Stewards of the Flame
Aug. 2nd, 2007 01:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
To my great excitement, one of my favourite authors, Sylvia Engdahl, is publishing a new novel, her first in 26 years.
Sylvia Engdahl's novel The Far Side of Evil was my most important reading experience as a child, after The Lord of the Rings. It may be the book that turned me into a sociologist. A heavy responsibility to lay at anyone's door. I think Ursula Le Guin might have had a hand in it too.
The new novel is called Stewards of the Flame (yes I know!) and is intended as an adult novel.
edge_of_ruin, you are first up to borrow it.
Sylvia Engdahl's novel The Far Side of Evil was my most important reading experience as a child, after The Lord of the Rings. It may be the book that turned me into a sociologist. A heavy responsibility to lay at anyone's door. I think Ursula Le Guin might have had a hand in it too.
The new novel is called Stewards of the Flame (yes I know!) and is intended as an adult novel.
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Date: 2007-08-02 05:28 pm (UTC)*gibbers with excitement*
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Date: 2007-08-03 05:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-03 06:50 am (UTC)My subconscious is very annoying at times.
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Date: 2007-08-03 07:05 am (UTC)I couldn't find a picture of the original UK cover online to link to, unfortunately, although I do have that edition on the shelf upstairs.
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Date: 2007-08-03 05:59 pm (UTC)I'd gone looking for the Gollancz cover online, but I couldn't find it.
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Date: 2007-08-02 05:59 pm (UTC)That I can readily believe, She writes what one might well call sociological SF.
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Date: 2007-08-02 08:41 pm (UTC)Incidentally, you might well enjoy Golden Witchbreed and its sequel Ancient Light by Mary Gentle. They were clearly influenced by LeGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness, but are fine books in their own right, especially the first. They are very different in style and content from Gentle's later books.
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Date: 2007-08-03 05:09 am (UTC)I should read some Mary Gentle: several people have recommended her to me now. Argh! So many books!
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Date: 2007-08-03 08:50 am (UTC)Those two are early Mary Gentle. They're SF in spite of their titles, very different from her later books, but equally good.
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Date: 2007-08-03 06:03 pm (UTC)In Golden Witchbreed and Ancient Light, there's messing with gender and ruined cities and vast bridges and love and betrayal and galactic corporations and humanity fucking it all up, all through good intentions. I think Gentle uses the word "fuck" a lot less frequently in these books than in some of her later ones.
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Date: 2007-08-03 06:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-04 04:12 pm (UTC)Sounds just my kind of thing!
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Date: 2007-08-12 12:57 pm (UTC)The one thing that surprised me about The Far Side of Evil is that it's marketed as a "young adult" book. It's not the first time that I've read a "young adult" book that's deeper than the average run of "adult" fuixtion, but this was very dark as well.
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Date: 2007-08-12 02:09 pm (UTC)I first read The Far Side of Evil when I was about 9 or 10 - it had a tremendous impact. Many years later, finding Sylvia Engdahl's website, we had a brief exchange about this - I think she was quite alarmed I'd come to it so early. I gather she regrets that Enchantress from the Stars and The Far Side of Evil were originally positioned as companion volumes, since Enchantress is suitable for younger children.
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Date: 2007-08-07 11:31 am (UTC)(I'm sure I could say something more--but that makes me incoherently happy.)
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Date: 2007-08-07 11:36 am (UTC)