Just mailed the above title to my little brother for his 40th birthday. We are a reading family. This novel is about the power of story to heal. One of the reasons I wrote my first novel, was writing fictionally is a way to talk about things that don't fit into ordinary, rational frames of reference. I've read all of Powers, though I haven't finished his Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance. Goldbug Variations was probably my favorite. It's about a librarian and the computer world, plus a mystery told via hindsight. Everything my little heart could desire. (Although I did give this book to a friend whose opinion I value and he didn't like it. Said it was too informative for his fiction tastes. Takes all kinds.) Galatea 2.2 was cyberpunkish though a little too dry to appeal to most cp fans.
The Time of Our Singing was slow going but about half-way through I became obsessed, especially as I have bi-racial extended family. Gain was a politically themed novel on environmental health issues. Liked it but it didn't make as big an impression as some of this others. Plowing the Dark was another cyberpunkish novel. Since I'm a devotee of the genre, I liked it immensely. Briefly, to recap the two cp novels, Plowing was virtual reality and Galatea was AI.
