Did I mention the opus I was working on? Scratch that.
Having read the novel Radiant by James Alan Gardner, I feel like an illiterature (SEE?) reading Dickens and feeling lucky just to experience some of that creativity. Gardner's Radiant is a masterwork, and I picked it up at one p.m. today and didn't put it down till half-past five when I finished it. He keeps the protagonist guessing, and you with her, and the result is one long roller-coaster ride that grabs you by the throat and doesn't let go till you read the very last page and slide your eye off its final word.
Guess I've my homework cut out for me, eh?
His tightly-drawn first-person style is one of the best I've encountered to date, and puts us squarely into heroine Youn Suu's head (or what's left of it, anyway). And the religious themes don't scream This is the One Truth in your head, so it reads more like the action-adventure story it is and not some religious tract straight out from Campus Crusade (sorry, fellows in Christ--just making a comparison here) like religious fiction's wont to do, whether consciously or not.
But godlike aliens that "transcend" with their super-advanced technology? The idea of gods as metaphors and theological concepts to be explained away? Puh-leeze. Gardner's science is silly, but not that that matters with this rollicking-good tale.
I'm gonna go read this again. Never mind I didn't get any of the few League of People's references within; the book can be read on its own, whoopee! And considering this is only the second Gardner novel I've read, that's quite a plus.
PS: The first was Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Man of Bronze. Didn't like it as much, but in his own League (sorry, couldn't resist), that's a different story.
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