I was in Texas a couple of months ago, so I took along this novel for its Texas setting.

I had been looking at it for years in Uncle Hugo’s Science Fiction Bookstore. An atypical plot and setting for Harness made me reluctant to buy it, and I also hadn’t read all of his earlier novels. (I still haven’t read The Catalyst and Krono.) I finally bought it about a year-and-a-half ago.

Review: Cybele, with Bluebonnets, Charles L. Harness, 2002.

Harness’ last novel is atypical and familiar, charming and enticing in its episodes, and memorable in its overarching story of a deep love that survives death.

Harness’ final novel is a masterpiece in that it skillfully weds his most characteristic theme, what George Zebrowski’s introduction calls “the denial of death and the power of hope”, to a plot that transforms the “dreams and what-might-have-beens” from Harness’ life to “artful alternate realities”.

The milestones of Harness’ early life are here. Birth in Colorado City, Texas in 1915, a move to Fort West (which seems to be Fort Worth in its proximity to Dallas), Texas; an early interest in chemistry; a brief foray into seminary at the behest of his mother; employment as a fingerprint technician in the red light district of Fort Worth; employment at the U. S. Bureau of Mines during World War II, and eventually becoming a patent attorney. Oddly enough, Harness makes no reference to the early death of his older brother which shows up in other novels.

There are asides on Texas history and chemistry – lots of chemistry since Harness was a trained chemist. Continue reading →