A Million Open Doors - Hardcover

Barnes, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 031285210X ISBN 13: 9780312852108

Publisher: Tor Books, 1992

Synopsis

Published just last year in hardcover, John Barnes's Orbital Resonance catapulted its author into the first rank of science fiction writers, earning a place on the final ballot for the Nebula Award and garnering praise from sources as diverse as Dean Ing ("A strong contender!") and Jane Yolen ("John Barnes is a writer we'd all do well to keep our eyes on"). Now Barnes returns with an even stronger followup, a classic of brilliant SF speculation and profoundly human concern, set against a sprawling interstellar future of complexity, danger, and hope.
The most isolated of humanity's Thousand Cultures, Nou Occitan - on the planet Wilson - is a place where duels are fought with equal passion over insults and artistic views alike. Where young men take loyalty seriously: to each other, to their art, to the women to whom they devote poetry and swordplay. A place of violent natural beauty, gradually being terraformed over centuries into a tamed - but not too tamed - home for a uniquely creative and flamboyant culture.
But change has come to Nou Occitan. Formerly isolated like all the other widely-scattered Cultures by the limitations of lightspeed, now this swashbuckling world finds itself being transformed by the springer, the new technology of instantaneous travel between the stars. In the urban centers, a small but growing number of Occitan youth embrace a new way of lifeinsufferably vulgar, to chivalrous Occitan eyes - in imitation of the newer, polyglot interstellar culture. Young Giraut, a traditionalist, knows this change is inevitable and merely hopes the old order will last long enough for him to enjoy the fruits of youth. But when Giraut's entendedora betrays him in the worst possible way, in his despair he casts aside his youthful pursuits and, expecting grim, expiatory exile, joins his elders on a two-year mission to negotiate new trading arrangements with Nou Occitan's closest neighbor, lightyears distant, the utilitarian culture of Caledony. Giraut expects boredom and misery among the moralistic, money-obsessed Caledons. What he doesn't expect is to change them - and to be changed by them.
For no human culture is all one thing. And just as the severe Caledon exterior masks a doughty, egalitarian straightforwardness Giraut never dreamed possible, likewise Giraut's own background provides him with vulnerabilities he never knew - along with just the right strengths to accidentally trigger Caledony's own long-simmering political and cultural crisis. As rebellion and song well up on a cold world long denied the fruits of both, Giraut must suddenly learn to manage and direct the age-old conflict between human nature and culture. For in the explosion about to happen, two worlds could be lost - or a universe gained.

About this title

Review:

Giraut Leones lives in Nou Occitan, a place where young people spend most of their time gossiping, writing poetry, and fighting duels over various insults. Eventually we find that Nou Occitan is just one of humanity's "Thousand Cultures," an artificial colony set up on a terraformed world to bring art, chivalry, and other old-fashioned values to life. Some years ago the springer, a device enabling teleportation travel, was opened, resulting in friction between the traditional dilettantes and Interstellars, youngsters who adopt new ways of life.

Giraut's old friend Aimeric is called back to his home colony of Caledony to aid in the economic recession and cultural explosion that will surely follow the opening of the springer there. When Giraut is betrayed by his entendedora (part mistress, part girlfriend), he seizes the opportunity to go along as an ambassador. A Million Open Doors becomes a coming-of-age tale as Giraut adapts to a culture radically different from his own. Caledony society is colorless, repressed, money-driven; it emphasizes religion and hard work. Bewildered by the discouragement of art or pleasure, Giraut opens a college to teach Occitanian culture to interested Caledonians. The threatened religious and political leaders, of course, look on this as an oddity, if not an outright seed of revolution. During the cultural and political upheavals on Caledony, Giraut and friends learn about life, love, diplomacy, and cross-cultural friendship.

The premise--human colonies flung across the universe evolving on hundreds of different planets now being transformed by instantaneous space travel--has been explored before. But John Barnes's sense of humor and world-building skills make it great fun. --Bonnie Bouman

About the Author:

John Barnes is the award-winning author of Orbital Romance, A Million Open Doors, Mother of Storms, Earth Made of Glass, The Merchants of Souls, Candle, and many other novels. With Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, he wrote the novels Encounter with Tiber and The Return. He lives in Colorado.

About this edition

• Publisher: Tor Books
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 031285210X
• ISBN 13: 9780312852108
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 315