Giraut is from the planet Nou Occitan, a place where duels are fought with equal passion over perceived insults and artistic views alike. A place where the language seems derived from Portuguese and there’s entirely too much of it, untranslated. Giraut is an enthusiastic member of a culture based around the ideals of the medieval troubadours, a culture of literature and art, dueling, and “macho” personal honor. However, with the invention of the "springer," instantaneous interstellar travel has now become possible. Now the young people of Nou Occitan are turning to the trendy but tacky Interstellars, new to their culture, and Giraut’s “entendedora,” girlfriend/whore, is one of these young women who do so. When he discovers this, he accepts an invitation to travel to the planet, Caledon, as part of an ambassadorial team to help the Caledonions deal with the imminent opening of a gateway on their planet. Caledon couldn’t be any more different from Nou Occitan. It has a patriarchal rigid religious culture where even cheerful color is banned. It is a puritan culture on an icy world -- one where terraforming was only partially carried out because apparently, “suffering is good for the soul.” The arts are dismissed as irrational (everything must be “rational”), and the flamboyant Occitan culture is considered immoral. It is in the inevitable clash between these two cultures where Giraut is forced to face himself and life and grow the hell up.

This book is a lot more exciting than what I’ve described. I’ve done a poor job. Giraut is shown to be a shallow cad who learns, to a certain degree, that he is and is forced to make some changes. Caledon undergoes some radical changes and we apparently learn puritanical religious cultures are essentially evil and stupid. At times, this is a very entertaining and interesting book. At times, it’s annoying as hell. Often, you can’t understand the words being used and there’s no dictionary, so you just have to guess. Often you just want to slap Giraut upside the head for being such a shallow, rather stupid young person who’s a snob. But then he does something good and you relent. At times, it feels like the author is preaching anti-religion to you and while I’m generally okay with that, as I’m not overly fond of most religious cultures, I can see where devoutly religious readers might be offended. Apparently, this is the first book in a series, although I’ve never seen any of the other books in the series. I’d be open to reading the second. So, above average. At times, quite good. At times, annoying. Three stars. Cautiously recommended. ( )

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1198461.html

A great read: perhaps reflecting a bit the fall of the Wall and globalisation more generally, it's about an encounter between cultures, the dour market-driven frozen colony of Caledony being forced to open up to the rest of the galaxy and in partiicular to the romantic troubadours of New Occitan. Lots of interesting politics and general growing-up for our Occitanian narrator as he realises more about the problems of his own society as a result of his Caledonian experience. I'll hunt out the rest of this series now. ( )

I can't stop re-reading this book! It's one of my top-5 favorite books of all time! I'm interested to see what book this lost the Nebula to because it definitely deserved it! The language is so well thought out, the cultures so well fleshed-out, the narrator so strong, you feel so immersed and even culture-shocked.

John Barnes KNOWS how to write - he's not kidding around. You get a fantastic story and fantastic writing. You don't always get both. ( )

http://home.earthlink.net/~karen20000/MillionOpen.htm ( )