Currently Reading #27

[littlerdog.livejournal.com]

The next lucky book is Brightness Falls From the Air by James Tiptree, Jr. (aka Alice Sheldon).

An interesting read so far, interesting enough that I started reading about 3am and was still reading at 6:30 when my husband observed, "You seem to have been awake all night."

Maybe I'm turning into an owl.

That'd be a hoot.

Okay, okay, put down the torches and pitchforks. I'll be good.

I made myself stop reading at 7am or thereabouts, then slept till midday. This does not bode well for Project Get My Sleep Rhythms Back to Normal.

This book's not a thriller, but it does have a curious moreishness; you want to keep turning the page to find out what'll happen. On planet Dameim, visitors arrive to view the transit of a supernova shell that promises to produce a superlative light display, and, possibly, some interference with time, or human perception of time. Dameim has a tragic history: its denizens were ruthlessly exploited, in the past, to provide a delicacy for human consumption. Three of the characters in the book are guardians of the survivors. Two, Kip and Cory, come across to me at least as a little too good to be true. They're so nice. And they love each other so much. Kip worries so frequently when Cory does anything remotely physical that you start wondering if she's a lady in a Victorian novel who's in a Delicate Condition. I wonder if Tiptree's making A Point with that. Hard to say. But they do make you feel at times that Mary Sue has married Gary Stu and gone to live on a different planet.

Unfair? Possibly.

There's a revenge sub-plot and two (or is it three?) people who may or may not be planning to resume exploiting the indigenes for their excretions. Exciting stuff. Roll on 3am!