{"id":18911,"date":"2023-06-21T22:19:00","date_gmt":"2023-06-21T21:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vermilionsands.uk\/blog\/?p=18911"},"modified":"2023-06-29T11:50:55","modified_gmt":"2023-06-29T10:50:55","slug":"solstice-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vermilionsands.uk\/blog\/?p=18911","title":{"rendered":"Solstice"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-18912\" src=\"http:\/\/vermilionsands.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/hoverflyD7DL5050.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vermilionsands.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/hoverflyD7DL5050.jpg 600w, https:\/\/vermilionsands.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/hoverflyD7DL5050-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 984px) 61vw, (max-width: 1362px) 45vw, 600px\" \/>It&#8217;s the longest day, twins&#8217; birthdays eve, the Moon and Venus are huddling up in the still-light sky, and here is a hoverfly hovering over a golden buttercup.<br \/>\nAdmin1 is reading <em>Hopeland<\/em> by Ian McDonald, a well-named return to IM&#8217;s large-scale novels like <em>River of Gods<\/em> (set in India), <em>The Dervish House<\/em> (Turkey) and <em>Brasyl <\/em>(&#8230; go on, guess). This time he&#8217;s channelling Neal Stephenson in a tale of new ways of living in a post-climate change world &#8212; in this case set mostly in Iceland, Kalaallit Nunaat (aka Greenland) and a fictional South Pacific island. There are elements of fantasy (if you read it that way), but the primary focus is on extended family structures and gender politics, and how they can combine. It&#8217;s an involving and emotional read, and spectacularly well-written &#8212; in particular, the storm sequences.<br \/>\nAdmin2 is rereading <em>Dominion<\/em> by CJ Sansom. One-word titles rule.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s the longest day, twins&#8217; birthdays eve, the Moon and Venus are huddling up in the still-light sky, and here is a hoverfly hovering over a golden buttercup. Admin1 is reading Hopeland by Ian McDonald, a well-named return to IM&#8217;s large-scale novels like River of Gods (set in India), The Dervish House (Turkey) and Brasyl &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/vermilionsands.uk\/blog\/?p=18911\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Solstice&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14],"tags":[19,20],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vermilionsands.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18911"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vermilionsands.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vermilionsands.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vermilionsands.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vermilionsands.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18911"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/vermilionsands.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18942,"href":"https:\/\/vermilionsands.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18911\/revisions\/18942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vermilionsands.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vermilionsands.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vermilionsands.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}