{"id":265,"date":"2008-05-20T01:45:28","date_gmt":"2008-05-20T01:45:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/?p=265"},"modified":"2012-02-27T14:22:40","modified_gmt":"2012-02-27T14:22:40","slug":"water-rites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/?p=265","title":{"rendered":"Water Rites"},"content":{"rendered":"

Water Rites<\/em> by Mary Rosenblum<\/h3>\n

Eleven people attended this discussion at\u00a0 A.T. Campbell\u2019s home. Our topic was Water Rites<\/em> by former ArmadilloCon Guest of Honor Mary Rosenblum. This is a new book that contains the novel Drylands <\/em>and several related stories, all set in a near future where the Pacific Northwest has gone dry. Seven of us had read Rosenblum before. Eight people started and finished Water Rites<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Many of us read Drylands<\/em> it when it came out in the early 90s. We feel that the book is more relevant now, and we found the stories filled in some gaps. We observed that water has been a serious political issue in the West for decades. One person noted that water was a precious commodity in James Michener\u2019s Centennial<\/em>.<\/p>\n

One person thought this was an interesting post-apocalyptic novel, sort of new version of J. G. Ballard\u2019s Burning World<\/em>. He liked how Rosenblum portrayed the different climates in Eastern and Western Oregon.<\/p>\n

Another reader liked the book a lot, but admitted that the book was partially dedicated to him. He thought it was an outstanding first novel. He found it surprising to see a global warming novel nearly 20 years old.\u00a0 He felt the decision to include the paranormal in this story was strange.\u00a0 The book had two stories: climate\/politics, and paranormal abilities. He liked the characterization in general. In some ways he liked the stories more than the novel.<\/p>\n

One person liked the beginning and ending with Jeremy\u2019s magic.\u00a0 She thought the paranormal stories were cautionary tales. She noted that many characters are motivated by events that happened offstage, and this distances the characters from the reader. Her favorite character was the female trucker, largely because she exists in the here and now. And she wondered why the title of the book was not \u201cWater Rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

A couple of people found this book to be well-written but depressing, and painful to be there. \u00a0They felt the setting of this book seems very close to today\u2019s reality.<\/p>\n

Another person expected not to like this book because it was post-apocalyptic. But she knew the geographical region well, and the familiarity drew her in.<\/p>\n

Overall we enjoyed this book, and many of us plan to read more of Rosenblum\u2019s work. After the meeting, we had a nice dinner at Fuddrucker\u2019s.<\/p>\n

–A. T. Campbell, III<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Water Rites by Mary Rosenblum Eleven people attended this discussion at\u00a0 A.T. Campbell\u2019s home. Our topic was Water Rites by former ArmadilloCon Guest of Honor Mary Rosenblum. This is a new book that contains the novel Drylands and several related stories, all set in a near future where the Pacific Northwest has gone dry. Seven […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=265"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":565,"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265\/revisions\/565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}