Saturday, December 25, 2010

Child of a Rainless Year by Jane Lindskold

OK - so this is a reread. My daughter hauled me out to the storage locker to look for something and I spotted this in one of her boxes. Actually, it is mine. I had loaned it to her and she hadn't gotten around to reading it. It has been a number of years since I read it - and since the publication date is 2005 - I must have read it shortly after it was released.

When I was twelve or thereabouts - we were living in the house that used to be at the crossroads where the railroad track, Highway 80/85, and the truck by-pass all met near Mesilla Park. One of my Christmas gifts (I'm sure there were others, but this is the one I remember) was a copy of We by Charles Lindbergh. As soon as all the obligatory hoopla was accomplished, I went back to the back room - it was my brother's bedroom, but he was just a baby and didn't care - and read. All day. I finished that book that day.

That's about what I did today. I did start yesterday, but today I have done very little but sit here at my desk and read.

I was right. This was definitely worth a reread. This is fantasy of amazing depth and complexity with fascinating characters and haunting mysteries - and she has the audacity to set it in Las Vegas, New Mexico. No "long ago in a galaxy far far away," or in a place that has traded on its mystique for generations: plain old dusty Las Vegas. And a fifty year old heroine - how's that for radical?

I have read one other of hers - and this time I must look for more.

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