Cards of Grief

This book is the first of two Mythopoeic Award winners by Yolen. I read the second, Briar Rose, just over two years before this one and really liked it, despite its disturbing setting. I also really liked this one. It's sort of a science fantasy, mixing the two genres. Yolen does it superbly, creating a narrative of a planet of people who grieve being studied and interfered with by Earthlings. The prose is lovely and the culture that Yolen creates is amazing. She wrote this story when she herself was grieving after the loss of her father who had lived with her and her family at the end of his life. This book won the 1985 Mythopoeic Award.

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