charlie jane anders city in the middle of the night

Because people, right? We're just the worst. So they hunt them, kill them, sometimes eat them. The humans, of course, hate them because they look like giant furry ice lobsters. They communicate telepathically, by touch and scent, share all memories of everything ever, and have an enormous city in the middle of the planet's dark side. The crocodiles (who Sophie later names the Gelet) are intelligent, cultured, advanced.

They perform what amounts to an extra-judicial banishment, tossing Sophie outside the city walls to die amid the cold and the crocodiles.ĭid I not mention the crocodiles? Oh, you're gonna love this.īefore the humans came, January already had a native species. Sophie takes the rap for her - not wanting to see her friend's beautiful life spoiled. Sophie, naturally, plays along, But one day, Bianca essentially steals three dollars from a cash register to buy drinks for her fellow trust-fund Che Guevaras. Likes shouting about justice and rebellion between glittering parties and balls. Humans came here long ago, after some fairly loosely understood ecological catastrophe, and chose (rather inexplicably) this openly hostile world to settle - a place where they could only exist in the narrow margins between daylight and darkness.īianca likes playing revolutionary. One side faces the sun and is a hell that'll melt you with its heat. Here's where we're at: The planet January, a tidally-locked body far from earth. break if you put too much weight on them.' In The City In The Middle Of The Night, Charlie Jane Anders places her argument on page 212, halfway down the page, in the middle of a moment of tumult, in the process of meeting a new character. No matter where it comes, it is the middle of the story: it's geographic center. It is the place where the main character(s) realize the stakes, understand the cost, see - even if only briefly - the future. It doesn't matter where it happens, only that it does. A point at which the writer must lay out, in plain terms, their central argument. That's the problem with grand social ideas in general, they break if you put too much weight on them.'' ''The founders of that city had a valid theory of human nature, but they took it too far. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title The City in the Middle of the Night Author Charlie Jane Anders

Charlie jane anders city in the middle of the night