Puss Reboots: Blog: January 2010: Another Life

Recent posts

Reviews:
Angus and the Cat by Marjorie Flack
Another Life by Charles Oberndorf
Austenland by Shannon Hale
Castway Cats by Lisa Wheeler
Chicka Chicka ABC by Bill Martin Jr. and Lois Ehlert
City of Light, City of Dark by Avi
Clifford the Small Red Puppy by Norman Bridwell
Constellation Chronicles: The Lost Civilization of Aries by Vincent Lowry review copy
Day of the Dragon-King (Magic Tree House #14) by Mary Pope Osborne
The Digital Plague by Jeff Somers
Dino-Dinners by Brita Granstrom
Dinosaurs Before Dark (Magic Tree House #1) by Mary Pope Osborne
Don't Say Ain't by Irene Smalls
Do You Want to be My Friend? by Eric Carle
Emmaline and the Bunny by Katherine Hannigan
Esoteric City by Bruce Sterling
Evolution's Shore (aka Chaga) by Ian McDonald
Harriet and the Garden by Nancy Carlson
I Spy Fun House by Jean Marzollo
I Wish That I Had Duck Feet by Dr. Seuss
Jin Jin the Dragon by Grace Chang
Lizzi & Fredl: A Perilous Journey of Love and Faith by William B. Stanford
Logicist by Carol Emshwiller
Madeline and the Cats of Rome by John Bemelmans Marciano
The Mammy by Brendan O'Carroll
Minifred Goes to School by Mordicai Gerstein
Miss Pickerell and the Geigor Counter by Ellen MacGregor
The Napping House by Audrey and Don Wood
Nightwings by Robert Silverberg
One Yellow Lion by Matthew Van Fleet
Opera Cat by Tess Weaver
Queen Vernita Visits the Blue Ice Mountains by Dawn Menge
Riding High by John Francom and James Macgregor
Sassy by Gloria Mallette
The Stars Down Under by Sandra McDonald
Strange Reading by Grant Uden
The Sunless Countries by Karl Schroeder
Tarot Cafe Volume 1 by Sang-Sun Park
Tepper Isn't Going Out by Calvin Trillin
Tiger on a Tree by Anushka Ravishankar
Vacation Under the Volcano (Magic Tree House #13) by Mary Pope Osborne
The West End Horror by Nicholas Meyer
Where Is the Green Sheep by Mem Fox
Yoko's Paper Cranes by Rosemary Wells

Previous month

Another Life: 01/25/10

I read "Another Life" by Charles Oberndorf while sitting in a comfortable chair at my local library. It's not my usual place to read Fantasy and Science Fiction and I expect the experience of reading about an otherworldly place and a new life will associate the story with the location. Do you ever do that?

From other reviews I've read "Another Life" echoes themes in The Forever War by Joe Haldeman, a book I haven't read but have it on my wishlist. Coincidentally Joe Haldeman has a story ("Never Blood Enough") in the same issue. People can be born into new bodies for the right price (and you can end up paying for previous lives in your lives to come). The military will also revive its troops if their service is still needed.

The protagonist and narrator awakes to a new life but under circumstances that don't match his expectations. He wasn't revived by the military and his former lover isn't among the revived soldiers. He can't find out who paid for the revival or why. Whatever the reasons, they have left him in a bit of a legal limbo and he has to find his own way in his new life.

Along with changes of lives come changes of bodies. Bodies can mean changes of gender. Do relationships both familial and romantic continue between lives even if the genders change? This aspect of the protagonist's new life is for me the central theme of the story.