jimb@ISM780B.UUCP (09/18/85)
Some postings on this net had alerted me to keep an eye out for works by
Orson Scott Card, whom I had never read before. By a stroke of serendipity,
the October issue of F&SF has a novelette of his in it and it's excellent.
(Damn. I left the magazine at home and can't quite remember the title.)
It's a post-holocaust story, where the holocaust is truly incidental. The
story focuses on a crippled teacher and the economics of a marginal farming
town. The teacher eats food raised by the rest, even though he takes no part
in its production, because "he tills a far stonier and more barren ground."
The story investigates his relationship with his students and the community
as well as his inner wrestling with a set of massive handicaps. Moving
without being maudlin or didactic.
Thanks to those who pointed in the direction of Card in the first place.
-- Who, me? I just got here myself. -- Jim Brunet
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