Cloudless skies/ heals a part of you
Mar. 30th, 2014 12:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolorosa_12So, I wrote a review of Mars Evacuees by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sophiamcdougall. And then this happened...
So, my review convinced one of my favourite authors to read a book by another of my favourites. My work here is done!
In all seriousness, I would urge you to give Mars Evacuees a try. It's a children's science fiction novel, and the best way I can think to describe it is 'like Pacific Rim, but if the main characters were twelve-year-old girls [and there were many more female characters]'. It shares Pacific Rim's best qualities: optimism, an emphasis on kindness, compromise and empathy in the face of destruction, and a representative, global cast of characters. It's also really, really funny.
This weekend has been quite busy. Our friends L and C came up on Friday night. Both of them used to live in Cambridge, but they now live in Exeter, where L has a job as a university lecturer. They were visiting because C had her MA ceremony. The Cambridge (and Oxford) MA is a bit of a weird tradition. It's not awarded for completing any course, but rather given as an honorary degree to everyone who has a Cambridge BA degree a certain number of years after they've completed their studies. So, Matthias, who did his undergrad at Cambridge, has a Cambridge MA, but I, who did my undergrad in Australia, will never be eligible for one. In any case, C accidentally had too many tickets to the ceremony, so Matthias and I tagged along with her husband L and her mother and sister. We spent the afternoon after the ceremony catching up with various people, and ended up having a pub dinner.
This afternoon we'll probably all go walking out to Grantchester, which is a small village just outside Cambridge. It's an absolutely glorious day - 20 degrees, and with enough sunshine to actually cause sunburn. The others are all out having breakfast, but I needed a little break from people before going back to socialising. So I'm just sitting here with the internet, the Daysleepers and a cup of coffee, thinking that life is pretty much fabulous.
sophiamcdougall. And then this happened...
So, my review convinced one of my favourite authors to read a book by another of my favourites. My work here is done!
In all seriousness, I would urge you to give Mars Evacuees a try. It's a children's science fiction novel, and the best way I can think to describe it is 'like Pacific Rim, but if the main characters were twelve-year-old girls [and there were many more female characters]'. It shares Pacific Rim's best qualities: optimism, an emphasis on kindness, compromise and empathy in the face of destruction, and a representative, global cast of characters. It's also really, really funny.
This weekend has been quite busy. Our friends L and C came up on Friday night. Both of them used to live in Cambridge, but they now live in Exeter, where L has a job as a university lecturer. They were visiting because C had her MA ceremony. The Cambridge (and Oxford) MA is a bit of a weird tradition. It's not awarded for completing any course, but rather given as an honorary degree to everyone who has a Cambridge BA degree a certain number of years after they've completed their studies. So, Matthias, who did his undergrad at Cambridge, has a Cambridge MA, but I, who did my undergrad in Australia, will never be eligible for one. In any case, C accidentally had too many tickets to the ceremony, so Matthias and I tagged along with her husband L and her mother and sister. We spent the afternoon after the ceremony catching up with various people, and ended up having a pub dinner.
This afternoon we'll probably all go walking out to Grantchester, which is a small village just outside Cambridge. It's an absolutely glorious day - 20 degrees, and with enough sunshine to actually cause sunburn. The others are all out having breakfast, but I needed a little break from people before going back to socialising. So I'm just sitting here with the internet, the Daysleepers and a cup of coffee, thinking that life is pretty much fabulous.
