A few weeks ago I finished Among Others, Jo Walton’s most recent book. It’s been circling around in the periphery of my vision for a while now (it came out in January of 2011). It’s hard to find the time for non-school or research-related media, and honestly, at the end of the day when I finally escape the lab sometimes I just want to sit in a corner, knit, listen to Philip Glass, and never interact with another written word as long as I live. But when Among Others won the Nebula, the Hugo, and the British Fantasy Award in quick succession this year, I decided to hack some time out of a weekend and read the damn thing.
Since then, I have been evangelizing this book to everyone I know. You guys, this book is just amazing. But every time I try to tell someone just how amazing Among Others really is, I get nervous and quiz them about their readings habits first. Because if you haven’t read a rather staggering amount of English-language science fiction from the 1960s and 1970s and internalized it at a deep level, I’m afraid you will not get most of this book.