| |
|
Having read the Identify That Tune thread, i thought Barbelith might benefit from a book equivalent - a thread for describing books that you once read, and would like to re-read, or even books that someone described to you and you would like to read, but that you don't know or can't remember the author and/or title of, in the hope that some other Barbelithers might have read them, or have them sitting on their bookshelf, and be able to identify them...
I'll start, with 2 books that i read at least 10 years ago (i.e., when i was roughly 14-15), both of which are probably fairly obscure sci-fi novels, but of the sort that i have a strong suspicion someone at least on Barbelith might have read...
The first one was set on a planet that Earth had colonised at some point in the future, which was mostly desert and had its own indigenous race of very-superficially-humanoids, referred to throughout the book as the "Aboriginals" (I think large parts of the concept were modelled fairly heavily on Australian history, so it could potentially have been an Australian author), which were androgynous, reproduced asexually (i think) and had a practice of "lactating" from one another (to get essential nutrients that were scarce in the desert, or something) through an organ which superficially looked like a penis (which the Earth colonists, who, IIRC, were ruled by some future version of the Catholic church, totally misinterpreted as fellatio).
The colonist Church, on a mission to "save" and "civilise" the "aboriginals", used a combination of drugs, brainwashing and surgery to try to make them look and act like humans, including trying to make "males" and "females" out of them. The plot of the book involved a "female" who was a "star pupil" of this "civilising" process (the adopted "daughter" or something of a wealthy colonial couple) becoming lost/stranded in the desert (together with the narrator-character, who i think was some merchant just arrived from Earth or something) and coming off the drugs, causing "her" to revert physically and mentally to her original form. What i most strongly remember about the book was the very, very psychedelic descriptions of the character regaining her "spiritual" relationship with the land...
I also remember the book being described on its back jacket (in a quote from someone or other) as "the first Third World sci-fi novel". Whoever it was by, it was excellent, probably a big influence on me, and i'd love to read it again and take in the political (race/gender/etc) stuff in it that i probably missed...
The second book also featured a space-colonist version of the Catholic church, and a planet whose very-superficially-humanoid inhabitants had a telepathic/spiritual relationship with the ecosystem/land, but was quite a different writing style (probably older, and probably more "pulpy"). This one had a group of characters (I think including a priest) stranded on a planet which it was impossible, for some atmospheric reason, to get off again, which was mostly water, with a very few bits of land and amphibious inhabitants who lived on artificial "floating islands", but had a low-tech, symbiotic-with-other-species lifestyle (they had intelligent, seal-like reptilian creatures, IIRC).
For some reason the human characters ended up stranded on a boat being dragged uncontrollably by the current to a mysterious landmass on the other side of the planet, which held its "secret", and at the very end they one by one were drawn onto it, returning (in the eyes of those left) brainwashed or mentally "altered", until the last character finally gives in and it turns out that the planet is one huge symbiotic organism, and the humans had merely been resiting the planet's offer to make them "part of it"... This one was possibly by one of the fairly well known and critically acclaimed "mainstream" American sci-fi writers, tho it might not have been... again i can't remember either author or title of it...
So, do either of those (probably rather crap) descriptions ring a bell with anyone?
And, of course, post your unidentified book summaries here... |
|
|
