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| First Written | 1998 |
| Genre | Scifi |
| Origin | US |
| Publisher | Tor |
| ISBN-10 | 031286437X |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0312864378 |
| My Copy | library hardback |
| First Read | July 07, 2017 |
The Dazzle of Day
Like most scifi books, there are a couple of interesting ideas that make the book worth the time, even if they're a bit trite. First, after generations of living only on a spaceship - even a big one that has its own clouds and dirt and farms - the colonists are filled with /dread/ when they visit an actual planet. Their eyes (or souls) just can't process distances of more than a kilometer or two. The sheer size and vastness and emptiness of an planet just blows their minds.
Noted on July 14, 2017
I'll bet this book riled up the nastier parts of the scifi community: it's a scifi book about a spacefaring colony ship that breaks every norm: instead of food replicators, they farm. Instead of hypersleep, they have families and get old and die. Instead of a military-like hierarchy, they're Quakers and decide important matters by consent and a practice of stillness. Instead of young, male, heroic characters, we inhabit a cast of women, children, and old folks, most of whom seem nonwhite. It's like a Wendell Berry x Liberal fever dream of spacefaring.
Noted on July 14, 2017
The way of Friends is to think quietly and to listen. We ask the question, we consider how the answer is made by different people, we ask again, answer again, change our minds; we reach an understanding. The Meeting evolves this way, not by shouting each other down, not by the weight of the majority, but by the capacity of individual human beings to comprehend one another.
Quoted on July 14, 2017