[JFK]≡ [PDF] Free Waking the Moon Elizabeth Hand 9780061054433 Books

Waking the Moon Elizabeth Hand 9780061054433 Books

Download As PDF : Waking the Moon Elizabeth Hand 9780061054433 Books

Waking the Moon Elizabeth Hand 9780061054433 Books

I have read this book at least twice now, and it only gets better at every reading. Sweeney's adventures in a magic college, with hypnotizing Angelica and fey Oliver, was a heady rush of energy, drunkenness and observation. The Goddess as dark, devouring Mother, as well as demon (Eisheth), was both interesting and terrifying. The battle between the light-and-order oriented Benandanti, and the dark-and-chaos oriented priestesses, was intriguing: at first I rooted for the goddess-worshipers, until their focus turned to death and the many sacrifice of others. There were a couple of narrator changes, but they enhanced rather than detracted from the plot. Lavish descriptions, engaging characters and a plot with many twists - I will be reading this book again.


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Waking the Moon Elizabeth Hand 9780061054433 Books Reviews

Great new author I found, love her story telling.
I bought this book based on a review I read in Science Fiction and Fantasy magazine. Also, I thought I recognized the author's name as someone I'd read before. That turned out to not be the case. I finished the book but it left me a bit unsatisfied. What the beginning of the book led me to expect didn't really play out I don't think. Plus, I'm not sure I'd like the main character if I met her in real life and that made me impatient with some of her actions (or inactions). If you want a book that sometimes swerves off the beaten path, you might give this one a read.
I could identify with the story line of a young girl going off to college her feelings of vulnerability, the emotional experiences linked to meeting other students, followed by a relatively peaceful adult life after graduation. The encounters with the "moon goddess" seemed in-credible and unbelievable, Descriptions fell into a repetitive pattern so I skimmed over pages without missing anything in the story. I was looking forward to a powerful ending, but it felt like the story just stopped after another surreal goddess encounter. However, it DID encourage me to do research on Greek and Roman mythology, and the goddess myths.
Despite a few clumsy transitions from description to action here and there, and despite an awkward timesharing between super-magical and super-real, this book is excellent. The characters are vivid, real enough to touch. The historical magic is handled intelligently and with a sense of high drama (if even well-done melodrama turns you off, beware). The book has style and strength. The prose is evocative, richly texturely, deeply involving. The topics range from practical love and human conflict to cultural issues spanning time and country. There's enough romance - of people, of place - to fill your head until you're breathless. I highly recommend it. Highly.
This is one of my favorite novels ever. Elizabeth Hand does a masterful job of creating a world and characters you can fall in love with. I wish I could attend classes at the Divine. The creation of a minor river goddess who taps into the darker aspects of female divinity is well told. I love Angelica and how she is embraced by the goddess that is awakened. Old tales are retold here. A wonder.
Divinity school. A secret society bent on keeping The Goddess at bay. A small subsection of women pledging themselves to The Goddess. It sounded so darn cool. But it falls just a little bit short. A bit predictable. A lot brought up and then never mentioned again. It was all a bit too murky for my tastes.
Waking the Moon is a beautifully written story with poetic, lyrical prose. I first read it over 20 years ago and it has stood the test of time more or less. I recently re-purchased it for kindle and while I enjoyed a second reading I was not quite as entranced as I was initially; but then I have developed more of a taste for action and less patience for lush, verbose, atmospheric descriptions. Still it is a very well written, well researched, linguistically beautiful tale.

Waking the Moon begins in the 1970's and centers around 3 undergraduate students at The University of the Archangels and Saint John the Divine - however the Divine is not just any university and these are not just any college students. The Divine is the epicenter of the Benandanti - the ultimate Old Boys Network. The chosen ones who for millennia have watched over mankind, preserving the order of our Patriarchal way of life; watching and waiting for the awakening of their ancient enemy, for a resurgence of old ways and old deities. The Benandanti did their best to stamp out the old religions, the goddess based traditions. And so they watch and wait for a Sign, half hoping it might presage not Her return but a Second Coming of a Great Good Man. Yet underneath the whole Indo-European tradition is an even older tradition that goes back thirty thousand years.

She who has a dozen names in every tongue Othiym, for aeons she has been waiting for the lunula to be found, for the right woman to be born and for the moment when her talisman and her chosen daughter would be brought together. And for all those aeons The Benandanti have watched and waited and searched and prepared - in each generation making certain that there would be one young man who might be strong and beautiful enough to win her, to seduce her and so weaken her.

And so the tableau plays out yet again with Angelica and Oliver, students of The Divine - both with strong family ties to the Benandanti and their destinies linked. A spell is cast to sunder their connection, and into the mix is thrown Sweeney Cassidy, the narrator, the ordinary girl who's life brushes up against and becomes inextricably entangled in the extraordinary.

While Waking the Moon deals with the resurgence of the Goddess religion and matriarchal society; Othium Lunarsa is not presented as a benevolent Goddess; as much as she is the mother and creator she is also the destroyer - the mouth of the world, the ravener of the dead, the void, the abyss, chaos and she demands blood sacrifice for peace and the new world order that she would usher in is terrifying.
I have read this book at least twice now, and it only gets better at every reading. Sweeney's adventures in a magic college, with hypnotizing Angelica and fey Oliver, was a heady rush of energy, drunkenness and observation. The Goddess as dark, devouring Mother, as well as demon (Eisheth), was both interesting and terrifying. The battle between the light-and-order oriented Benandanti, and the dark-and-chaos oriented priestesses, was intriguing at first I rooted for the goddess-worshipers, until their focus turned to death and the many sacrifice of others. There were a couple of narrator changes, but they enhanced rather than detracted from the plot. Lavish descriptions, engaging characters and a plot with many twists - I will be reading this book again.