A review by shimmer
The Dazzle of Day by Molly Gloss

5.0

The marvel of this novel—and it is marvelous—is that it takes possibly the biggest story that could be told about human culture, the abandonment of Earth in search of a new home planet, and tells it not through the grand, dramatic, "space operatic" moments but rather in the most intimate events of death, illness, divorce, and the like. That seems like a risky choice but it makes for a brilliant, stirring read. The world-building is superb, exploring without drawing too much attention to itself how language, family names, race, local mythology and custom, etc. would all be altered by prolonged life in the contained ecosystem of a deep space craft. Not in a predictive or didactic way, but in a way that gently yet provocatively asks who "we" might become under these circumstances, how this Quaker settlement might remain who they were on Earth while also being altered by generations adrift. And the final chapter is one of the most exquisite passages of writing I think I've ever read.