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Radiance: A Novel by [Catherynne M. Valente]

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Catherynne M. Valente

Radiance: A Novel Kindle Edition

by Catherynne M. Valente (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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Radiance is a decopunk pulp SF alt-history space opera mystery set in a Hollywood-and solar system-very different from our own, from Catherynne M. Valente, the phenomenal talent behind the New York Timesbestselling The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making.

Severin Unck's father is a famous director of Gothic romances in an alternate 1986 in which talking movies are still a daring innovation due to the patent-hoarding Edison family. Rebelling against her father's films of passion, intrigue, and spirits from beyond, Severin starts making documentaries, traveling through space and investigating the levitator cults of Neptune and the lawless saloons of Mars. For this is not our solar system, but one drawn from classic science fiction in which all the planets are inhabited and we travel through space on beautiful rockets. Severin is a realist in a fantastic universe.

But her latest film, which investigates the disappearance of a diving colony on a watery Venus populated by island-sized alien creatures, will be her last. Though her crew limps home to earth and her story is preserved by the colony's last survivor, Severin will never return.

Told using techniques from reality TV, classic film, gossip magazines, and meta-fictional narrative, Radiance is a solar system-spanning story of love, exploration, family, loss, quantum physics, and silent film.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Print length

433 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Tor Books
Publication date

October 20, 2015
File size

1017 KB
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Catherynne M. Valente is an author, poet, and sometime critic who has been known to write as many as six impossible things before breakfast. She is to blame for over a dozen works of fiction and poetry, including The Orphan's Tales, Palimpsest, Deathless, and The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making. She has won the Tiptree Award, the Andre Norton Award, the Mythopoeic Award, the Lambda Award, the Rhysling Award, and the Million Writers Award for best web fiction. She lives on an island off the coast of Maine with her partner, two dogs, an enormous cat, and a slightly less enormous accordion.

Heath started his acting career at age thirteen with a role in the children's program Ship to Shore. His stage work has taken him all over his native Australia, from classrooms to botanical gardens, to historic museums and local theatres. He can be found in recording studios, comedy clubs, television sets, convention centres and youtube videos. An actor, director and master of ceremonies, Heath is a graduate of the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts and currently finds himself living in Portland, Maine. --This text refers to the audioCD edition.

Review

One of the most anticipated books of 2015. -- SFF Book Reviews

Starred review. "...descriptions are lush and striking, her worlds reveling in the dreamiest of nods to classic science fiction, where alien planets are full of life and easily reachable... A heady, strange, and beautifully written novel about how stories give form to worlds." -- Kirkus

“…a satisfying listening experience of a complex and imaginative novel.” --This text refers to the audioCD edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00N03G440
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Tor Books; First edition (October 20, 2015)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 20, 2015
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 1017 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 433 pages
Lending ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled

Best Sellers Rank: #557,069 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #1,005 in Steampunk Science Fiction (Kindle Store)
- #1,830 in Alternative History
- #2,371 in Alternate History Science Fiction (Books)

Customer Reviews:
117 ratings

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Catherynne M. Valente

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Catherynne M. Valente is the New York Times bestselling author of over two dozen works of fiction and poetry, including Palimpsest, the Orphan’s Tales series, Deathless, Radiance, and the crowdfunded phenomenon The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Own Making. She is the winner of the Andre Norton, Tiptree, Mythopoeic, Rhysling, Lambda, Locus and Hugo awards and has been a finalist the Nebula and World Fantasy Awards. She lives on an island off the coast of Maine with her partner, two dogs, two enormous cats, four chickens, several spinning wheels with ulterior motives, an uncompleted master's degree, and a secret door in the back of her wardrobe.

Customer reviews

5 star		52%
4 star		20%
3 star		8%
2 star		7%
1 star		14%

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Top reviews from the United States

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Margaret

Trippy, postmodern sci-fi--gorgeous

Reviewed in the United States on March 3, 2016

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So, imagine that at around the time George Melies filmed A Trip to the Moon, we actually discovered space travel. And all the planets--the moon, Venus, Neptune, Mars, etc--were habitable. And unlike A Trip to the Moon, no one lived on these planets but giant callowhales, and these whales produced milk that facilitated our ability to live on these planets, though no one knows what these callowhales are.

Okay, then imagine that silent films are considered so artistic that films are produced primarily without sound, and also in black and white.
Now put yourself in the Hollywood, film-noir mentality. An Orson Welles movie, perhaps.

Meet Severin. She’s the daughter of a famous gothic film director, and has always grown up under the spotlight as a beloved film icon. She becomes a documentarian, traveling the stars and making her own films. Her fifth film—The Radiant Car Thy Sparrows Drew—explores a city that’s disappeared on Venus, and a child that circles the city. She and her crew travel to Venus, begin filming.

And then she disappears.

Told through scripts, gossip columns, interviews, and a fictional first-person detective, Radiance explores the impact of Severin’s disappearance on those who loved her, as well as the history of a person who’s always been in the limelight. As always, Valente’s writing is mesmerizing and unique, and I’m awed by her ability to capture so many different tones. Radiance is her first science fiction novel (she has several sci-fi short stories, one of which was the jumping off point for this novel), and it combines the pulp aesthetic of 1950s sci-fi with postmodern storytelling strategies.

This is a book that’s meant to be read fast. If you let too much time go by between reading, you’ll miss connections. It wasn’t until about halfway through that I realized what was going on with some of the parts, and I went back to reread so I could make sure I was following! But it’s utterly unique and beautiful. For sci-fi, fantasy, and film fans, you should absolutely read this.

14 people found this helpful

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kris lim

What a beautiful, twisted, mind-f*ck of a thing

Reviewed in the United States on March 3, 2016

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Seriously, it's impossible to describe this novel without Launching into a full blown synopsis that would take longer to tell than to read the novel in its entirety. Hitch hikers guide meets goblin market in an alternate universe of jazz age brilliance. Total ho,eric adventure story, little nuggets and gems poetical references, and absolutely stunning in its craft. Disorienting at first due to its non-conventional format, but if you just let yourself flow and not force it into any sort of linear narrative, you'll come away with the literary experience equivalent of a day at the spa--just relaxing with the effect of making everything glow with beauty. God, I love this book.

14 people found this helpful

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Mrs. Misty Wilkins

Unreadable

Reviewed in the United States on November 29, 2021

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I’m sorry to report that this book is unreadable. It is a collection of lists, descriptive scenes that have no connection, and awkward starts that lead nowhere. I tried three times and could not find a way into a story.

3 people found this helpful

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UnicornBoss

An Author Like None Other

Reviewed in the United States on January 19, 2019

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This may not be everyone's cup of tea, but if you can imagine a world where the 1920's silent films, art deco, and noir exist in a quantum physic's, multiverse timeline, well then I think you'll enjoy this very much.

It takes a leap of the imagination, but if you can let your mind give way to Valente's worlds, you will be overwhelmed with where she dares to take you. I have been a fan of hers for many years now, beginning with Palimpsest. She is an author like none other.

Bravo!

2 people found this helpful

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Mh27

Loved it

Reviewed in the United States on March 3, 2016

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24 hours after I finished this book, I am still thinking about it. When I first started reading, I was really struggling with it. The style is unusual to say the least, but as the story builds, it really pays off. I didn't think I could love a story about a missing filmmaker in the golden age of Hollywood (if Hollywood was on the moon and all planets in our universe were colonized) as much as I did. It's a beautiful, haunting tale, and I'm happy I pushed through so I was able to experience it.

8 people found this helpful

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Elain

I loved the book

Reviewed in the United States on December 23, 2016

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I loved the book. Being a fan of really-really old movies, I could not dislike it. It brings to mind all those old noirs and gothic horrors and papier-mache monsters. In fact, the movie I most associated this with was the 1924 Aeilta: Queen of Mars.
Nevertheless, it definitely requires a certain frame of mind and the readiness to enjoy all the diverse bits without necessarily expecting a logical narrative with a beginning and an end.

One person found this helpful

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Kurt Badertscher

I can’t write and neither can this author

Reviewed in the United States on January 14, 2022

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I got 42% of the way through, closed the book and started another. Maybe this is new age stuff and I’m an old age guy but zzzzzzzzzzzz.

One person found this helpful

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J. Bower

Weird in a fun way

Reviewed in the United States on December 9, 2018

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This is a weird one: a multi- point of view history of 20th century film making if Jules Verne style space travel had worked. Flits around through time and place, but if you have patience, the story comes together nicely. Very cool.

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Top reviews from other countries

Martin Jones

There's no place like home

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 25, 2016

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I wanted to like Radiance. I understand the nostalgia for a solar system of princesses on Mars, and lush tropical wonderlands on Venus. The rocky, barren wastes revealed by space probes can represent something of a loss.

While Radiance has great qualities, I did find it hard work. The story flits about in style, format and point of view. I could see that the story was about our everyday viewpoint colliding with the vastness that lies beyond. Other-worldly animals and plants had familiar names to cover up their weirdness. I got the point there, which did not make the story any easier to follow.

As part of the idea that people take their own viewpoint out into strange places, Radiance has many references to travellers carrying familiar stories with them into space. But although the story of Radiance uses all kinds of easily recognised genres, it somehow lacks a familiar pattern. In an adventure story there is usually some mundane home that people leave behind. Dorothy leaves Kansas for Oz, for example. I mention the Wizard of Oz because there are a number of allusions to Kansas in Radiance. But the people mentioning Kansas don’t seem to know where it is. They certainly don’t know how to get there. Dorothy’s home remains an arty metaphor. Maybe that’s why I felt lost. There was no Kansas. Everywhere seemed to be Oz.

At one stage in the book someone says: “Something has to be real. Something real has to anchor the magic.” I would say this is very true, and sums up what Radiance was lacking.

Radiance is a brave effort and beautifully written, but I was rather glad to get to the end.

5 people found this helpful

Jessandthebee

Marmite - but I love it!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 13, 2019

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I was curious to know what others thought of this book and was aghast to find mixed reviews. I do feel that's a positive sign for a work of art, for this is what this novel is. Beautiful, Noir, a murder mystery, brain bending pager Turner, set in a alternate future where we can travel the solar system.

One person found this helpful

Bloodredruby

Well worth it

Reviewed in Canada on October 1, 2019

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I loved the premise of this book -- a space-opera-type mystery set in an alternate reality where silent movies have never given way to talkies, and movie stars hop between our solar system's planets -- but had a tough time getting my bearings in the first couple of chapters. Fortunately I kept going and as the story progressed and all the threads converged I fell completely under its spell. This turned out to be one of those books that I immediately wanted to pick up and re-read, to catch what I missed the first time.

Phil X

I wanted to love this book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 22, 2016

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I did not like this book, or did I? To be honest I am not sure. I read this as an eBook and Kindle and I must advise you not to do the same. I had to keep checking the timeline at the front of the book to position the chapter I was reading in context. This would have been much easier with a paper book. The layout of the book itself is somewhat novel (excuse the pun), as we read of scraps of film, interviews, meetings, memoirs and travelogues, with which to try to piece together the disappearance of our lead character Severin.

I wanted to love this book. The idea of storytelling in the Golden Age of Science Fiction, where Venus was jungle and Mars a desert plant and Pluto a cold and lonely place enthralled me. There is no question of doubt that Ms Valente can write. Her prose is well written, descriptive and rich language. Yet the first third of the book is not engrossing. Several times I was tempted to call it a day (most unlike me), but I persevered and came to enjoy individual chapters, but did not feel caught up in the book. I loved the environments Valente created with a scientific background which had moved at different speeds with different technologies than our own has. Overall I believe that she has striven to deliver something different and for that must be applauded. As an enjoyable read, however, it has not succeeded for me. Many think differently and for that reason this may be the book for you.

6 people found this helpful

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