This evening was the first meeting of the year of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Club run by Mr. B’s Emporium of Reading Delights. The book for this month was Mythago Wood, which has always been a favorite of mine.

First up I am pleased to report that the book has not been visited by the Suck Fairy. Despite the fact that I have read all of the books in the Mythago series, and therefore know more than it is healthy to know about Ryhope Wood, the book still worked for me. I still love the idea of Mythic Imagos, and I love Rob’s evocation of the Wildwood.

Also most of the group enjoyed the book too. That’s always a big relief where a book you really like and have enthused about is concerned.

Of course not everyone liked it. As I rather expected, some of the women in the group had difficulty with the Huxleys. It is absolutely true that they are all assholes in varying degrees, and Guiwenneth is their fantasy woman. She’s not real, she’s a Mythago. The only real woman in the book is poor Jennifer, who understandably is unable to cope with competition from an archetypal object of male lust. Horrible people, those Huxleys, but totally believable.

I’ll also accept that the ending is a bit silly. The oak leaf thing is the sort of daft tragedy that would happen in a Celtic myth. It is still daft.

What did surprise me was that a couple of people found the book slow and unengaging. Part of this is, I think, because it doesn’t have much of a plot. The thing that keeps you going through the early part of the book is the mystery of Ryhope Wood itself. If that doesn’t grab you then you have a problem. Of course I think it should grab you, but it seems that it doesn’t work for younger people in the same way it does for me.

The reason for that appears to be that many people younger than me haven’t read any theosophy, haven’t read Carlos Casteneda, haven’t had late night university conversations about ley lines, and so on. The particular mix of science and mysticism on which Mythago Wood is founded makes no sense to them. I guess that dates the book, which is sad. But an interesting discovery all the same.

The book for February is The City and The City, but sadly the group meeting is on the same night as I am doing an event at Bristol University. Hopefully someone will tell me how it goes.