(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”.] ( )

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. ( )

This is an old favorite of mine. On page 1, Paula and her boyfriend are sight-seeing outside the ruins of the New York Public Library.

"These people were giants," Tony said. He waved up at the towering ruin before them. 'They built on such a scale, their ideas were so absolute and universal--'

"Paula said, 'They were Fascists.'

"'You can't have everything.'"

This is Cecelia Holland's only Science Fiction novel, set in a world of space travel. Anarchists have become legitimate and are the dominant political force. The society they have created is not absolutely without government, but requires a council to handle a basic infrastructure, foreign relations, and other such matters that don't lend themselves to individual initiative.

The novel doesn't linger on Earth. Keenly intelligent and practical Paula becomes a diplomat and spends most of her life on an alien planet, an anarchist in a world of medieval-like splendor and repression. ( )

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. ( )