I read the sequel to this book (The Moon and the Face) in June - and wow, this book is just so much better. The moon never questioned the moon-fire the fish never questioned their voicelessness. There was no need for her to think about being happy, any more than a bird thought about it. She was part of the River, flowing into her place as the fish and the trees flowed into theirs. She herself was every woman her growing, her betrothal no different than a woman’s in the past or a woman to be born. A man would die on one part of the River, but someone else would be born on another part to take his place. One year was like any year one Moon-Flash was every Moon-Flash. Less aesthetic appreciation, more emotional connection, perhaps. I really liked Moon-Flash but not in quite the same way I really liked McKillip’s most recent novel, Kingfisher. There’s a certain McKillip-ish ambiguity to the worldbuilding, which I thought was nicely juxtaposed against Kyreol’s more straightforward emotional journey. I wasn’t sure what to expect since, unlike nearly everything else McKillip has written, this is science-fiction rather than fantasy. The further she travels, the more things she discovers that contradict what she been taught about the world. Kyreol leaves her hunter-gatherer community to travel down the river, searching for answers.
An unusual and poignant coming-of-age story.
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