GOH.

New Business: Michelle Ossiander is our new person at this meeting and she has no business.

Book Discussion: Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold. Came out in 2001. Kent says that it is one of her least interesting and unusual books and is very standard in both plot and character. Robin says Paladin of Souls is better - Kent says it is fun. This is the first in a five book series with one paladin for each of the five gods. In a revision of "old" business Mary and Don sang the theme from the Paladin TV series. Cary liked the view of a saint from the inside rather than the inside. Mem agreed that this did give an interesting perspective. In the five god pantheon the Bastard, god of leftovers, seems the most interesting. We agreed that this was very different from the Vorkosigan books, but Mem pointed out that it was very close in style to The Spirit Ring, which was the first Bujold book that she read.

Massive flashbacks can really interrupt the flow of a novel, but the little tidbits dropped sporadically throughout the story quite neatly gave the reader the pieces needed to understand the "twist" at the culmination of the novel. Mem read the last half of the book while recovering from food poisoning and said that she identified deeply with Caz and the demon gnawing at his stomach. Kent says this is a theme in this series - the paladins always seem to have a stomach ache while the saints tend to live a happy life.

So far three of the five novels have been written - the daughter, the bastard, and the son. We wondered if she is planning on finishing the other two books? No one seemed to know.

The discussion digressed to a discussion of Bujold's ebooks and ebooks in general. Terry commented strongly that she is physically uncomfortable with ebook readers - especially reading in bed. This led to the comment that ours may be the last generation that feels this way because our children our growing up reading a computer screen. On the other hand, the opportunity to take a dozen books with you on vacation all in paperback-sized reader is a distinct advantage.

March 2007 Minutes

Vice

Treasurer

Secretary

"Prince is Back" referred to the artist formerly known as Prince is now known as Prince again.

Refreshment committee

Book Committee

COSine 2007

We think we had 50+ total. Room nights. Too late to adjust with hotel 123 total memberships.

COSine 2008

COSine 2009

No New Business

February 2007 Minutes

FFF Meeting 2/9/2007

Meeting called to order at� 8:15 PM

Attending Jack, Mary, Kent, Terry, Cary, Robin, Eric , Joe

Results of 1/21/2007 meeting

President: Terry Adams
Vice President: Mary Morman
Secretary: Jack Heneghan
Treasurer: Joe Sokola
Trustees: Kent, Eric , Ted

VP

� less vice than we like

Treasurer

- ~$1000 in account� but not all COSine receipts paid up. Still some Cosine income pending

No Trustees Report

Committee Reports

Book Committee

� Current book list on website

Robin is talking about creating website as Wiki so everyone can update it

Eric speaks for Book Committee.

Which has been disbanded and needs to be replaced. Books on list through July. Need to select new Book Committee

Eric , Cary, Robin are selected as Book Committee

Refreshment Committee:

Refreshments are Vice so Mary is in charge. She has delegated to Terry.

COSine past - Eric - Joe

Many people enjoyed their first con

~$700 profit from COSine 2007

~120 attendees

Penny will try gaming next year.

Need Program counts for 2007

Filking was 2-3 attendees

Video peak 9 good turnout in general

Book raffle broke even.

Snow may have had an affect on art show

Authors had good time.

Square dancing was a blast

COSine 2008 � Jack

We did Hotel walk through

Marriott/Best Western Academy/Embassy Suites: Too expensive

Silverwood looks good need talk to them

I� will need negotiate with hotel

Mary- Registration

Melissa- Programming

Karen � Art Show

Terry � Con Suite

Penny �� Gaming

OPEN � Video

Robin - Publications

Eric � Publicity Coordinator

$30 at Mile High Con

$35 To December 10

$40 from December 11 to door.

COSine 2009

GRRM is GOH

Ted Monogue is chair

A committee for just in case we need to find the bylaws.

Kent Chairs

Robin to be on committee, just in case.

Book for Tonight � Anne McCaffrey � �Freedom�s Landing �

Book for Next Month � John Varley � �Red Thunder / Red Lighting�

Prince is back.

Meeting Adjourned at 9:37

February 3, 2006 Meeting

At 8:56pm the meeting called to order. Mary said that the living room was in a different time zone because the grandfather clock said it was 8:45.

Treasurer - most of the bills were payed. We likely made about $300 on the con, though not all receipts have been submitted. Still some money in the PayPal account

We checked in the bylaws to make sure we were not holding an outlaw meeting. Quorum is 1/4 of the normal members, with at least 2 officers present. Need a quorum for any meeting at which a vote is taken. So it turned out that our meeting was legitimate after all, or rather that we met the required quorum.

Reading committee decided on a list of books. Robin Clune had the list when last we checked. We’ll hunt her down sometime. Scott allegedly emailed it to me, but I hadn't seen it yet. (Have since received the list).

COSine 2006 Committee

Ted proposed dissolving the COSine 2006 committee. Kent said we should get a final report first.
Our Guests of Honor got home, they made money on some book sales.
Kent asked if we had paid all outside bills yet, and if not suggested we not dissolve the 2006 con committee yet. Jack suggested not dissolving the committee for another month, just to keep Mary on tenterhooks for another month. Mary gestured at Jack.

Regency Dance was fairly well attended at the con this year. People had fun. Seemed to have 20 or 25 people in one place at any given time.

COSine 2007

20 prereg including 2 dealers tables.
Eric contacted potential GoH, but has not heard back yet.

Jack has been keeping the P.O. box going. $136 / year. Rather than continuing to pay this, we will send mail to Kent and Mary’s house. 1245 Allegheny Drive. Will save time checking it and money if we just cancel the PO Box.

4th weekend of January is preferred - if it doesn't conflict with the local SCA event Candlemas. Also need to check with the hotel.

Cary was volunteered for video stuff. Mike doesn’t want to do it this coming year. Will ask Robin C. for dealers. Karen will do art show. Penny Tegen should be contacted to find out if she is willing to run gaming.

Old business - going to have alternate dates in March and April, and try meeting Sunday afternoons. We'll see how many people will be able to attend vs Friday nights.

This is a collection of alternate history short stories based on the writings of many well known authors and how things might have been different in this alternate universe. The book called Star Trek the show that killed science fiction (in the context of the alternate universe).

A lot of people didn’t like the book much. Eric said he liked the concept, but wasn’t thrilled by it. Jack liked the Kafka story, but thought it went downhill from there. Linda & Phil was a story from the book that Eric liked. Jack said the author had a good idea, but was not a very good writer. There was a "Heinlein" story in the book. Marezy Doats , in the style of a Heinlein juvey.

January 6, 2006 Meeting

Present were Terry, Mike, Pamela, Ted, Mem, Karen, Erin, new Sean, Michelle, Kent, Jack, Sean, Joe, Jay, Melissa, RIchard, Robin, Eric. Also Sappho and the green laser pointer.

Ted was nominated for president. He nominated Jack. Jack declined. Ted was chosen by acclamation

Trustees - Terry, Jack. Karen was nominated, Melissa nominated, Richard. We voted. If I recall correctly Melissa won, but I neglected to make a note of it in the excitement of actually getting to vote on something.

Old Business - should we run COSine again? Should we move dates? 3rd Saturday is the DASFA meeting so can provide a conflict

Eric showed up, didn’t have money. Ted paid dues for him. He was asked if he would be willing to be COSine chair. Eric said he’s willing. Joe had also volunteered and when pressed agreed that he wanted to do it rather than merely being willing to do it.
Joe will be con chair, Eric vice chair. They are inclined to keep the con in January.

We talked some about potential guests of honor for COSine 2007 and 2008. Various people are looking into it.

Sean thought it was okay, some issues were not really explained well in this book. Thought ending was contrived. Robin liked it. I felt that it helped to have the background from other Liaden books prior to reading this one. The discussion didn’t go far, as we started talking about local authors and more COSine stuff.

December 16, 2005 Meeting

Trustees - we must nominate a slate of officers for elections next month.
Jack said we should put up the existing slate of officers for next year. Kent president, Ted VP, Robin Secretary, Joe Treasurer. Suggested swapping Ted and Kent

For next month - Need to talk about the future of COSine Book Committee nothing
Refreshments not here

Scott isn’t here due to family issues. He may be unable to work on the con depending on how things go. He’s supposed to do programming, but we don’t know what he’s gotten done to date.

Mary has been traveling a lot and is behind on stuff due to being out of the country.

November 4, 2005 Meeting

Art show for COSine - 7 artists confirmed, planning on having an auction 1-2 pm on Sunday, panels from Denver confirmed. Kent doesn’t want an auction, but we'll have one anyway.

Treasurer - 1 new membership, $330 cosine memberships from MileHiCon, 2 paypal memberships. Balance ~$2000.

Refreshments committee - Eric not present. Terry provided cake - it was good. Yakuras brought stuff as usual (Thanks!)

Mem wants people to distribute flyers, and wants Robin to print more bookmarks. Bookmarks to be distributed too - 1000 printed to start.

Note - COSine add should be in MileHiCon booklet. MOTION - allocate $250 for COSine publicity. Motion passes unaminously. 11 adult & 1 child membership sold during MileHiCon

MileHiCon report - Terry reports party went well. Good turnout, party divided into two parts, fun part and business part. Close on to budget. COSine and Denver2008 shared table and party space. Made good contacts and laid foundation for recruiting workers if Denver2008 wins.

Iron-on transfers - Terry wants another set of Denver 2008 transfers, 2 buffaloes for TV covers, and 1 set for COSine on white with Rocket ship.

Cary - working on anime for video room, will coordinate with Mike. Wants to coordinate with programming on schedule. Scott Humphries is doing the programming for COSine.

Looking at doing hotel walkthrough weekend before Thanksgiving. Terry will try to confirm a day and time. Mary will need to do this for November. COSMIX construction was raised as a concern. Bijou bridge teardown won't be until January 2007, so won't affect this coming con.

Need to get updated membership list from Mary later. Will post info to FFF list when she gets back.

Jay - Scientific programming - Dr. Magglet will come. Wil McCarthy will come. Ice cream will be done with Rocket Scientists. Need to talk about Dinner with Guests of Honor at Hotel Walkthrough.

New Business - December meeting, will be moved to December 16th (3rd Friday). Official FFF start time will be 8:00, even though people didn't come until 8:30. March & April meetings will be first Sunday at 4:00 - same place.

Trustees need to select officer slate for next meeting. People who want to be an officer should contact the Trustees.

Terry moved the meeting be adjourned. Jay got the Heinlien reference in just under the wire - Las Vegas appeared in the book Friday.

History of Magic in England - footnotes are great, no action - it really plods. Jack and Terry found the language (pre-Victorian) annoying, especially the archaic spelling.

Historical notes are great, but overwhelming. Kent hated the book. Not a plot driven book, Jack says not a character driven book either.

Level of research, and details of the alternate history is impressive and totally “realistic”. Book is totally unique - not like anything else people have read.

No action, no character development, no excitement. Melissa said “The book has the character development of Heinlein without the action”

Jack thinks it doesn't deserve the Hugo. He thinks it's more fantasy than SF. It's a great thing to put you to sleep - it took him two months to finish.

Jack thinks it would appeal to Tolkein fans. Terry thinks it’s kind of like the Silmarillion.

October 7, 2005 Meeting

We are having a con - getting the PayPal working for electronic payments is a priority.

Would like to get Dr Bruce Leonard as a speaker on psychology and science fiction. He’s a psychiatrist and has patients read SF books and tell him which characters they identify with. Steve Lee at DMNS part of Mars rover program.

Need to push local publicity hard between Thanksgiving to mid-January. Sean in charage of publicity

Karen wanted permission to dispose of the old art show panels that we have not been using. She had no success in cutting them up into smaller pieces, also they are 1/4” pegboard rather than 1/8” which is standard for the art shows. We have been using the panels from MileHiCon. We approved her wish to get rid of the panels and have judged them to be without any monetary value.

Mary suggests that we have a banquet with the guests of honor on either Friday or Saturday. If we can get a certain number of people signing up, then the hotel might actually have staff available to cook and serve food (unlike previous years). Regency Ball is Saturday.

Will have some signings and such with the GoH’s and perhaps can get some publicity for the con from that. A TV spot would be great if we can manage it.

Refreshments committee need someone to take over. Only involves coordinating volunteers not bringing all the refreshments themselves. Eric Schwartz will take care of it.

New Business - suggestions in Mem’s email. Changing the time and date of the meetings? Kent said it was clear that we didn’t have enough people present at 7:30 to start the meetings.

Jack suggested that we have the book discussion first. Some discussion of doing the book discussions online. Mary suggested a Yahoo group for the discussions. I thought a web forum would be better. Mary will set up the list on Yahoo and we’ll see how things go and the first topic will be format and how we think it’ll work.

Jack wanted to read more short stories. Suggestion that we pick up an issue of Asimov’s or Analog and discuss all the short stories. We can also put anthologies on the discussion list.

Moving meetings to Sunday afternoons? Some people objected. We voted and the Friday people won by a big majority. Mary suggested that we do Sunday afternoon just as a trial. We’ll do March and April meetings first Sunday. Joe won’t be able to make it, neither will Cary. Originally proposed Feb and March, but we Mary said she will desperately need Joe in February. He wanted me to point out that he was desperately needed. Time 4pm.

Change meeting time back to 8pm. No one is getting here earlier anyway. Some thought a bit later, but 8pm won the vote.

Announcements ; I announced that Terry made good apple crisp. She said it was from apples left over after the SCA event.

Rite of Passage had a sex scene with a 14year old. Jack was in favor of child pornography. Given that the author was only 15 when this was written casts a different light on the scene.

It’s a coming of age story, not directly a copy of a Podkayne, but uses a 14 year old girl as the protaganist to talk about much larger issues. Mary said she read this when she was very young and hardly noticed that they were destroying entire worlds at first. Was very taken with the characters. Really that’s the point of the book, but you don’t see it at first.

Jack seemed to feel that it was very characteristic of Heinlein, revenge. Starship Troopers, Have Spacesuit will Travel. Jack said that Mia made the observation at the end of the book, was wondering if one of the people she knew was still alive on the planet when they went to blow it up. Heinlein didn’t write female characters well, Panshin was much better at handling female characters. Jack said he didn’t like Mia much, Mary said she empathized with the character a lot.

Mem said Rite of Passage wasn’t as blatant as Podkayne. Story of one girl who at first can’t go beyond her own block of the ship she lives in. There are little glimpses of the larger issues and world around her. She is a metaphor for her society. She becomes something of a leader later in the story. Called planet dwellers mudeaters and said they were dirty and smelly. Propaganda and discrimination against them from the spaceship society.

Panshin never wrote in this world again. Eric said he could see a few different possible futures for the character, author left it somewhat open. Mary first read Podkayne after Rite of Passage, because of the relationship between the two books.

Podkayne dies in the original version of the story. Publishers said he had to re-write it. Brother finishes story with her unconscious and injured. Originally he did end with her dead. Red Planet was a lot different from the original, he tied it into Lazarus Long series. Doctor is Lazarus Long in rev�d version. Puppetmasters was also redone. Mary said it was virulently McCarthyistic to begin with, and was an unreadable diatribe later.

Jay thought that the pace of the book was all quite consistent, but the ending was all crammed into the last few pages. He never killed the protaganist in his boy juvies. Mary asked why and Terry said he didn�t like women.

Boy’s Life doesn’t let you kill characters in the stories, so his boy juvvies which were mostly published there were restricted. Terry said that he didn�t see women as real human beings. Heinlein had no empathy for women and can�t write them believably. Podkayne doesn’t have nearly the depth that Mia does. Kent said that Podkayne was a Barbie.

Panshin started talking about big purple tigers that weren’t really cats. There was a “tiger hunt” involving this. Mary said that Panshin’s was clearly the better book, even if there weren’t fairies. Panshin’s book makes you really think. Xenophobes can be people too. Book was very much about power, the space people had the power to destroy entire planets. Protaganist realizes it as she develops in the course of the story.

Panshin’s other books were very different from Rite of Passage. Mary suggested that Heinlein might be Mia’s father. Panchin wrote to Heinlein from the time he was 12 years old.

July 15, 2005 Meeting

Present were Mary, Kent, Jack, Robin M, Ted, Melissa, Jay, Sean, and various kids

We hung around chatting about various things, and moving furniture waiting until we got a quorum. We were talking about Cheyenne Mountain, and airline security when military people are trying to get through with their flare guns.

The book for this month was actually short stories that were nominated for the Hugo awards. Mary said they weren’t bad short stories, but if that was the best for the entire year, than the nomination process has some issues. We noted that all the books that had been nominated were by British authors. Obviously a lot of people are not doing nominations, at least in this country.

Kent felt that the Jonathon Strange book (a Harry Potter like book) would be good if he were having trouble sleeping. They liked the Straas book. Jack read Singularity Sky, and Kent said the author had improved somewhat. You need some understanding of quantum theory and physics to understand why some of the jokes are funny.

It is fairly difficult to find a lot of the books because they are published overseas. If it isn’t published in the US and isn’t nominated, then it can be nominated once it’s published in the US. I felt a lot of the books don’t get read by many people because they are coming out in hardcover. Many people wait until the books come out in paperback to read them, which is usually on the order of a year after first publication. It used to be that most science fiction was published in paperback immediately, but that is no longer the case.

We talked about the remake of Battlestar Galactica. Lost is the other series that was nominated. Harry Potter was nominated for the long media piece. Spiderman 2, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.

June 3, 2005 Meeting

Present were Mary, Mike, Pamela, Joe, Rod, Micky, Jack, Chris, Robin C, Richard, Kent, Robin M., and Cary.
Kent asked if we should have a meeting. The meeting was called to order at 8:10 pm.

Secretary: I’ve been working on web pages for Denver 2008 and FFF. Still need to do COSine. Working on flyers for COSine.

Treasurer: Joe said we still around $2000, he can reimburse Ted for FFF registration costs. Kent asked if COSine 2005 was closed out.

COSine 2006: We have a contract with the hotel. I’m working on the webpage. The hotel keeps changing franchises and is now a Clarion. Mary has contacted some convention listings and such.
Mary was thinking that we should send out a mailing this fall, telling people that we’d have a dinner on Friday or Saturday. Perhaps if we have reservations they will have enough staff, and food, unlike the past 2 years.

Trustees: The trustees received a membership request from Ms Sappho White. Their response to this has not yet been determined.

Book Committee: For mid July meeting we decided to read the Hugo nominee short stories., the novels are mostly British and are hard to acquire. The short stories seem to all be available on the web.

Mem was re-reading it and was struck by the resemblance to Citizen of the Galaxy by Heinlein. Robin M agreed. Kent thought that there was no way to discuss Foster without discussing Heinlein. We wondered which book was first, Tar-Aiym Krang was the first, but this one was a prequel explaining his origins. There were many books written about this character, including Orphan Star, Flinx in Flux, and The End of the Matter.

Cary said it was a character who was constantly searching for something, and as long as he doesn’t find it, you have something to write about. We brought up the Sue Grafton alphabet series. She has written up to Q now, but apparently isn’t moving the character forward at all. All of the books took place over 4 years, and she seems to be avoiding stuff like cell phones, and other modern tech, and the impact that it would have on detective work in the 21st century.

Kent found the Flinx books repetitious and boring after awhile. Mary said he’d said that before, and was being repetitious himself. Kent said he’d repeat that they were repetitious. Jack felt the start was interesting but that the story didn’t make a lot of sense. Where did Pip come from? There are lots of people traveling through Moth, which is a way station. Mary thought the the psychic impression Flinx got about the man beating the woman and her shooting him was the origin of Pip. Others disagreed.

Foster is kind of weak on characterization. Cary noticed more of the behind the scenes stuff that was less evident when he’d read it in high school.

The technology was at a much higher level on Moth than Mary had remembered. She had recalled it being a primitive world, but really that is not the case. I quibbled about the genetic “surgery” talked about. The book was written last century, so of course the tech is a bit outdated. :D

Mary wondered who’s idea it was. We thought it was hers. She said it was Kent. (I have no idea why I typed this into the notes, but I thought I'd still include it - ed.)

Announcement - Denver 2008 meeting Sunday 3pm. At the home of Brian and Melissa Morman.

We thought that most of Foster’s books weren’t as good anymore. Jack felt too many questions were left unanswered by this one. Cary said that reading them in the publication order helped, since you know more of where the character was coming from.

Melissa came to the meeting. She walked in with Ted. Mary pointed out that every time that Ted came to the meetings it was with a different woman. Mary insisted that I put that in the notes.

May 6, 2005 Meeting

I need to redo the COSine page and link it to the firstfridayfandom domain. Con date will be the weekend after MLK weekend. firstfridayfandom.org/cosine should be the URL. Jack will see about listing it with Locus and some other convention date listings.

Michelle came, and was new to FFF. New people are good. Michelle was introduced to Mary, Kent and Sappho (the cat).
Other people present were Kent, Mary, Ted, Robin, Terry, Jack, Richard and a couple of kids.

We got a second new person, named Chris. He was introduced to everyone and told who lived here and who didn’t. He came here from Massachusetts. Mary introduced him to Richard, but called Richard “Cary” instead of his actual name.
Joe came. Mary introduced herself and told Joe she lived here.

The meeting started at 8:08.
No one took notes at the last meeting because I wasn’t here and the rest of you are all lazy bums.
Mary told Joe to write her a check for $350 because it was authorized at the last meeting. No one believed her and Joe refused to write a check.

President: Kent was there. He said that it shouldn’t be May already because that means there is too much stuff he is supposed to be doing for Denver 2008. We all agreed that it should not be May and that time flies. Perhaps that means we’re having fun?

Treasurer: Joe said that we have money; roughly $2000, including advanced memberships for COSine.

Secretary: I wasn’t here last time, so didn’t get to waive (or wave) the minutes from the last meeting since there weren’t any. Joe kind of took some notes, but it amounted to “People came, we talked about COSine and stuff, we talked about the book. People liked the book”.

We debated who was a trustee, until I looked it up on the web. The Trustees are Jack, Terry and Mike. The Trustees were compared to a parole board in that they have to approve of new members. There was the usual ongoing debate as to whether Sappho was a member, and if her membership fee was paid, and if cats were allowed to be members at all. She has certainly attended the requisite three meetings, but we did not believe that the trustees approved her membership.

Mary, Sean, and Robin Clune are the current book committee. Robin doesn’t come to meetings anymore, but we are making her stay on the committee until she has spent all the money that we gave her for buying hard to find books. The committee needs to choose more books. We only have some for the next three months. Note: This has since been done and the webpage updated with books through February 2006.

Melissa, Jay, and kids came to the meeting.
Cary came. Mary called him “Sean”, and told him she lived here.

COSine future
The hotel for the convention has done some major upgrades and renovation recently. It’s been purchased by Clarion. They keep changing the franchise. We’re planning to hold the con the weekend after Martin Luther King weekend, since the hotel is always busy that weekend and we had to change last year.

Announcements
Next Sunday (May 15th) is a working meeting for the Denver 2008 bid at Kent and Mary’s house, at 1pm.

In the general chatter department, a couple people mentioned some lady who was apparently looking for people to answer questions about Star Trek. However she wanted to talk to people who were not part of SF Fandom. She was advised to go to the mall, or a park or something and ask random strangers rather than contacting a science fiction club. Kent watched part of Enterprise. We talked about how terrible it has gotten and if Star Trek was really dead or not.

Jack wanted to know if it was a Harlequin romance, and Kent said it was a Harlequin Fantasy. There weren’t any sex scenes so it couldn’t be a romance. It was a coming-of-age story in many ways. Jack asked if it was young adult fiction. Some agreed that it was pretty close. Richard said the protaganist had a prolonged adolescence. She was living at the castle for eight years and had no clue what was going on in court. This seemed a bit implausible to some of us.

Jack told us he spent two days reading this. Mary thought that Jack read slowly and asked him if he wanted the 2 days back. Mary suggested that the book was an exposition on slavery. Jack thught you could take out the entire issue of slavery, and it wouldn’t effect the story. Mary said that was the whole point of the book in her opinion. Jack said you could take all of the rest of the book out and then it would save time. Terry disagreed with Mary on the slavery issue. Kent said it was a regency pastiche in some ways, Mary said it wasn’t a regency and that Kent had never read a regency. He denied this.

Wanting to say at least one nice thing about the book, Jack said that Shinn’s prose flowed nicely, and was not choppy. Mary insisted that there was a significant message about the evils of slavery, but no one believed her. Jack didn’t think the protaganist learned anything. By the end of the book she had changed according to Mary and Terry. Kent said it was no rite of passage, but it was a coming of age novel. We wondered whether we had read Rite of Passage (Panshin). Don’t think so. Kent said that one was gritty, and this one was not. We decided this was a book for women.

Someone mentioned notes related to the book, and Mary said she passed notes in 6th grade. Everyone wanted to know if she got caught or if she got the notes back.

We debated whether Sappho was a member or not. Joe said that Mary never gave him money for Sappho. Cary said that you had to have thumbs to be a member. Mary said due to the Law of Conservation of Appendages then you had to have either a thumb or a tail. One or the other was sufficient. We then talked about cats and how Felix had taught the dog to open the door.

Mary asked if anyone had seen Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Jay and Melissa said they had and they liked it. Mary wanted to know when Revenge of the Doodle Guys was coming out. She meant Revenge of the Sith. Someone said no one in the movie had doodles, and Mary said most of them did, but she wasn’t sure of Yoda, because she had never looked.

Jack wondered if Sharon Shinn had written anything worth reading. Mary liked Jenna Starborn - Jane Eyre derivative, Kent liked the first couple of Angel books (Archangel, Jovah’s Angel) and Wrapt in Crystal.

When asked for a Heinlein reference Ted said that Heinlein would never have written anything like this. Although we then made some comparisons to Podkayne of Mars. Both are a coming of age story about a girl with faeries. It could be inspired by Heinlein. She does set the faeries free and they kill her in the original ending to Podkayne. In Summers at Castle Auburn she sets them free and they didn’t kill her. The original ending of Podkayne was changed for publication so that she didn’t die. After Heinlein’s death, the book was republished with the ending as he first wrote it.

Mary told me to add the fact that Kent made homemade Chex mix. She thought it was very important that this be included in the minutes. So appended. Minutes concluded.

March 4, 2005 Meeting

We sat down and started talking about how Mary got her $35 worth from Microsoft customer support. She called and talked to a nice man from New Dehli who spoke very good English, and was very patient as they spent a great deal of time tracking down the problem she was having with her computer. She felt it was well worth the fee.

Secretary - Robin created a webpage on our server again. We need to get FirstFridayFandom.org, since fff.xxx or firstfriday.xxx were taken. That will need to be linked to the site. Money was approved to register the url for 10 years.

Treasurer - Joe still thinks we broke even on COSine, but has not done final reconciliation. He does not have a current balance. Kent requested that Joe have a balance available for future meetings so that it can be included in the monthly minutes.

The periodic report for state filing of FFF was paid by Mary. She said it came out of her paypal account. It cost $1.

COSine past
Kent wondered if there were any outstanding bills remaining from the convention.
Jack said we’d settled with hotel, and the con com members gave their bills to Joe for reimbursement. Pending a final tally from the treasurer, we’re settled financially. There was one person who’d sent a money order that was misplaced. He paid again at the con, but since we found the original payment, he needs to be reimbursed. The PO box has been paid for the next year. Joe will reimburse Jack for PO box at next meeting. The hotel has sent a new contract to Jack for next year.

COSine future
Mary has investigated hotels in the area, and unless we go much larger and more expensive, we can’t find appropriate space for the con other than the LeBaron. Some have too little space, others are just too expensive, and often too large.

Our issues with the LeBaron are that the hot tub has never worked, the rooms are not ideal and modern and mainly that the hotel restaurant has had serious issues with staffing and food supplies the past two years. We could really use another function room beyond what the LeBaron has, but it worked out pretty well space-wise

Sean and Mary are book comm now. They are coordinating on line to create a list. The books for the next several months have been decided.

Refreshments committee - Jay has had this job in the past, but Jack has volunteered to take over for the coming year.

July, August, and September - We decided to hold the meetings for these months on the 3rd Friday because of conflicts with Westercon, Worldcon, and NASFic respectively. The motion to change the dates passed, with only Jack disagreeing, because Jack likes to be disagreeable sometimes.

Denver 2008 business is being kept separate from FFF. There will be a meeting for that coming up.

Someone commented that it was a space opera in many respects. We felt this wasn’t a bad thing, as space opera can be fun.

Kent said it was extremely derivitive. He felt that Red Thunder was a ripoff of Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, this one is more of a ripoff of Forever War by Haldeman. Mike thought that it was more like the Starship Troopers movie than like the original novel. Kind of the popularized version of the original story. Pamela said that it was rather light and amusing.

Kent felt that it didn’t include anything particularly original or novel, or even terribly well-done.

Ted said it was the first book in a long time that included future tech that was a reasonable and logical extrapolation of our current technology. It may turn out to be wrong, but it was at least believable. In one case they needed someone who knew how to type in order to operate some old equipment, but had trouble finding anyone who could because everyone used voice recognition software.
He felt that most of the tech was quite believeable aside from holographic TV and such, which seem to be a requirement of many science fiction near-future technology even though there are huge technical issues in the development of that kind of imaging.
The politics of the story explained tht no one had good military equipment because the Pax Americana essentially made for worldwide peace, and therefore limited the incentive to develop good war technology.

Micky felt that it was interesting to compare it to Forever War. Kent said that the slugs had a great deal in common with Starship Troopers. Mike thought some parts were clever, like slugs oozing out of a cave that had appeared to be safe at first. But he felt the story didn’t come to a good conclusion.

The sequel to this novel is in editing and should be out in September. Jack was surprised that there was a sequel.

Buettner had gotten some books from his publicist to give to people at the con. Haldeman had asked why would people buy the books if we give them away for free. Of coruse we felt that it encouraged people to read books by authors they haven’t previously read. The first one is free. :D Then you buy subsequent books.

Refreshments committee has to remind Kent to make Chex mix for the next meeting. Mary kept complaining because Kent was eating pre-made chex mix from a bag. She prefers the Chex mix that Kent makes himself.

Measurements of space around Jupiter is not right accurate based on our current scientific knowledge. Not knowing that there was 300 feet of dust seems unlikely when they crashed their ship there. The author took liberties with known facts.

Very easy read, and easy to see where the story was going. Many people enjoyed it because it was entertaining and a fun read. There’s never anything wrong with books that are fun to read.

We started talking about some other books that we’ve been reading lately. Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson was 450 pages with no action. Kent felt it was very dull. Mary was reading 40 Days of Rain, theoretically about global warming. She said she was 150 pages into a 350 page book and they are still introducing new characters and there had been no action.

Next month is Conflict of Honors by Sharon Lee & Stephen Miller. These are now available as mass market editions from Ace, but previously were small press published. Also available as ebooks. Mary felt that they have elements reminiscent of Andre Norton.

It was determined that the requisite Heinlein reference for the evening was the entire Buettner book.

We were talking more about Lee & Miller’s books, but I decided to stop taking notes.

February 4, 2005 Meeting

We were chatting about miscellaneous stuff, and reviewing receipts from the con.

Joe started reporting on the current finances. Ted and Robin paid for their memberships. This is good given that Ted is the VP now.

There was a brief interlude in which Robin and Sean attempted to get their various electronic devices to talk to the wireless network. This involved the entering of a hex password which neither of the computers liked until they were changed to the appropriate settings.

Web connected, Joe was about to resume his report. Heather came. She’s new. We like new people. Erin and Karen came. They are not new, but we like them anyway.

Jack said thank you to people for their work on the con. People continued to hand receipts to Joe. He thought the convention had broken even more or less, but didn’t have a final tally.

We thought we had received some good publicity for the con. There were a couple of good TV spots. Jack said that Joe and Gay enjoyed the con. Jack said any of us who had outstanding bills could give them to Joe to be paid. Several of us volunteered to give our outstanding bills to Joe until it was made clear that only bills relating to the convention would be paid.

Some electronic publicity from next year’s Guests of Honor encouraged their vendors to buy space at COSine. The ezine that goes to their fans mentioned that they would be at the convention and encouraged them to come. Hopefully this will bring some more people to COSine for 2006.

Jack recommended that we pick the weekend in January with the best weather.
While we’re predicting the future, Kent wanted to know if the Amtrak appropriation would passs Congress. It was noted that our next year’s GoH will be travelling via Amtrak since they don’t fly.

We need to get some more books for the next six months. This also involves getting a reading committee together.

Jack lost the paper plate with the minutes on it last time, so we don’t know if there is any old business.

Support was advocated for Denver 2008. Silly ideas were proposed for themes. Buffalo chips. Mile High Club. Much discussion ensued, but was not relevant to the topic at hand.

The book discussion was postponed for a month because we’ve all been too busy to read the book we were supposed to.

We realized that there were a lot of conventions coming up that we’d be attending so we need to plan the meeting dates around the upcoming cons.

Jack mentioned Christie Golden as a possible author for the reading committee to consider. Suggestions are being solicited for books for the rest of the year.

We talked about a lot of books, and most of them were even science fiction. We talked about Animé too, and probably several other topics, however I gave up taking notes at this point.

January 4th, 2002

Once again, it was time for our most exciting meeting of the year; the time when we pay our annual dues, and elect new officers.

Ted, Joe, Jay, Shane, Mem, Kent, Tim, Jack, Robin M, Robin C., Sam, Robert, and Jeff were present for this thrilling moment of history. Ted said we would defer nominating new officers until after the other business of the meeting.

Treasurer - Joe says we still have lots of money. He collected some more money for memberships tonight, but handed some out to Robin C. to pay for food for MileHiCon.

Book committee - the list of books is good for a long time. We're set through the end of this year.

Book acquisition - Robin had bought some books, but has also found a number at the local libraries.

Committee to find the by-laws has not yet found the by-laws. They were unanimous in their report.

Publicity committee - needs more bookmarks so they can be dropped off at the library.

Nominations for president - Ted, Robin C. and Tim were all nominated for president. Jack was also nominated, but declined. Robin was elected president. (vote 4:2:2)

Nomintations for Vice President - Jay was nominated, and declined. Sam was nominated. Tim was nominated. Tim was elected 8:3

Nominations for Treasurer - Joe was nominated - so were Tim, who already had an office, and Eric, who wasn't here. Joe was elected by acclamation.

After much debate on how to vote on six people for three positions, and discussing the possibility of running an Australian ballot, we elected Shane, Ted and Kent as trustees.

Robin C., acting as the newly elected president, decreed that all committee members would remain the same for the next year. Kent told her that she couldn't do that, since she wouldn't take over as president until next meeting. Ted declared the meeting over by acclamation.

Book Discussion - Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny

Mary said she liked it. Sam said that Robert didn't like it because he thought it was boring. Ted said perhaps they should have only had seven princes, it would have tightened up the book. Jay said (with an evil look in Tim's direction) that he liked Heinlein better.

Ted abdicated the Barney chair because he wasn't president anymore. Mem and Robin raced for it, Mem sat down in it, and Robin sat in her lap. Joe thought it was the funniest thing that he had ever seen.

We discussed the question of why everyone in the book wanted to rule Amber. What were the benefits of being king, when it means that the rest of your family will be trying to kill you? I found it interesting that none of the women in the story seemed to have any ambition of their own, they were just content to throw their support behind various brothers. Benedict was one of the only princes who didn't want to rule Amber, yet he had the best claim since he was the oldest.

The princes were all very arrogant, and might have formed alliances, but only on a short-term basis. Did they really trust each other enough to choose sides that they would actually continue to support, or not?

Kent says Zelazny was fond of stories with a certain type of inconsistent logic to them.

We discussed the Pattern. Dworkin drew it the Pattern. Sam said that it was inspired by a pattern that Dworkin saw in the jewel carried by a unicorn. Mem said that the pattern was their DNA, and it was different from everyone else's.

Walking the Pattern gives anyone with the blood of Amber the power to create some sort of stability out of chaos. Tim said he was surprised by the personality change in Corwyn after he walked the pattern. He was a "good guy", nice, likeable, before he remembered who he was. After, he wasn't real nice, power-hungry, and arrogant, just like the rest of the princes.

Corwyn still did some nice things, like throwing his trumps to Bleys, when Bleys was falling off the cliff. This begs the question of where Bleys' cards were. We know that he had some, since they were using them to communicate with each other. So if Corwyn managed to keep his cards through all of the exploits of his invasion fleet, what did Bleys do with his cards?

The literary device of an amnesiac discovering the world at the same time as the reader seems overused and cliche, but we couldn't really identify any other books that used this same device. Many fantasy books use the idea of an outsider discovering the world's culture for the first time to introduce the reader to the culture and geography of the world.

We debated how much of the story Zelazny had planned in advance. Kent said he felt that Z. wrote one book which was sold in three parts, as the first three Amber books. Certainly these three books flow together, as though it was a single story.

Ted said he thought this reminded him of Heinlein's The Cat Who Walked Through Walls. He said that what was important wasn't the characters and their small problems and squabbles. There were shadowy forces at work which the characters were only dimly aware of. The protaganist starts out without a full recollection of himself- who he was and what he was doing. The biggest difference is that Corwyn didn't want to sleep with his sisters (not until some of the later books, pointed out Mem and Sam). He wanted Deirdre.

Amber was more popular than some of the more serious Zelazny works. It became an RPG very early, and was essentially the first LARP. Kent said that the later books were as much influenced by the LARP as the other way around. There were apparantly groups of fans who were so enamored of these books that they were harassing Zelazny by constantly telling him how the books should come out.

Corwyn's reasoning about the throne and who should rule Amber was flawed. Many of his assumptions were incorrect. Oberon wasn't dead, and Eric didn't take the throne for the reasons that Corwyn had thought.

What really constituted the right to be king of Amber, since age seemed to have little to do with it? Might = right. Whoever survives, and convinces enough people to support him winds up as king. Dworkin made Amber, and all that followed on it. He was the grandfather of all the "princes", although this wasn't revealed until much later in the series.

What difference does the Coronation make? If Eric can crown himself at any point, then why did he set a future date? If he wanted Corwin there, why set a date at all, except to prod Corwin into showing up?

So where do the people in Amber come from? Were all of them just shadows of the real people in Amber? What would Heinlein do with them? Ted said that the people would all turn out to be Lazarus Long's love children.

We talked more about the future books, and the plot twists and revelations of future books. The plot sickens.

March 1st, 2002

Present at the beginning were Robin M, Ted, Robin C., Tim, Kent, Mem, Kerry, Sam, Robert. Joe and Eric came a bit later.

We started off debating how many people had to be present to meet our quorum. No one knew how many were required because we don't have the by-laws. We couldn't ask the Committee to Find the By-Laws if they had found them yet, because we couldn't convene the meeting without a quorum, and we thought we might not have enough people for a quorum. Did that make sense? No? Too bad.

Robin called the meeting to order at 8:08. She couldn't find a copy of Roberts Rules of Order, so she didn't know how to follow them, and since we don't have the by-laws to tell us that we have to use them, we'll just wing it.

Secretary - had no changes to the website because I wasn't at the last meeting, and the vice president didn't email me the notes like he was supposed to. :-)

We discussed how many demerits Tim should get for not emailing notes to me. We still haven't acquired a barrel to cane people over (this is from last month's discussion of Midshipman's Hope, where even in the starships, they still caned people over a barrel when they had too many demerits).

Con Committee - reported that they've decided not to have a con any time in the near future.

Book Acquisition committee - has gotten another copy of Doorways in the Sand. Although this is out of print, several of us have copies already, so we should have enough. Book Recommendation committee - still suspended for 3 months, since we have enough books on our reading list for awhile.

Publicity - needs bookmarks. The secretary still hasn't made more bookmarks. How many demerits is that worth?

Committee to Find the By-Laws - Ted can state authoritatively (after looking on our computer) that the bylaws are not in our email box.

Old buisiness - There was no old business. New business - Robin M suggested that we read The Time Machine, since the movie was coming out soon. We decided to read it for next month, and bump all of the books back a month. This proposal was moved and seconded, and approved.

Mem paid $5 for membership for Harry the cat, since she insists that the bylaws specifically allow cats to be members. Kent denied it vehemently, and said that Mem was lying. Tim moved that we table the discussion until the bylaws were found. Robin C. seconded.

We discussed when to go out to see The Time Machine, and the likelihood of it having anything to do with the book by HG Wells (not much). We all agreed that it would be a special-effects extravaganza, and at least it would have the same title as the book. Mem suggested that we go to the 1st showing of the day at Cinmark on Powers. Kent is not allowed to come (this was moved and seconded.)

Connor said we couldn't have food in the living room. Robin M. said that this was old business.

Book Discussion - Norstrilia by Cordwainer Smith,

Tim played the theme song for the meeting, which was "Giant Sick Sheep May Safely Graze". Mem had added a couple of words to the sheet music for "Sheep May Safely Graze" which had been sitting on the piano.

Eric found it interesting that some of the computer communication in the book was using "instant messages". We wondered if someone took the idea from this book, which was originally published many decades ago (1960), and sold it to AOL.

The book was (partly) about a longevity drug derived from a virus that can only grow in sick giant sheep raised on a planet that had been colonized by rugged survivalist types from North Australia (hence "Norstrilia"), and the attempted eugenics of a group called the Instrumentality.

Tim said every so often he would stop reading, close the book, and say (out loud) "what a bizarre little book", then continue reading. Everyone agreed that it was strange, but many people liked it, and commented a great deal on other Cordwainer Smith stories. This is his only full length novel.

Eric said that Smith was one of the first people to get away from the early hard science, and more into social commentary. The science was definitely secondary to the rest of the story line. From his other books, Sam mentioned that he imagined that each planet had only a single ecology. It seems unrealistic to me (as a biology major), but it certainly makes it easier to assign different characteristics to each planet, based on its overall ecology.

We talked about Cordwainer Bird, which was created by Harlan Elison to use as an occasional pseudonym for things he didn't want his real name associated with. Sam didn't like Cordwainer Bird, and based on that, she thought she wouldn't like Cordwainer Smith. Everyone thought that Cordwainer Smith was *much* better than Harlan Ellison.

Ted found it a difficult read, since he would read a section, and then try and go back and re-read it to try and tie it into the story. Other people said they read it quickly, because they just glossed over the inconsistencies. Mem said that Smith was definitely non-linear. Sam said that was why she liked it.

Some of us found the society in the book rather unbelievable. We discussed the culture of Norstrilia. Why would these incredibly wealthy people all hang around in relative poverty? The underpeople were created to take care of menial tasks, freeing the humans to do whatever they wanted. Some people saw a link to David Brin, and the uplift stories.

Eric expounded on the Instrumentality, and how it occurred in an Anime movie whose name I didn't catch. He wondered if the movie was inspired to some degree by Cordwainer Smith. They tried to control the direction of human evolution.

There were some religious overtones to the story as well. One of the peripheral characters is a Jesus figure (although it is more obvious in some of the short stories). Smith underwent a serious illness while writing the book, which may have inspired some of this symbology. Many of his other stories tie into Norstrilia, so to understand all of the references, need to read more of his work.

We wondered why the protaganist was allowed to pass the tests administered to all young adults. He was a normal person in a society of psychics, and therefore was defective compared to the rest of them. Despite being the sole heir to the family lands and fortune, it seemed to us that he should have failed the tests administered at that age. It was unclear exactly what these tests consisted of, it was deliberately left vague in the story. Why was it done at that age, and not before? Presumably they would have a sufficient understanding of genetics to be able to tell if there were genetic problems in-utero. This level of genetic knowledge is certainly implied by the creation of the underpeople. Some people suggested that what they were looking for was too nebulous to be determined solely through genetics.

The Instrumentality, the group determining the direction that they wanted humanity to evolve in, was not thrilled with how this selection was being done on Norstrilia. To be part of the Instrumentality, you must refuse stroon, - the longevity drug, which tended to prohibit anyone from Norstrilia to be part of it.

Eric said he kept trying to categorize Rod as a bad guy, but he kept doing good things, or having good motives.

Ted mentioned that both in Norstrilia and in another short story he seemed to be saying that death was a happy thing. He wanted to know if this was always the case with Smith. Kent said no,but that he often portrayed death as a better alternative than anything else.

We talked about movies where people were killed as a population control measures. Logan's Run in particular came to mind.

Tim said the first thing he noticed was that it had the same abrupness of style that Nine Princes in Amber had. Tim said it seemed to have no explanation of environment, of places, of how characters feel and react to things. We thought that this was primarily due to the fact that old SF and fantasy books are all much shorter than the modern 500 page monsters. There's just not as much room for descriptive prose in the older books.

Eric mentioned that the story had actual, literal head shrinkers. Ted asked how it was easier to send someone shrunken rather than normal. Several theories were proposed about life support, etc. Mem decided that the only reason for having it in the story is because it was weirder that way. Everyone agreed to this.

Mem thought the background was deliberately left blank, so that the people stood out more. Part of it is that North Australia is that way, it is so much emptiness, but some of it was also deliberate, so that the characters take all your attention.

Smith managed to incorporate these almost chapterly infodumps, without touching on much of anything that you actually wanted to know.

At this point I climbed over the quilt layout on the floor, and left the computer behind, so end of notes.

June 7th, 2002

Prior to the official opening of the meeting, we decided that no one would be here during the first Friday of July, so we will reschedule that meeting to the 3rd Friday (the 19th).

We talked about the PBS series Frontier House while everyone took turns trying to open Mem's container of bubble stuff. J. used an instrument to open the container (his Swiss army knife...). Mem proceeded to blow bubbles.

Present at the start of the meeting were : Mem, Kent, Ted, Robin M., Kerry, Shane, J. and Melissa

I was the only officer present. The president was in Paris, and the VP has resigned. We thought that the treasurer and the president might have absconded with the treasury to Paris. I asked Ted to run the meeting, since he used to be president. He refused, saying that he had been deposed. I started the meeting at about 8:30.

We need to discuss the fact that our vice president has retired. Mem suggested forming a vice squad to hunt down the vice president. She wondered if we had to pay him a pension since he retired instead of resigned. We thought he wasn't old enough to retire.

Legal counsel advised us that since the VP only finished 5/12 of his term, that he was not yet vested. He hadn't even earned a certificate of appreciation. It was suggested that he had earned 5/12 of a certificate of appreciation. Mem volunteered to create an index card of appreciation.

Samantha and Rosemary arrived. Then Joe arrived. Giving us two officers, and another committee member.

Treasurer: Joe reported that Robin didn't get any money from the treasury prior to departing for Paris.

We began to talk about whether we wanted to do something for the Khan coming up the first weekend of August. It unfortunately conflicts with an SCA event that some of us need to go to. We were not clear whether we were getting any benefit from doing the room party. We had not had any new members from it the last couple of years.

We'd heard that this might be the last year for the Khan, and if it were, then we might consider running a con ourselves. Mem wanted J. to talk to Penny about whether or not this would be the last year. Joe suggested asking them if they would want to be involved in a con that we might run. We should wait to talk about it until after the Khan, when they are more likely to have decided whether or not they will do it another year.

Book Discussion - Tactics of Mistake by Gordon Dickson,

Mem said that she really liked the book. Still, she found it hard to believe that even people trained for combat liked the Dorsai could make plans without talking to each other about it. No matter how logical someone is, there's no way to know that they would have a meeting at 2:00 on Tuesday in a particular location, or how to conduct a defense of the planet without planning it, or coordinating.

Mem said that she empathized with the protaganist. A socially awkward man who succeeded because of his intelligence and logic. He may be arrogant and hard to work with , but he was right. Mem mentioned how a VP of MCI said that Kent was "arrogant and hard to work with" , but he was right, and outlasted the VP at the company.

Ted and Robin have the book, but hadn't read it yet. Shane hadn't read it. Sam did read it, but it was years ago. Kent said that he enjoyed it.

We talked a bit about the various Dorsai books - the Chantry Guild and Necromancer are about developing mental powers - like magic. The Dorsai are the ultimate warriors.

Ted mentioned the Unified mind. Mem suggested that it was the unified mind that let people know that the only logical time to hold the meeting would (of course) be at 2:00 on Tuesday.

We talked about other Lois McMaster Bujold books. The Curse of Chalion was a high fantasy book, as opposed to all of her other books, which have been SF.

Mem asked what we could do to encourage people to come and talk about the books. Ted suggested that we charge a toll of one insightful comment per brownie, cookie, or other treat.

Mem suggested issuing demerits to those who didn't read the book. Too many demerits and we have to get out the barrel for the caning. (see Midshipman's Hope...)

July 19th, 2002

Present were Mem, Ted, Shane, Kerry, Joe, Robin M, Robin C., Michelle, Jack, and Kent. Brendan and Connor were sort of present, but did not take part in the meeting. They were playing with their Gameboys.

Robin C. called the meeting to order at 8:19. She proposed that we put Kent in as VP. Kent said that we could not appoint a VP - we had to vote on one with the usual election procedure. We voted, and decided to put him in as VP anyway. Ted was elected replacement trustee.

We were arguing about whether the by-laws were found, and who had them. Robin denied ever receiving them. Kent insisted that he found them, and gave them to Robin, who set them on a table. Ted proposed that we form a committee to investigate potential malfeasance on the part of the president for deliberately misplacing the by-laws. The proposal was not seconded. We reformed the committee to find the by-laws, and appointed Kent to the committee.

Joe was nearly finished with the SMOFcon rebates. Even after doing that, we will still have plenty of money.

Secretary reported that we had a virtual club member - Dianna Lyons, who has been reading books from our list, and will be sending her comments in via email. Robin M. suggested that the book committee get together and choose some more books for the list.

Robin C. reported for the book acquisition committee. She has gotten several copies of Doorways in the Sand. We discussed who was on the book committee, and when they might meet. Robin wanted to know if anyone thought she should look for more oop books.

Mem said she had new business. Robin C. recognized her. Ted said that the couch recognized the chair. We decided that we had to do old business first. Robin said that she no longer recognized Mem. Mem said “it’s me!”

Mem (having been re-recognized by the couch - er...chair) proposed that we acquire the art show panels from the Khan. Penny, one of the people running the Khan, seemed willing to give them to us, but we felt that we ought to pay for them. They will no longer be running the Khan. This will be the final year. (Editor's note: This may not be the case. Since last meeting, we have heard that the Khan, or some other SF/gaming event, may be held next summer) Robin C. proposed that we give them a $100 certificate for books rather than giving them cash. Kent suggested that we form a committee to get the gift certificate. Robin M. suggested that we make it an action item for one member, and not make any more committees. We decided that Joe should do it. When we get the art show panels, they will be stored in Kent and Mary’s storage unit. Joe said as a point of information that he also had some art flats at his home from a previous CSprings SF group.

We started talking about running a con. If we conflict with anything big, it will be harder to get guests and art show entries. We will want a well-known author. Kent said we need to pick a target date at least a year to a year and a half in advance. Sometime in June and July would be good. The hotel rates will be high for summer. We could do it in January, but will have to convince people that the weather won’t be terrible in CO in winter. Anaconism was MLK weekend.

Kent, Jack, & Mary were suggested for the con committee. The Jan date was getting support. CosCon was the proposed name. We started guessing how many people we might be able to attract.

Will we be doing anything at MileHiCon? We tried to determine who would be there, and what the exact dates would be.

Robin wanted to volunteer Kerry for something, but he will be leaving to live in Albany, NY. This is his last meeting. We'll miss him at the meetings, but wish him well in New York.

Robin appointed Shane to find out when & where MileHiCon would be. The meeting was adjourned at 8:57.

Book Discussion - Consider Phlebas by Iain Banks

. Mem said that she couldn’t get through the beginning of the book. She hated the beginning, and moved that Shane read to us from Plato instead. Shane said that the converstions in Plato were more interesting if you imagined that the people speaking had been drinking.

Jack said that the theme of Banks book was hedonism vs. religious fanatacism. Horza, the protaganist of the book was siding with a race that were religious fanatics. Our protag considered the Idirans superior to the Culture all through the book, until the very end, when he decideed that the Culture was better after all.

The Culture is always shown as being unmotivated, and uncertain - except that it is still better than anything else. The Culture is all just out to have fun. Despite their flaws, they were still the best thing to happen to civilization. It allowed a high degree of personal freedom. This was very different from any other society portrayed in the book.

The Culture is so decadent that it is hard to believe in. They are unconcerned with anything but their own pleasures. A group of Culture citizens salved their consciences by creating the contact arm to bring their decadence to other cultures.

Ted felt that the book was very schizophrenic. He said that he couldn’t figure out whether the book wanted to be a space opera or a political treatise. Kent said that it was both, and that British SF conventions are a bit different from those used here. The author was interested in making political points while writing a space opera. Kent though that this was the least interesting, and the second most confusing of the Culture books by Iain banks. Excision, and one about supernovas, which Kent couldn’t remember the title of, were better books, in his opinion.

He has his characters agonize over their social positions. Kent said that the author's message, being moral, or being tolerant - of those two positions, being moral (righteous), guided by immovable principals, is the more “evil” way to go. It is better to be flexible and open - even if it results in an indecisive and unmotivated society.

Jack thought that the ending was bad. The protaganist dies, and you can no longer follow his inner agonizing over morality.

Kent said that this was part of an overall story arc about the Culture. This one starts in the middle, ends in the middle, and doesn’t go much of anywhere. Kent said that we should never read Fearsome Engine - it is written entirely in a created dialect. It should go on the list of books that none of us would like. Phlebas was the middle episode of a long series, and wasn’t as good as some of the other books that Banks has written.

I read Dianna’s comments. But did not write down the comments on her comments, since I was busy reading.

Why did the Mind take Horza's name? Kent said that it was because that was what the minds did - they took the name of someone they wanted to either memorialize or emulate. Kent said that minds changed their names fairly often. In some of the other books, there are ships, where they kept changing the name of.

The minds predicted that not fighting would cause the Culture pain. The minds sometimes sacrificed themselves to protect the Culture. They were a full part of the Culture, and often a dominating part of it. Banks frequently makes the points that the servants are in charge. The individual people, and the drones are usually doing what the minds direct them to do. The minds have a great influence on the Culture, and what services and diversions are available. This lets them manipulate people into doing what they want. The minds helped to foment change, mostly outside the Culture. Preparing other civ’s to join the Culture, or to render them harmless.

The last book is about one of the special circumstances guys making a mistake. Wanted to overthrow one government in favor of another- but he chose the wrong one. Caused a war. But the total impact was negligible in terms of the overall Culture. Allows Banks to agonize over the morality of trying to run other people's culture. Making war on people for their own good is an interesting theory. The problem is that you can’t tell if you were right or wrong until 150 years or more later.

Mem asked if the drones were used to play bagpipes. The idea of a drone - a metal cylinder in a tam-o-shanter is pretty amusing. There was apparently one that did like to dress up - but it would have been rude to laugh.

Ted said that this was about the ultimate anti-Heinlein book. Heinlein says that rugged individualism is the best way to go, but hated decadent governments. Horza hated communism, but the Culture is the ultimate communism. Drones took care of the tedious work.

Orbitals are mini-ringworlds. Actively managed by a large mind - they don’t have to deal with the stability issues that convinced Niven that Ringworlds were inherently unstable. As long as someone is there actively making adjustments, they could work. They had more resources than they could use.

Mem asked when we were leaving to go live on an orbital. Kent said that first we would have to build the minds, then work on other technologies.

Ted said tha t other books had questioned what would happen in a society of super-abundance - when most people don’t have to work. We wind up with people engaging in dangerous activities and simulations. Ted said that he wasn’t satisfied with this answer, although it was very reminiscint of Drinking Sapphire Wine.

Mem mentioned a story about placing embryos in a ship going to Alpha Centauri. The robots took care of the infant humans. When they reached a certain age, the humans took over because of a natural sense of responsibility, and the idea that they owe something to society. Banks seemed to think that only a few percent of humans were that way, but that it would be enough, given the drones to do work. The Culture builds lava rivers and boats that will float on them to give people something to do - distractions to keep them out of trouble. Very non-protestant work-ethic idea. Banks thought that less than 5 percent of the people wanted to work, and only about 2 percent were given jobs, so that there was competition for the prestigious jobs.

SF authors have been writing about the idea that we would have more people than we need to have work to support the society. Ted said that if we only wanted to maintain our current standard of living in America, we could substantially reduce the work force. We have inefficient farming - subsidized by the government. We started talking about politics. Why we do things like give money to help other countries with AIDS - Ted suggested that it was to satisfy our need to feel that we were helping people.

Kent said that someone years ago came up with an inexpensive diet that would sustain health. We could afford to give this to whoever wanted it, without restriction. If they wanted something else, they would have to work for it. Mem asked for a copy of the diet, so that they could start feeding it to Megan. Shane said that biotech was going to improve crop yields and engineer nutrients into crops to remove deficiciencies.

Robin asked if anyone liked this book. Kent did, but he liked some of the other Banks books better. Jack didn’t like it overall. Protag hated the culture because he felt that it was controlled by the machines and the minds. They did control it, but it is not clear if they were setting overall policy. The Culture had some sort of nebulous consensus. It was nominally a democracy.

We started talking about upcoming movies. LotR, Matrix, T3, and Harry Potter. end of notes. We decided that we would postpone the Aug meeting until the 9th. So it doesn’t overlap the Khan - the last one, or baron’s war.

August 9th, 2002

Present were Joe, Kent, Robert, Rosemary, Samantha, Ted, Mike, Pamela, Robin M, and Robin C.

Robin C. called the meeting to order at 8:28. Kent had found the by-laws, and Robin C. looked at them for awhile.

Secretary read the old minutes. People laughed. The President proposed that the Secretary post action items to the list. This was generally agreed upon. The by-laws were given to the Secretary, who had better not lose them.

Treasurer - Joe finished the SMOFcon rebates, except for one person that he didn’t have an address for. Kent said he would get the address. Joe had not yet gotten the gift certificate for the Tegens, but will do so and give it to Robin C. We still have a lot of money.

Committee reports: Robin asked if Kent would like to make a report for the By-laws committee. He said no. Robert reported that the By-laws committee found the by-laws, and so we should disband the committee. There was much rejoicing.

We looked at the by-laws and wondered what the Trustees committee does. Kent said that they dealt with membership issues. Ted said that he wanted to issue subpoenas and call hearings. Everyone else has been doing it.

Book Committee needs to choose more books (action item) Book committee was issued 10 demerits for not meeting and choosing books. Robin C. gave the demerits to Shane, because he wasn’t here.

Samantha is resigning from the Publicity committee because she will be moving away. (awwww :-( She had wanted to get some bookmarks, but Robin M. hasn’t made any new ones. (although no demerits were issued).

Con committee has not met. The Publications committee, which we didn't realize we had, until reading the by-laws, consists of the Secreatary, and anyone else who may happen to be appointed. We still don't want to have any publications beyond our website.

Old business - art flats have been acquired for our planned SF convention. Kerry moved to Albany. Timothy is working on an MBA, and doesn't have time to play with us anymore.

New Business - Sam said that she invited a new member named Jim Heins, and that we should be nice to him if he comes to a meeting. We talked about Sam’s new job in Portland. Mem’s 50th bday party is a week from tomorrow. There will be pony rides.

Book Discussion - Murder in the Solid State by Wil McCarthy

Wil McCarthy was at the Khan last weekend. Robin did not invite him to our meeting though. Apparently he lives in Longmont, CO even though one of his books said that he lived in Longmont, California.

Ted read the book. He thought that the book was quite timely. It is about some unspecified time in the near future where the balance between individual freedom and security had taken a big tilt towards security.

The “sniffer” is an important tech item in the book. It was a device invented to detect any kind of chemical agency such as gunpowder, drug residue, explosives, etc. Our protaganist was cited with possession of explosives when he had some fireworks confiscated at the age 14.

Sort of a mystery - first one, then a second, then third person die. Protaganist is initially accused of the murders. Not a real whodunnit, there is more focus on why the murders had been committed. Sam suggested that we read Thirteen Crimes of Science Fiction by Isaac Asimov. Protag has inadvertantly invented something to counteract the sniffer. His invention is seen as a threat to the forces of law & order.

Ted said that he threw in enough technical references. The author has some sharp things to say about academia & science - talks about their stifling effects on intellectual creativity. Joe said that author was an engineer with Lockheed Martin.

Ted thought some of the stuff in the book was very peripheral, and was not well-integrated as a part of the overall plot. There was quite a bit in the book about VR multi-player games. Ted thought it was a neat near-future tech thrown in there just for the sake of talking about it. Robin said that McCarthy was interested in potential future careers, and liked to think about them, and then put that stuff into the book.

Sam asked what the thesis of the book was. Ted thought the thesis was that the interests of security can be taken to extreme. It is far too easy to violoate personal rights and freedoms in the pursuit of perfect security and safety. One of the friends of the protaganist seems to represent the voice of reality & rationalism. This character voiced how easy it would be to take the security issue even further. Once it gets started it is hard to stop. Will it get to the point of tattooed ID numbers & scanners on every building? Homeland security seems to be heading this way. Now they are looking for people to inform on their acquaintances. Robin mentioned “home security” Jack corrected it to “homeland” - Ted said “homeland, fatherland, what’s the difference?”

I read the comments emailed to me by Dianna, our virtual member. Here's what she had to say about this book:

We started talking about school “zero-tolerance policies” and some of the really dumb things that have resulted from them. We digressed further into talking about how easy high school was for most of us. Then we talked about home schooling, and calculus. Jack said that Asimov never understood calculus, so that we’re one up on him. Robin said, no, we’re two up, because Asimov is dead.

Archives of Past Meeting Notes

Meeting notes from 2000

Meeting notes from 2001

Meeting notes from 2002

Meeting notes from 2005

Meeting notes from 2006

Meeting notes from 2007

Meeting notes from 2008

December 2008 Minutes

November 2008 Minutes

September 2008 Minutes

July 2008 Minutes

June 2008 Minutes

May 2008 Minutes

March 2007 Minutes

Vice

Treasurer

Secretary

Refreshment committee

Book Committee

COSine 2007

COSine 2008

COSine 2009

No New Business

February 2007 Minutes

VP

Treasurer

Book Committee

Eric speaks for Book Committee.

COSine past - Eric - Joe

COSine 2008 � Jack

COSine 2009

A committee for just in case we need to find the bylaws.

February 3, 2006 Meeting

January 6, 2006 Meeting

December 16, 2005 Meeting

November 4, 2005 Meeting

October 7, 2005 Meeting

July 15, 2005 Meeting

June 3, 2005 Meeting

May 6, 2005 Meeting

March 4, 2005 Meeting

February 4, 2005 Meeting

January 4th, 2002

Book Discussion - Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny

March 1st, 2002

Book Discussion - Norstrilia by Cordwainer Smith,

June 7th, 2002

Book Discussion - Tactics of Mistake by Gordon Dickson,

July 19th, 2002

Book Discussion - Consider Phlebas by Iain Banks

August 9th, 2002

Book Discussion - Murder in the Solid State by Wil McCarthy