Floating Worlds

by Cecelia Holland

Hardcover, 1976

Status

Available

Call number

PS3558.O348 F57

Genres

Science Fiction

All Topics

Fiction

Publication

Alfred A. Knopf (New York, 1976). 1st edition, 1st printing. 465 pages.

Description

In the far future, an Earth-born woman must negotiate with a fearsome mutant race: "On a par with Ursula LeGuin or Arthur C. Clarke" (Chicago Tribune). Two thousand years into the future, runaway pollution has made the earth uninhabitable except in giant biodomes. The society is an anarchy, with disputes mediated through the Machiavellian Committee for the Revolution. Mars, Venus, and the moon support flourishing colonies of various political stripes. On the fringes of the solar system, in the gas planets, a strange, new, violent kind of human has evolved. In this unstable system, the anarchist Paula Mendoza, an agent of the Committee, works to make peace and ultimately protect her people in a catastrophic clash of worlds that destroys the order she knows. … (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member leonardr

I really liked the interactions between the Earth, Martian, and Lunar societies, but found the gas giant societies incredibly boring. I got over halfway through this before I started skipping 50 pages at a time and finally gave up.

2 more

LibraryThing member questbird

A solar system epic which follows the adventures of Earth anarchist Paula Mendoza from Earth to Luna, Mars, the Styth worlds of Saturn and Uranus and back again. Mendoza negotiates with the warlike Styths (who are giant, black, clawed humans from the outer planets) and becomes embroiled in their

politics. Mendoza is a terrific female protagonist, but all of the characterisations are good. The cultures of the various planets are noticeably different from each other -- some radically so. Written in 1976 but like Dune, this one has not dated.

Show Less

LibraryThing member antao

(Original Review, 1980-08-05)

"Floating Worlds" by Cecilia Holland is a terrific book, and I'm surprised it hasn't gotten more attention. Maybe the reason a lot of people don't like it is that the world and the characters it portrays aren't at all nice; the book isn't for kids, because it's full of

the grime, confusion, and unpleasantness of real life. That's what I liked so much about it: it seemed very realistic -- not the technology (although it seems to me that Holland handles that very well) but the human interactions. As I read, I kept being happily surprised at how deep the characters were. They kept doing things I didn't predict that were both perfectly consistent for them in that universe, and realistically complex. I sure wouldn't want to live in that world, but then, some of what I found so unattractive about it I also find unpleasant in real life.

I read "Floating Worlds" because of a review in SFReview in 1978 or 1977, can't remember which. Dick Geis and I agree that a work of art should pick you up by the throat and shake you. "Floating Worlds" did that to me, and I loved it.

[2018 EDIT: This review was written at the time as I was running my own personal BBS server. Much of the language of this and other reviews written in 1980 reflect a very particular kind of language: what I call now in retrospect a “BBS language”.]

Show Less

Fewer