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King of Morning, Queen of Day

Ian McDonald
P.K.Dick 1992, Internet Top 100

Deep fantasy exploring insightful psychological dimensions of three powerful women in three distinct cultures with three different attitudes. All united though in an otherworldly relationship to magic, mystery, and the mystical creation of reality.

Myth and legend in everyday life. A subtle exploration of how cultural imagination influence actual events, "...the old Gods not really dying, only changing into the shapes of their enemies." A deep look into that state of consciousness, "the nonquantifiable domain from which all human symbology and mythic power derived, a place where our notions of discrete time and space are without meaning, our lost Edens, our Gardens of Earthly Delights."

I highly recommend this spell-binding, fascinating story filled with philosophical speculations and practical wisdom. "Hypocrisy is the homage paid by vice to virtue." "...unrequited love is the most enduring love of all." "Hell is not other people. Heaven is other people. Hell is oneself. Forever and always, oneself. Self. Self."

An allegory for the real value as well the danger of fantasy in our own lives. "We don't enjoy the present moment anymore­we don't savor the pleasure of being. The present is just a tiresome intervention between where we were and where we want to be, a thing that comes between us and our desirable futures. What impatient creatures we have become, always wanting to be where we are not yet, to become what we are not yet. We are not content to be present where we are. Becoming is everything, being is nothing. We have forgotten the Sacrament of the Present."

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