Passage was written by Connie Willis and won the Locus award for best novel in 2002. I found this book impossible to put down. I would finally fall asleep over it at night only to pick it right back up when I woke up. Riveting. It's as much philosophy as science fiction -more so, really. And it has poor babes in the woods, poor babes in the woods:
My dear do you know,
How a long time ago,
Two poor little children,
Whose names I don't know,
Were stolen away
On a fine summer's day,
And left in a wood,
As I've heard people say,
Poor babes in the wood! Poor babes in the wood!
Oh! don't you remember the babes in the wood?
And when it was night,
So sad was their plight,
The sun it went down,
And the moon gave no light!
They sobbed and they sighed,
And they bitterly cried,
And the poor little things,
They lay down and died.
Poor babes in the wood! Poor babes in the wood!
Oh! don't you remember the babes in the wood?
And when they were dead,
The robins so red,
Brought strawberry leaves,
And over them spread;
And all the day long,
The branches among,
They mournfully whistled,
And this was their song;
Poor babes in the wood! Poor babes in the wood!
Oh! don't you remember the babes in the wood?
How a long time ago,
Two poor little children,
Whose names I don't know,
Were stolen away
On a fine summer's day,
And left in a wood,
As I've heard people say,
Poor babes in the wood! Poor babes in the wood!
Oh! don't you remember the babes in the wood?
And when it was night,
So sad was their plight,
The sun it went down,
And the moon gave no light!
They sobbed and they sighed,
And they bitterly cried,
And the poor little things,
They lay down and died.
Poor babes in the wood! Poor babes in the wood!
Oh! don't you remember the babes in the wood?
And when they were dead,
The robins so red,
Brought strawberry leaves,
And over them spread;
And all the day long,
The branches among,
They mournfully whistled,
And this was their song;
Poor babes in the wood! Poor babes in the wood!
Oh! don't you remember the babes in the wood?
from the back of the book:
Dr. Joanna Lander is a psychologist specializing in near-death experiences. She is about to get help from a new doctor with the power to give her the chance to get as close to death as anyone can. A brilliant young neurologist, Dr. Richard Wright has come up with a way to manufacture the near-death experience using a psychoactive drug. Joanna’s first NDE is as fascinating as she imagined — so astounding that she knows she must go back, if only to find out why that place is so hauntingly familiar. But each time Joanna goes under, her sense of dread begins to grow, because part of her already knows why the experience is so familiar, and why she has every reason to be afraid. Yet just when Joanna thinks she understands, she’s in for the biggest surprise of all — a shattering scenario that will keep you feverishly reading until the final climactic page.
I've only read one other book by Connie Willis -Doomsday Book, which I liked.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment