So I come across John Whitbourn’s A Dangerous Energy via Twitter…
Those of you who did not tell me about the weird alternate-history magic novels of John Whitbourn are fired.
— Kenneth Hite (@kennethhite) January 4, 2015
…and ‘weird alternate-history magic novel’ sums it up. In spades, and with a special emphasis on ‘weird.’ Wikipedia calls it the ‘first Counter-Reformation science fiction novel;’ I would say that the magic system is barely explained well enough to qualify as weird science rather than straight-out fantasy, but the Counter-Reformation bit is spot-on. I found the book entertaining, fascinating, and remarkably (and cheerfully) alien to our currently secularist society: I suspect that many of my more socially conservative readers will find the protagonist’s (he’s not even remotely a ‘hero’) eventual end both satisfying, and starkly inevitable to boot.
And so, adieu to The Sky People.
Wait. The tweet was yesterday afternoon. You read it already?
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I saw the same recommendation. I added Frankenstein’s Legions and Binscombe Tales I because of it. I’ve got a (virtual) pile to get through before I get to them, though.
I typically read about 4x to 7x faster than an unmodified human.
I’m more impressed by having time to read on the first kid-free day in weeks. I’m not even caught up on the house and laundry yet.
PAVANE is, of course, the actual first Counter-Reformation science fiction novel.