Three Novellas
Dec. 2nd, 2014 08:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bibliogrammaThe Space Between, Diana Gabaldon
Interesting novella, set in France and featuring Joan MacKimmie, Jamie Fraser's step-daughter (daughter of his second wife, Laoghaire MacKenzie), and Michael Murray, his nephew. Michael is taking Joan to join a French nunnery as a postulant, and in the process they encounter the Compte Saint Germain - who has his own plans for the young woman he believes to be the daughter of Claire Fraser. What intrigued me the most about the novella was its portrayal of Le Compte (a character whose historical and literary appearances I have some interest in) as not just a magician and alchemist (or a con man of some notoriety) but a time traveller much like Claire and the others so far encountered in the Outlander saga.'
After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall, by Nancy Kress
It's very easy to see why this won the Nebula for Best Novella. The story is intense and compelling, the prose lean and yet visceral, and the characters - after, before and during the fall - are so very human in their fears and choices.
The story unfolds in three time - 2035 (after the fall), 2013 (before the fall) and 2014 (during the fall), but characters from after and before connect in various ways, and all three merge at the climax of the fall - a convergence of natural disasters on a massive scale that sparks nuclear devastation and the end of almost all life on earth. But in that climax, the message that one woman from before the fall manages to pass on to the handful of humans surviving after the fall is one that may save the future.
In the House of the Seven Librarians, Ellen Klages
A simple fantasy about a closed and forgotten library, seven librarians who stay there after it closes, keeping order and eating tea and biscuits (the new library that has replaced their beloved home is too modern and soulless for these librarians) and the baby left in the book return chute. I suppose it's technically a children's book, but I loved it. Beautifully illustrated and published by Aqueduct Press.