Patricia A. McKillip

Book Review: Moon-Flash, Patricia A. McKillip (1984)

/ Joachim Boaz / 16 Comments
  • Kinuko Y. Craft’s cover for the 1985 edition

3.5/5 (Good)

As Patricia A. McKillip (1948-2022) recently passed away (obituary), I decided to pick up one of her few science fiction novels. And I’m glad I did! Channeling (and reworking) the conceptual breakthrough-style premise of Clarke’s Against the Fall of Night (serialized 1948) and countless generation ship novels, Moon-Flash (1984) is an achingly beautiful coming-of-age story of a young woman who sets out to map the geography of her restrictive world.

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Updates: Recent SFF Purchases No. CCXCIV (Theodore Sturgeon, Edgar Pangborn, Patricia A. McKillip, Ludovic Peters)

/ Joachim Boaz / 29 Comments

Which books/covers/authors intrigue you? Which have you read? Disliked? Enjoyed?

1. Not Without Sorcery, Theodore Sturgeon (1961)

  • Uncredited cover for the 1st edition

Back cover blurb: “In 1948, Theodore Sturgeon published his first collection of short stories, titled, either from modesty or irony, WITHOUT SORCERY. Mr. Sturgeon’s firm conviction that, in his own world at least, absolutely anything is possible (and therefore whatever happens does so ‘without sorcery’) is an obviously specious argument and certainly no excuse. The fact is that anything which Theodore Sturgeon writes is the result of an extraordinary alchemy–the sorcery of his own talent, a talent that is peculiar to himself, unidentifiable but unmistakable, elusive yet always there. This is sorcery, and there is no point boggling it.

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Updates: Recent Science Fiction Purchases No. CCLII (James White, Patricia A. McKillip, John Maddox Roberts, and an Original Anthology)

/ Joachim Boaz / 44 Comments

As always which books/covers intrigue you? Which have you read? Disliked? Enjoyed?

1. Fool’s Run, Patricia A. McKillip (1987)

Michael Whelan’s cover for the 1988 edition

From the back cover: “Terra Viridian is a young woman who obeyed a vision, took a laser assault rifle, and turned fifteen hundred innocents into light. She was captured, convicted, and sentences to the orbital prison called the Underworld. Forever.

Seven years later: a bar-band pianists Continue reading →