It's also clear that he likes her a lot, and is really torn up by what has happened, and worried that he may have to treat her again, for some mysterious reason that takes a long time to become clear. It's clear from the start that something terrible happened, and indeed that the psychologist was forced to erase Teri-Mel's memory. Very well structured - it's presented as a psychologist listening to a series of interviews he did with Teri-Mel Murray, a young woman on Mars who was working with her father as an 'ecospector'. Look up the curriculum sometime and tell me that's not a degree in lying!'Īnd there's plenty more in that vein, about personal responsibility and politics and human relationships.īut more than all that, it's just a good novel. 'Ha! The first place my grandpa taught was a program in something called 'communications'. 'They didn't have certification in lying!' 'In fact what got was either a specialty in some academic subject, like math or literature, or certification in some useful trade, like engineering or lying.' Here's the protagonist's father and her talking about education in the 20th Century: There are passages that seem pure quill Heinlein.

As I mention, it's very much in the Heinlein Juvenile mode. I just wanted basically to say that I loved this book. (I haven't read Candle.) (I say 'Future History' but it's really an odd variant - a sort of Future Alternate History, in that it's set in a future that branches from a near past (at time of writing) history that never happened.) It's also heavily related to Candle, far as I can tell, in that a main plot element is the takeover of Earth by the 'One True' meme - something I deduce happened in Candle, though I'm not quite sure. It's something of a sequel to Orbital Resonance - I don't remember that book that well, but I'm pretty sure the main character of the new book is a relative of the main character of the older book - I think a niece. Like Orbital Resonance, it's nominally YA, and very Heinleinian, and very much 'to please adults'.

It's set in the same future history as his novels Orbital Resonance, Kaleidoscope Century, and Candle.

The Sky So Big and Black by John Barnes