Mining the Genre Asteroid: The Morgaine cycle of novels by C.J. Cherryh
Imagine a universe where a set of Stargates connect distant worlds. Many of these worlds have a low level of technology, and often fear and distrust those who come through the Stargates. The secret of making the Stargates, and who and why they made them, is only distantly known. Now imagine an expedition of individuals going through the various Stargates, seeing the various worlds that they connect. Meeting the human and not quite so human races to be found on these worlds. So far, you should be thinking of Stargate, the movie and its sequel series Stargate SG-1, Stargate: Atlantis and Stargate: Universe. Now imagine that it was determined that the Gates had destroyed a galactic civilization, and could still change and wipe out worlds and polities with a careless bit of travel. And so this expedition’s mission isn’t just to explore the Stargate network — but to destroy it, one gate at a time. The science fantasy Morgaine novels, by C.J. Cherryh, explore the quest of the last member of an expedition to do just that.
Book Review: Genevieve Cogman’s The Invisible Library
A seemingly endless Library, with books from across multiple worlds. A library with connections and portals to endless worlds. It can take hours, even days, to get to locations within the library. It is a Library of the first order, in the same tradition as Pratchett’s multidimensional and universe-spanning idea of L-Space in his Discworld novels. The Librarians are devoted to the love of books, their acquisition and preservation. They travel to alternate worlds in search of rare books, of key books, of special books to add to their collection. This process does not always go well, especially with the rarer finds. Irene is a junior librarian of the Library. When she is assigned a new assistant (who is clearly more than he appears) and a seemingly simple task to find a book in an alternate London, things start going wrong immediately.
