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A few of the best fantasy and SF novels you (probably) haven't read
This came to mind because I’m rereading one of them right now, and it’s amazing. I am astonished that it didn’t get lots of awards and that it doesn’t have (so far as I know) legions of passionate fans. Please correct me if I’m wrong; I’m certainly one of them!
So here it is: My number 1
The Gift Moves, by Steve Lyon. “Soft” Science Fiction
In the southeastern part of what used to be the United States, a young girl called Path Down the Mountain is entering the second stage of her life. She is leaving her family and going to the Banks to become a weaver’s hand. Here is her leavetaking. Path is visiting the two women who taught her to weave.
I opened my hand to give away my last gift, the shuttle they had made for me
two years ago when I came to live with them. It was the last piece of the life I
knew, and I put it in Blue Leaf’s hand. “The gift moves,” I said, somehow letting out the words and keeping in the tears.
“It moves,” she replied. (The Gift Moves, hardcover, page 3)
Path is living in a strange and lovely world where batteries grow on trees, buses are made of termite colonies, and cats can talk. This is no dystopia, thank heavens, but it’s no utopia, either. Instead, it’s a believable society with its own strengths and weaknesses. In this future world, much that is true and beautiful has been lost – for example, Path has no idea what a “chapel” is. But much that is true and beautiful has been retained. The story takes place over the course of a month, while Path settles into her new life with her stern teacher, Heron, and while the people of the Banks prepare for the midsummer festival and the turning of the year. This is a story about love and loss, about how hurts get handed down in families (both natural and adoptive) and how they are overcome, and, most of all, about two young people struggling to find their own place in their world. Those young people are Path and Bird Speaks, a boy her age who becomes interested in her.
If you’re intrigued by alternate societies and like stories about real people, you should love this book.
( Read more... )
So here it is: My number 1
The Gift Moves, by Steve Lyon. “Soft” Science Fiction
In the southeastern part of what used to be the United States, a young girl called Path Down the Mountain is entering the second stage of her life. She is leaving her family and going to the Banks to become a weaver’s hand. Here is her leavetaking. Path is visiting the two women who taught her to weave.
I opened my hand to give away my last gift, the shuttle they had made for me
two years ago when I came to live with them. It was the last piece of the life I
knew, and I put it in Blue Leaf’s hand. “The gift moves,” I said, somehow letting out the words and keeping in the tears.
“It moves,” she replied. (The Gift Moves, hardcover, page 3)
Path is living in a strange and lovely world where batteries grow on trees, buses are made of termite colonies, and cats can talk. This is no dystopia, thank heavens, but it’s no utopia, either. Instead, it’s a believable society with its own strengths and weaknesses. In this future world, much that is true and beautiful has been lost – for example, Path has no idea what a “chapel” is. But much that is true and beautiful has been retained. The story takes place over the course of a month, while Path settles into her new life with her stern teacher, Heron, and while the people of the Banks prepare for the midsummer festival and the turning of the year. This is a story about love and loss, about how hurts get handed down in families (both natural and adoptive) and how they are overcome, and, most of all, about two young people struggling to find their own place in their world. Those young people are Path and Bird Speaks, a boy her age who becomes interested in her.
If you’re intrigued by alternate societies and like stories about real people, you should love this book.
( Read more... )
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