July 09, 2017

Have you achieved Radiance yet? You have TWO WEEKS.

In about two weeks, it'll be too late! If you're still deciding whether to read Catherynne M. Valente's book Radiance, the July selection of the Kansas City SF & F Literati, perhaps this overview from meeting host Barnes & Noble Booksellers will help:

"Radiance is a decopunk pulp SF alt-history space opera mystery set in a Hollywood-and solar system-very different from our own, from Catherynne M. Valente, the phenomenal talent behind the New York Times bestselling The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making.

"Severin Unck's father is a famous director of Gothic romances in an alternate 1986, in which talking movies are still a daring innovation due to the patent-hoarding Edison family.

"Rebelling against her father's films of passion, intrigue, and spirits from beyond, Severin starts making documentaries, traveling through space and investigating the levitator cults of Neptune and the lawless saloons of Mars. For this is not our solar system, but one drawn from classic science fiction in which all the planets are inhabited and we travel through space on beautiful rockets. Severin is a realist in a fantastic universe.

"But her latest film, which investigates the disappearance of a diving colony on a watery Venus populated by island-sized alien creatures, will be her last. Though her crew limps home to earth and her story is preserved by the colony's last survivor, Severin will never return.

"Told using techniques from reality TV, classic film, gossip magazines, and meta-fictional narrative, Radiance is a solar system-spanning story of love, exploration, family, loss, quantum physics, and silent film."

Several copies of each month's selection are normally available through the Johnson County Library or Mid-Continent Public Library. It's also available from meeting host Barnes & Noble Booksellers, Amazon, and Kansas City's own Rainy Day Books.

The meeting will be held on the second floor of the Oak Park Barnes & Noble Booksellers in Overland Park, KS, at 7:00 p.m. the evening of Monday, July 24, 2017Everyone is welcome to come, even if they haven't read the book.

IMAGE: Many thanks to Amazon.com for the cover image.

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