Recent reading

[luzula]

The Language of the Night by Ursula K. Le Guin
Essay collection. I thought I hadn't read this before, but then I recognized some of the essays. Anyway, I was reading along, thinking some of this was a bit dated because written in the '70:s, and then bam, she makes me cry on the tram (with a passage near the end of the essay "Science Fiction and Mrs Brown"). Ha. Also parts of this book turned out to be unexpectedly relevant to my bout with political depression.

The Exile Waiting by Vonda N. McIntyre
I love Dreamsnake, and when I found out that it had a companion novel in the same world, of course I had to get it. I didn't love this book as I loved Dreamsnake, but it was still fairly compelling and I finished it quickly. It's about a young girl stuck in an underground city on the dying Earth, and people who come there from off-planet, and how they interact. The city is the "Center" of Dreamsnake, but there's no character overlap from what I remember.

Comments

[cahn]

There's another novel set in the same world?! Okay, I have to read this. I would love to learn more about the "Center," which I think we get virtually no detail about in Dreamsnake, right?

Do these books take place on Earth? I guess I thought the dreamsnakes were actually alien and that they were on a non-Earth terraformed planet (although I guess the dreamsnakes could still be alien even if they were on Earth).

[luzula]

If didn't know it was supposed to be the same world, I wouldn't have guessed. I mean, there's the underground city surrounded by desert where there are sandstorms half the year, but that's about it.

Yes, it's Earth, a sort of degraded and old Earth where there's a more advanced diaspora civilization farther out in space. And there are sadly no dreamsnakes in this book. I can't remember if Snake was supposed to have been trained in Center? I really don't see that happening in the Center that this book describes--it's far too run-down and dystopic for that. Hmm.

[julia-here.livejournal.com]

I can't find my copy of Dreamsnake but I hear it's available in some e-format, somewhere. Your mention of it is probably the tiny final nudge I need to go look for it and put it on my iPad.

(You're one of the few who have seen why I've been unwilling to buy more dead-tree format books; I got the iPad for communicating with the world when Franklin had surgery again, and started ebooking during the Hugo's silliness when the air was full of recommendations).

Julia, spent the day moving chickens and am probably going to faceplant into the text tonight

[luzula]

You're one of the few who have seen why I've been unwilling to buy more dead-tree format books

I suppose because you already have a lot of things? : )

Yes, Dreamsnake is available as an ebook, but I can't remember where I got it. The internet will tell. I first read it in Swedish, actually; I remember it as a good translation, but I still wanted it in English later.