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Title details for The Moon and the Sun by Vonda N. McIntyre - Available

The Moon and the Sun

by Vonda N. McIntyre
Anna Fields
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available

This breathtaking tale is part adventure story, part legend, and part Gothic novel.

By the fiftieth year of his reign, Louis XIV has made France the most powerful state in the Western world. Yet the Sun King's appetite for glory knows no bounds. In a bold stroke, he sends his natural philosopher on an expedition to seek the source of immortality: a rare, perhaps mythical, sea monster.

When Father Yves de la Croix returns with the shrieking, gargoyle-faced creature, Marie-Josèphe looks forward to assisting her adored brother with his scientific study. Yet the creature's gaze and exquisite singing foretell a different future. Soon Marie-Josèphe finds herself contemplating choices that will defy the institutions which power her world—king, country, church, and even family. She must find the courage to follow her heart and her convictions—even at the cost of changing her life forever.

A sensitive investigation of the integrity in all of us, The Moon and the Sun is destined to become a visionary classic.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    June 10, 2008

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781483064444
      • File size: 430474 KB
      • Duration: 14:56:49

  • Languages

    • English

  • Levels

    • Text Difficulty: 9-12

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from September 1, 1997
      Inspired by tales of ancient sea-monsters, McIntyre (The Crystal Star) spins a marvelous alternative-history fable about greed and goodness, power and pathos set at the 17th century court of Louis XIV, France's glittering Sun King. At breathtaking (and chilly) Versailles, Louis pays for his glory by sacrificing his comfort and privacy. He lusts after bodily immortality and unending treasure, and he hopes to find both by devouring the entrails of a sea-woman trapped by Jesuit explorer Yves de la Croix. Enthralled by the creature's songs and telepathic tales, Yves's musician sister Marie-Josephe must defy brother, king and pope to save the sea-woman from the court butcher. Marie-Josephe isn't alone in her proto-ecofeminist struggle. She finds an ally (and lover) in Lucien, Comte de Chretien, a great-hearted dwarf whose inner pain and essential nobility recall Cyrano and Quasimodo. Drawing on deep research (detailed in an afterword), McIntyre vividly re-creates a Versailles poised on the cusp between alchemy and modern science. Her imaginings enliven her history with wonder, but, as in the best fantasy, they serve less to dazzle by their inventiveness than to illuminate brilliantly real-world truthss--here, humanity's responses, base and noble, when confronting the unknown.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Levels

  • Text Difficulty:9-12

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