Time, Like an Ever-Rolling Stream

Holy Ground Trilogy #2

by Judith Moffett

With the Evil priests of the Dark Order dominating the realms of the Thlassa Mey, hope for freedom is scarce, but the goddess Pallas chooses an unlikely collection of misfits to become the heroes of their homelands. Original.

Genres: Science Fiction

328 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Judith Moffett was born in Louisville in 1942 and grew up in Cincinnati. She is an English professor, a poet, a Swedish translator, and the author of twelve books in six genres. These include two volumes of poetry, two of Swedish poetry in formal translation, four science-fiction novels plus a collection of stories, a volume of creative nonfiction, and a critical study of James Merrill's poetry; she has also written an unpublished memoir of her long friendship with Merrill. Her work in poetry, translation, and science fiction has earned numerous awards and award nominations, including an NEA Creative Writing Fellowship in Poetry, an NEH Translation Grant, the Swedish Academy's Tolkningspris (Translation Prize), and in science fiction the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer and the Theodore Sturgeon Award for the year's best short story. Two of her novels were New York Times Notable Books.

Moffett earned a doctorate in American Civilization from the University of Pennsylvania, with a thesis on Stephen Vincent Benét's narrative poetry, directed by Daniel Hoffman. She taught American literature and creative writing at several colleges and universities, including the Iowa Writers' Workshop, the University of Kentucky, and for fifteen years the University of Pennsylvania. She has lived for extended periods in England (Cambridge) and Sweden (Lund and Stockholm), as well as around the US, living/​teaching/​writing in Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Colorado, Wisconsin, Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Utah. In 1983 she married Medievalist Edward B. Irving, Jr., her colleague at Penn. Widowed in 1998, Judy now divides her year between Swarthmore PA and her hundred-acre recovering farm in Lawrenceburg KY, sharing both homes with her standard poodles, Fleece and Corbie.

Reviews

[John Loyd · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a sequel to The Ragged World, where the Hefn have come to Earth (working for the Gafr) and imposed some environmental restrictions, including a ban on children (psychologically imposed.) The Hefn are here to make sure does not fall into an ecological collapse. The methods they are using make them unpopular.

Pam Pruitt tells the story of events that happened when she was fourteen. She, Liam and seven more boys were the first apprentices in the BTP. Pam has to deal with her maturing body, wants nothing to do with sex. Liam treats her as a person, rather than a girl, and they get along well. During a school break rather than stay alone at the school she goes to visit Liam's family. When a longer break happens the two go to her home in Indiana and across the Ohio to Hurt Hollow. Hurt Hollow has been run as self sufficiently as possible from the time of Orrin and Hannah more than fifty years ago. They left the farm to Jessie who has kept it running they same way since before Pam was born. When Pam and Liam get there they find Jessie incapacitated and have to run the farm themselves. A few days later Humphrey comes and there is animosity from the communities, other than Pam's collegiate hometown. They are being riled up by a fanatic preacher, who takes advantage of an incident that happened on the steamboat.

The book has a pastoral quality, steamboats, milking goats, hiving a bee swarm, lot's of talk about preparing meals. The meaty part is mostly the teens working through their problems. Pam hating her new body, the inappropriate or callous behavior of her father, Liam dealing with the loss of his best friend Jeff. Pam is a Baptist and tells Liam of her conversion/being saved. A bit of conversation about the Hefn, too. Moffett keeps it all interesting and saves the major action for the last third of the book.

[TheWearyWanderer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Warning, this as much for my memory as it may be viewed as a commentary on the book.

I’m probably not being fair to this book, but there is something about it that leaves me feeling frustrated and dissatisfied. This is a continuation of “The Ragged World” where earth is on the road to ecological disaster and an alien race (the Hefn) step in to become our unwanted caretakers and guardian of the planet. The story is told from the POV of Pam and Liam who are teenage apprentices of the alien Hefn (Humphrey). Pam and Liam are vacationing at Hurt Hallow where they connect with the land and nature and display how man NEEDS to coexist with nature. This is guiding principle of the Hefn - be one with nature. While there, they are confronted with the vitriol and hatred that the Hefn principal has forced upon the planet.

The frustration for this book comes from several factors. I think the biggest turn off was the idea of Gaian missionaries, ley lines and holy “hot spots.” I considered myself to be a passionate environmentalist (which was one of the reasons I picked up The Ragged World), but I don’t come close to what is being espoused in these books. I guess I want my cake without the sacrifice. This mantra and my reaction to it makes me feel uncomfortable. And speaking of uncomfortable….the story delves into the gender identity crises that both Pam and (to an extant) Liam are dealing with. This is a topic that is seldom discussed in the genres that I read. I will say the author does a nice job in describing Pam’s personal repugnance and Liam’s frame of mind. (The groundwork for Liam’s mindset is established in “The Ragged World). The final knock against the book is how much time is spent on the idea of homesteading. I’m really not interested in planting melons, cooking bread or establishing a bee colony and far too much time is spent on this minutiae.

[Sibylle · Rating 4 out of 5]

The sequel to the Ragged World. I liked the first book a bit better, but this one is still excellent.