≡ [PDF] A Different Light Elizabeth A Lynn 9780441007905 Books

A Different Light Elizabeth A Lynn 9780441007905 Books

Download As PDF : A Different Light Elizabeth A Lynn 9780441007905 Books

A Different Light Elizabeth A Lynn 9780441007905 Books

A love story, told through the eyes of an artist. A sci-fi story, chasing treasure through Hyperspace. A great read!


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A Different Light Elizabeth A Lynn 9780441007905 Books Reviews

Unlike the other reviewer I am a regular reader of sf & f, especially feminist and/ or GLBT-themed sf & f. I love(d) this book!!! I loved it when I first bought it in the late 70's and it is not at all dated. (I re-read it last year and was touched and amazed and overjoyed all over again.) The love story, the space opera and the primary conflict between the two men is as real and vital now as it was when it was first written.
I remember reading this when it first came out. As I approached the end, I was so frustrated that such a wonderful book had to end, that I simply began again on page 1 to immediately reread it straight through. That was the first time I had ever done such a thing (Usually I reserve such treatment only to books with complex timelines, where it's necessary in order to take everything in.). I still know exactly where my aging paperback copy is. Enjoy!
Elizabeth Lynn bring poetry to the often hard-scrabble of science fiction. In a future near-perfect, renown artist Jimson Alleca suffers from a debilitating disease that forces him to remain planet-bound while his lover leaves to experience the "different light" of other planets.. When Jimson receives a post-card equivalent of a message, he elects to take his life into his own hands and travel off-planet. For Jimson, this is literally the journey of a lifetime, as he explores "the hype" meets and learns from "spacers" and even manages to find his first love.

Lynn's prose has a soft elegance to it, flowing from metaphor and allusion into the reality of the surrounding science fiction world that seems so real and has so much depth. There always seems more to explore, more to see, and more to do. The plot is well-crafted, but what's even more impressive is how Lynn is able to create a universe in which bi-sexual or gay relationships aren't just accepted—they're part of the normal background that doesn't even require comment or explanation. It's a lovely nod to how fiction writers can create, believably, the world in which we would like to live, while commenting on the world we're stuck with.
In an age when disease has been all but eradicated, Jimson has cancer. If he stays on New Terrian, it can be treated; if he makes a faster-than-light jump through the Hype, he can visit new worlds and rediscover old lovers, but the cancer will metastasize and kill him. A Different Light is a looseknit travelogue composed of small, vivid details rendered in Lynn's deceptively terse style, seemingly undirected but with a distinct focus the nature of one man's identity as formed by his relationships, his body, his mind, and his choices--the persistence of self for a man whose self is especially limited by the standards of his society. It's an uneven effort forgettable plot, Lynn's brevity fails to invoke Jimson's identity as artist, the worldbuilding is both patchy and heavy-handed; it's also a dense and intensely thoughtful little book. Lynn writes racial and sexual diversity with grace; Jimson's illness is not so deftly handled, but his mortality and social isolation is convincing--and so while his attempts to achieve persistence are often disposable, the desire which motivates them resonates. There are stronger and more successful books, and while this has many of Lynn's trademarks it is not her best, but A Different Light lingered with me, if more for the thoughts it has than the actions it commits, and in that regard I consider it a success and recommend it.
Ms Lynn's general writing skills are more than good one page melts into the other and her style is always smooth; her phrasing is deceivingly simple, sometimes even lyrical. It is a writing made of small touches, light shades, always neat if not always moving.

The problem here lies with the story hard as I tried, I could not get involved nor get to love her characters.
We have a love sick young artist, doomed by cancer to die early in a world where an intimidating science nearly always guarantees a healthy, long lasting life. This device, if a bit cerebral, could in itself be touching but, in this case, it left me cold.
I wanted to feel for the main hero, his lost lover being another man should have helped me identifying, but I simply never could.

It seems to me that Ms Lynn was absent minded while writing this story while retaining her usual skill she was not and could not move.
A love story, told through the eyes of an artist. A sci-fi story, chasing treasure through Hyperspace. A great read!