Floating Worlds

Floating Worlds is a terrific science fiction novel from 1975. Written by historical fiction writer Cecilia Holland, this is her first and only science fiction novel. The book is about a biracial woman named Paula Mendoza, who at the beginning of the book gets tired of her lame boyfriend, dumps him, and gets a job working for The Committee, a group of Anarchists who help manage Earth's government. This all happens thousands of years into the future by the way, where pollution has decimated the Earth, resulting in humans living protected in domes. 

Enter Styths. Paula's job is to get the Styths to agree to a treaty, which lasts ten years. The Styths are descendants of the first humans on Uranus, except they've changed, they're mutated. They're eight feet tall mutated humans [aliens], that speak a different language, live in a patriarchal society, are disgustingly racist [use the n-word all the time], and are complete savages who raid Mars and enslave thousands of people. They are described as black skinned mutants with long mustaches. Paula's means of getting the Styths to sign the treaty is a bit scandalous. She seduces their leader, Saba, and has a Styth baby by him, goes to live with him on his home planet, and engages in the politics from there.

Saba is a brutal alien. He beats Paula and at one point even rapes her. However, Paula comes back to him in order to do what she wants, which is whatever she wants, whenever she wants it. She's the idea of the female man, she's the perfect anarchist because although she's working for the Committee, she's also working for herself, and for the Styths, all at the same and sometimes different points in the novel. In a sense, we never get to know whats going on in Paula's head, but we can infer from the prose.

Floating worlds has two very important quirks. First, the prose is very short and simple sentences. Second, Holland never explains anything. There's no legendary or epic grand science fiction exposition here. This isn't Man Plus, with its eloquent and long exposition, a book I read recently. She doesn't explain how any of the technology works, the world of the space opera itself, the psychological state and/or feelings of the characters. Instead, we get a point of view of the character told from these short simple sentences that explain whats going on, and the dialogue between the different characters. It's a unique way to write, a very inspiring one as well when you realize that sometimes all you need is to be simple and straight to the point. In a way, this book taught me a new way to approach writing. I realized that technically, I don't have know the scientific facts that exist in the world of science fiction. You could just have incredible technology and just have it work, that's what Holland does here. None of the tech is explained, the characters just use these advanced computers and they work fine without any fine details.

There's space combat, tribal duels to claim the Styth throne, romance, lesbian sex, lots of sex in general, seduction, betrayal, politics regarding gender, race, and class, war, a fallout Earth that feels like the 1970s, contemporary. The ending itself is almost the same as the ending for Schismatrix, which came out ten years later, which is the main character walking away from the entire space opera in a state of experienced zen-bliss? Perhaps something like describes it.

There are many reasons why this novel is important. The biggest reason is that this is a science fiction novel with a powerful female protagonist. Another important female protagonist I can think of is Lady Jessica, of the Bene Gesserit Order, from Dune. Also, this is a space opera on a grand scale that takes place over twenty years. You're going to be going through long reading sessions to finish this novel [465 pages]. However, you get in a rhythm, pacing if you will, when you learn to enjoy the simpleness of the sentences, and the uniqueness of the prose. I can see how the 80's of writers like Bruce Sterling may have been influenced by this. If not influenced then at least definitely aware. Schismatrix Plus comes to mind especially. Lastly, because of the writing style and lack of psychological detail and exposition, this is a very unique science fiction novel, which makes it worth reading, dusting off the 1970's dust and brought into the light of 2019.

I liked this book so much that I ended up buying a used copy from a third party on Amazon for eight bucks. This is going to be one of my prized SF novels on my book shelf. It's so good that I'm planning on reading Holland's historical fiction at some point in the future too. This is a work of great lost art from the '70s, it deserves to be on anyone's book shelf. 

[my copy has this book cover, the original book cover, pictured top]