This turns out to be the third in a trilogy, the two previous books being The Knife of Never Letting Go and The Ask and the Answer, neither of which I had read: it’s a huge long young adult book about conflict between humans and indigenous inhabitants on a planet where telepathic projections (‘Noise’) are common but not universal, both among the locals and among their Earthling invaders. It’s an unusual comment to make about a book, but the typography is startling – not just a different font for each viewpoint character, but also letters jumping around the page for dramatic effect. My copy came with a transparent dust jacket with more jumbled words on it. The writing is dense but also gripping – very tight first-person POV from the teenage couple who are the centre of the story, and from the alien forces acting upon them; the plot veers from conflict to deadly threat to negotiation to assassination, a real roller-coaster. I do wish I had started with the first book, especially if it’s as good as this (and it won the Tiptree award so cannot be completely devoid of quality).
From the Heart of Europe
Books, politics, languages and life
I think you are being a little unfair on Hutton there – there certainly are people who think that solstices and equinoxes were part of Celtic culture, and not just on the fringes of neo-paganism, so to suggest that it doesn’t need debunking because nobody important believes it is to miss the point of what Hutton is doing, I think. One of the things I like about his books is that he gives consideration to even the most far-fetched claims and tries to put them in a real historical context.