The savants of Institut Sorel, the world center of information mechanics, compute the governing algorithms that give all things their shape and structure. The voyants receive and sort enormous amounts of information. And now the savants say that the whole world, on the brink of a phase transition, is about to change, such that the long-term equilibrium that has locked the world into an "order crisis" will give way to a period of chaos. Dominique, a new, ignorant acolyte voyant, is asked to watch for the random factor that will trigger the phase transition. But the Institut itself is in chaos. Drawn into political intrigue and the savants' and voyants' struggle over his world's very future, Dominique cares for individuals, rather than abstractions and principles. But even so, he's not sure what it is he should be doing…
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Editorial Reviews
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Interesting intellectual political intrigue, high-minded science, and a climax that moves along at a brisk pace makes the 100-page Candle in a Bottle a trip worth taking. --Tangent Online, July 24, 2006
About the Author
Carolyn Ives Gilman has been publishing science fiction and fantasy for almost twenty years. Her first novel, Halfway Human, published by Avon/Eos in 1998, was called one of the most compelling explorations of gender and power in recent SF by Locus magazine. Her short fiction has appeared in magazines and anthologies such as Fantasy and Science Fiction, Bending the Landscape, The Year s Best Science Fiction, Realms of Fantasy, The Best from Fantasy & Science Fiction, Interzone, Universe, Full Spectrum, and others, and four of her stories have been collected in Aliens of the Heart (2007). In 1992 she was a finalist for the Nebula Award for her novella, The Honeycrafters. She lives in St. Louis and works for the Missouri Historical Society as a historian and museum curator.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
a college of secrets,
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This review is from: Candle in a Bottle: A Novella (Conversation Pieces, Volume 13) (Paperback)
Carolyn Ives Gilman also wrote Halfway Human, another extremely good anthropological sf novel. Compared to a full size novel, Candle in a Bottle felt kind of short. But apart from that it's a great read.Dominique and his brother Gabriel are travelling to the Institut Sorel in the far future to see the Oracle and ask questions. Once there, Dominique is pressured into staying, then thrust into a web of intrigue involving senile rinpoches, scholars with secrets, a mad apprentice, and professors' love-lives. For no reason he understands, no one will tell him anything, and he has to figure out what's going on. The only thing he knows is the fate of the pattern of civilisation depends upon his findings.
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