steerswoman

I'm about thirty pages into Rosemary Kirstein's The Steerswoman's Road (an omnibus of the first two books in the series) and I am smitten. Partly by the world, partly by the semi-Macguffin (strange blue stones that appeared thirty-five years ago, on the northwest sides of things), but mostly by the conversation between the characters. "I think they're pieces of the moon," says one character, and it's not until a page or so later that we realise that the moon is legendary. Or graphing where the stones would fall if they were thrown to the southeast by a giant, and the barbarian says "your graph's wrong, it's flat." Not as a corrective for terrain, but because when you're throwing things that far you have to account for the curvature of the earth. (Followed by the realisation that "if he threw them hard enough, they'd never land. . . they'd fall and miss the earth.")

Note to self: when papersky says a book is good, she's not kidding. (See also: Susan Palwick, Shelter.) When papersky and Zarf agree on a book, the time to start reading it is NOW. Perhaps I should get around to those Vorkosigan things. And also Discworld novels post-1992.

(Travel part 2 coming soon, perhaps later today.)