Another recent read
I forgot to put down my thoughts on Ingathering an omnibus collection of Zenna Henderson's stories about the People. Which is quite a shame since those thoughts are unashamedly positive and fangirly.
The compilers of the collelction start out by saying how, yes, Henderson is unabashedly sentimental and mawkish, but that she tells a good story so you should all read her stories anyway. Which is quite true. There is nothing particularly hard or scientific about Henderson's SF, but she does have a good feel for c haracterization, and I'm a sucker for characters I actually like.
The People, for those of you who don't know, are an alien race that crashed on Earth in about 1890 or so and settled in the Southwest. They have nifty mental abilities, and are generally morally superior to most humans. But even the People have their flaws and are capable of pride, arrogance, anger, etc.
The People have to adapt to being on a new planet where they are not always treated kindly, and end up settling in several Groups, the most notable of which is at a place called Cougar Canyon, where we meet a few recurring characters over and over again in several of the stories.
What I really liked was that for an author writing in the 60's, Henderson tackles some pretty complex social issues. My favorite of her stories, "Angels Unawares" deals a lot with fundies, and how they use the Bible as a weapon which it's not supposed to be. Depression is also a major theme for one of the characters we meet.
Other favorite stories in the book would be "Troubling of the Water", which is a companion piece to "Angels Unawares", "Return", because Glory, who is not one of the People, is just that cool and she resonated with me, and "Captivity", because its sweet sentimentality just hits me at the right spot.
Some of her later stories I don't reallly like so much, the ones that don't really connect well with each other. "Michael Without" was particularly less good, but then, it was never published, and I can kind of understand why.
Aside from that, though, a thoroughly engrossing read.
The compilers of the collelction start out by saying how, yes, Henderson is unabashedly sentimental and mawkish, but that she tells a good story so you should all read her stories anyway. Which is quite true. There is nothing particularly hard or scientific about Henderson's SF, but she does have a good feel for c haracterization, and I'm a sucker for characters I actually like.
The People, for those of you who don't know, are an alien race that crashed on Earth in about 1890 or so and settled in the Southwest. They have nifty mental abilities, and are generally morally superior to most humans. But even the People have their flaws and are capable of pride, arrogance, anger, etc.
The People have to adapt to being on a new planet where they are not always treated kindly, and end up settling in several Groups, the most notable of which is at a place called Cougar Canyon, where we meet a few recurring characters over and over again in several of the stories.
What I really liked was that for an author writing in the 60's, Henderson tackles some pretty complex social issues. My favorite of her stories, "Angels Unawares" deals a lot with fundies, and how they use the Bible as a weapon which it's not supposed to be. Depression is also a major theme for one of the characters we meet.
Other favorite stories in the book would be "Troubling of the Water", which is a companion piece to "Angels Unawares", "Return", because Glory, who is not one of the People, is just that cool and she resonated with me, and "Captivity", because its sweet sentimentality just hits me at the right spot.
Some of her later stories I don't reallly like so much, the ones that don't really connect well with each other. "Michael Without" was particularly less good, but then, it was never published, and I can kind of understand why.
Aside from that, though, a thoroughly engrossing read.