Juniper Time [Paperback]

Kate wilhelm (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Pocket (April 3, 1981)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671436848
• ISBN-13: 978-0671436841
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,313,338 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Born in 1928, Kate Wilhelm the author of more than thirty novels including Where Late the Sweet Bird Sang and The Unbidden Truth. Her work has been adapted for TV and film and translated into twenty languages. She has been awarded the Prix Apollo, Kurd Lasswitz, Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Awards. In 2003, she was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. Her short fiction appeared in landmark anthologies such as Again Dangerous Visions, Orbit, The Penguin Book of Modern Fantasy by Women, and The Norton Book of Science Fiction. A cofounder of the Clarion Writers' Workhops, she continues to host monthly writing workshops in Eugene, Oregon.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars This is how the world will end, April 2, 2001

By 

Dani Goodnight (South, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Juniper Time: A novel (Hardcover)

This is a marvellously unflashy tale of the slow social apocalypse that comes with environmental neglect. Jean, the heroine, is the daughter of a space-hero, and through her a "it's a crazy plan, but it just might work" scheme to save the world from space is hatched. Cross-cut with space stations and government desperation, are Jean's experiences as society fades, from a well-drawn rape to Jean's spiritual rebirth. All this and a linguistic sub-plot that rings true. The novel carries a convincing sense that this is not fiction: this is what it will be like in the future.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent science-fiction novel, October 5, 2005

By 

Michael J. Keyes (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Juniper Time (Paperback)

"Juniper Time" is a first-rate science-fiction novel. Kate Wilhelm has done her usual excellent job of weaving an intricate plot and sympathetically portraying believable and complex characters in settings that are described with force and clarity. This 1979 novel is set in the not-too-distant future, when a devastating drought in the American West, and much of the rest of the world, has caused economic and social collapse. The story alternates between the viewpoints of Cluny, a scientist dedicated to the construction and operation of a space station, and Jean, who was Cluny's childhood friend but has now gone her separate way and become a linguist, naturalist and photographer. Wilhelm's most powerful and engrossing writing, it seems to me, is in her descriptions of the natural world and of the vastly different ways that people relate to it. Jean's experiences on the Oregon coast are beautifully described, as is her life on the high desert of Oregon with the Wasco Indians. (Wilhelm and her husband, Damon Knight, live in Bend, Oregon.) Jean gradually comes to understand the way of life of the Wasco people, and her spiritual growth is described very effectively. Cluny and Jean are reunited when they become part of a project intended to discover if contact with an alien civilization has occurred. Their decision may determine whether a nuclear war between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. can be avoided. The climax of the novel is unexpected but believable. I recommend this book very highly.