Reading Between Worlds
Reading two extraordinarily different kinds of novels back-to-back is a fun and thoughtful way to think about your own worldview and how the pieces of existence fit together. It's also a wonderful way to put the range of writerly creativity that's out there on display.
I'd never read so-called "hard" science fiction (which refers stylistically to rigorously scientific and technically accurate world-building, not to ease of reading) until I read Seveneves by Neal Stephenson. It's a doorstopper of a book that begins with the shattering of Earth's moon and ends 5,000 years in the future.
Wow. It pulls you into a future that is both remote and yet entirely believable. And it forces you to think about time, culture, and Earth's place within the universe in new and different ways. I'd loved being brought into this parallel and attenuated existence. And what fun meeting the descendants of humans who survived a worldwide apocalypse.
I followed that up with Brit Bennett's brilliant The Vanishing Half, about Black twins who go their separate ways in the 1970s. A compelling and psychologically astute dive into race, class, culture, and perhaps most of all, how individual identity evolves in response to--and sometimes in revolt from--all three.
This book is a microcosm that stands in contrast to the macrocosm created by Stephenson. That's not a judgment, but an observation about the way some books run deep and narrow and others run broad and wide. And there is such richness for exploring the human condition, either way.
I love both these books. Each evokes a different range of feelings and anxieties, and each is so totally committed to its world-building.
I'd never read so-called "hard" science fiction (which refers stylistically to rigorously scientific and technically accurate world-building, not to ease of reading) until I read Seveneves by Neal Stephenson. It's a doorstopper of a book that begins with the shattering of Earth's moon and ends 5,000 years in the future.
Wow. It pulls you into a future that is both remote and yet entirely believable. And it forces you to think about time, culture, and Earth's place within the universe in new and different ways. I'd loved being brought into this parallel and attenuated existence. And what fun meeting the descendants of humans who survived a worldwide apocalypse.
I followed that up with Brit Bennett's brilliant The Vanishing Half, about Black twins who go their separate ways in the 1970s. A compelling and psychologically astute dive into race, class, culture, and perhaps most of all, how individual identity evolves in response to--and sometimes in revolt from--all three.
This book is a microcosm that stands in contrast to the macrocosm created by Stephenson. That's not a judgment, but an observation about the way some books run deep and narrow and others run broad and wide. And there is such richness for exploring the human condition, either way.
I love both these books. Each evokes a different range of feelings and anxieties, and each is so totally committed to its world-building.
No comments have been added yet.
