Kepler's 2020 Project in the News:
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"The
Habitation of the Blessed" is like diving into the deepest literary rabbit-hole.
My desire to read it fully in one sitting was constantly thwarted, and each time
I found myself emerging a little befuddled, as though waking from a deep dream.
Valente's prose is so thick and rich that it's almost impenetrable for me at
first, but after a brief effort I'm sucked in whole and fighting the urge to
read as fast as I can to get to every single spectacular
sentence.
What impresses me most in this re-telling of the legend of Prester John is just how foreign and alien the world in it feels. Even in fantasy novels I have enjoyed immensely, the worlds felt familiar and the people like Star Trek aliens: clearly human under the make-up. Not so in the world of "Habitation," where trees bear the fruit of whatever or whomever you've planted, and a lottery shakes up the culture by its very foundations. This is the fantasy to read if you're brave enough to imagine the most grosteque creatures as beautiful, as lovable in their own rights. --Sarah L.
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