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dustydigger
Posted 2016-07-24 2:13 PM (#14078 - in reply to #12239)
Subject: Re: Pick and Mix 2016		Quote Reply



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Location: UK		I enjoyed the first book in the series,but couldnt get into the second book very well,thought it was a one joke series,so I gave up. I may try again sometime

I normally avoid books about the holocaust,or slavery,or about child abuse etc,these days I tend to want lighter books on lighter topics. So I have been putting off Olivia E Butler's Kindred where a young modern black woman has an irresistible link with her slave owning white ancestor ,born back around 1810,so that whenever he is in physical danger she is transported back in time to save his life,switching back and forth in time till she is sure that her great great grandmother has been born to one of his slave women . I was surprised at how accessible the style was,since was expecting a typical literary fiction style,dry and erudite. The book did move smoothly and easily,and was tense and gripping. But I just found the whole heartbreaking slavery situation very distressing to read about,I only read one flashback section at a time because it was so grim and disturbing,as this modern american woman had to struggle to become servile to survive ill treatment and the heartbreak of numerous abuses of the slaves. So its taken quite a while to finish the book,but it was a good book I'm glad I read it. I think I will wait a few months before tackling another of Butler's works!
Co-incidentally I was also reading a very different time travel novel,Michael Bishop's No Enemy But Time about a time experiment where a young man is sent back to the Pleistocene,and when the technology for his return to the present fails,he joins a group of hominids and even falls in love with one! The book is vividly written,often hilarious,or harrowing,sexually frank,and addresses themes of racism and identity in a vibant way. Good fun.One more Nebula off the list!That's 31/52 completed :0)
How interesting that time travel can be used for such different authors themes! Butler uses it only as a device to get a modern character back to the 1820s where she can be a foil for the state of blacks back then,as well as showing that even the most sensitive or well-intentioned of people are affected by the whole social milieu,so that the whole society can fall into gross injustices and cruelty.I found it sad to be reading this at a time when any sort of progress of justice seems to be faltering badly,just one more reason for finding the book a hard read in some ways
Bishop uses a form of spirit travel combined with military equipment to thrust his protagonist much further back in time,while being careful to avoid pitfalls of pulp SF novels time travel gaffes That was my second Bishop book,and it was very different from Transfigurations,though both are rather anthropologically themed,and both interesting and thought provoking. Good stuff.

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