Waking the Moon
First edition (UK) | |
Author | Elizabeth Hand |
---|---|
Cover artist | Ian Miller |
Language | English |
Genre | Dark fantasy |
Publisher | HarperCollins |
Publication date | 1994 |
Media type |
Waking The Moon is a 1994 dark fantasy novel by American writer Elizabeth Hand. It was the winner of the James Tiptree, Jr. Award and the 1996 Mythopoeic Award for Adult Literature. It is set mainly in the University of the Archangels and St. John The Divine, a fictional university inspired by The Catholic University of America, mentioned in a few of Hand's novels.
Plot summary
Sweeney Cassidy starts out as a freshman at university, where she meets the mysterious Angelica and falls in love with the strange and beautiful Oliver. She gets tangled up in sinister supernatural events involving the awakening of an ancient malevolent goddess.
According to the afterword for the short story "The Bacchae", found in the collection Last Summer At Mars Hill, it is another trope on ancient Greek myth that prefigures Waking the Moon. They both involve murderous cults of women. Elizabeth Hand has said that she wanted to show that ancient goddess cultures were not all as peaceful and idyllic as many tend to think.[1]
Reception
Terri Windling selected Waking the Moon as one of the best fantasy books of 1994, praising it as "a suspenseful, panoramic story of murder, conspiracy, and ancient secret societies".[2]
Footnotes
- ^ An interview with Elizabeth Hand
- ^ "Summation 1994: Fantasy", The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Eighth Annual Collection, p.xvii
References
- Morgan, Cheryl (29 November 2004). "An interview with Elizabeth Hand". StrangeHorizons.com. Retrieved 2008-03-19.
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winners
- Motherlines and Walk to the End of the World by Suzy McKee Charnas
- The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
- The Female Man and "When It Changed" by Joanna Russ
- A Woman of the Iron People by Eleanor Arnason (1991, tie)
- White Queen by Gwyneth Jones (1991, tie)
- China Mountain Zhang by Maureen F. McHugh (1992)
- Ammonite by Nicola Griffith (1993)
- "The Matter of Seggri" by Ursula K. Le Guin (1994, tie)
- Larque on the Wing by Nancy Springer (1994, tie)
- Waking the Moon by Elizabeth Hand (1995, tie)
- The Memoirs Of Elizabeth Frankenstein by Theodore Roszak (1995, tie)
- "Mountain Ways" by Ursula K. Le Guin (1996, tie)
- The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell (1996, tie)
- Black Wine by Candas Jane Dorsey (1997, tie)
- "Travels With The Snow Queen" by Kelly Link (1997, tie)
- "Congenital Agenesis of Gender Ideation" by Raphael Carter (1998)
- The Conqueror's Child by Suzy McKee Charnas (1999)
- Wild Life by Molly Gloss (2000)
- The Kappa Child by Hiromi Goto (2001)
- Light by M. John Harrison (2002, tie)
- "Stories for Men" by John Kessel (2002, tie)
- Set This House in Order: A Romance of Souls by Matt Ruff (2003)
- Camouflage by Joe Haldeman (2004, tie)
- Not Before Sundown by Johanna Sinisalo (2004, tie)
- Air by Geoff Ryman (2005)
- The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden by Catherynne M. Valente (2006, tie)
- Half Life by Shelley Jackson (2006, tie)
- James Tiptree Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon by Julie Phillips (2006, special recognition)
- The Carhullan Army by Sarah Hall (2007)
- The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness (2008, tie)
- Filter House by Nisi Shawl (2008, tie)
- Cloud and Ashes: Three Winter’s Tales by Greer Gilman (2009, tie)
- Ōoku: The Inner Chambers by Fumi Yoshinaga (2009, tie)
- Baba Yaga Laid an Egg by Dubravka Ugrešić (2010)
- Redwood and Wildfire by Andrea Hairston (2011)
- The Drowning Girl by Caitlín R. Kiernan (2012, tie)
- Ancient, Ancient by Kiini Ibura Salaam (2012, tie)
- Rupetta by N. A. Sulway (2013)
- The Girl in the Road by Monica Byrne (2014, tie)
- My Real Children by Jo Walton (2014, tie)
- "The New Mother" by Eugene Fischer (2015, tie)
- Lizard Radio by Pat Schmatz (2015, tie)
- When the Moon Was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore (2016)
- Who Runs the World? by Virginia Bergin (2017)
- "They Will Dream in the Garden" by Gabriela Damián Miravete (2018)
- Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi (2019)
- Ife-Iyoku, the Tale of Imadeyunuagbon by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki (2020)
- Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki (2021, tie)
- Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon (2021, tie)