Once there was a fantastic literary newsletter loosely affiliated with a book store here in Boston and one of it's features was the First Line Quiz. You didn't win anything but acclaim and a listing, but it was still fun. The internet of course made it easy to win if you wanted to win like that but I didn't. When I guessed as I did twice I was thrilled with myself. The lines I won on were from "1984" and "Canticle for Leibowitz." It made me realize I have a great fondness for (and collection of) Dystopian literature, specifically as in the case of Canticle post-apocalyptic. Where are we going, what will it be like, what will be similar to now, what will they think of us? Mara and Dann is by the great Doris Lessing. Lessing has enough cache for the literary snobs to try and ignore the sci-fi elements of her stories by pointing out that they are social commentary disguised as sci-fi. Well, duh. All good literature is social commentary of some kind. They d...
nov·el /ˈnɒvəl/ –adjective/ of a new kind; different from anything seen or known before: a novel idea. *** eye -noun/ 6. the power of seeing; appreciative or discriminating visual perception: the eye of an artist. 8. an attentive look, close observation, or watch 9. regard, view, aim, or intention 10. a manner or way of looking at a thing