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I'm reading a draft of @dilmandila 's THE BLOSSOMING OF THE BIG TREE where an autistic grandma must coordinate the defense of her #solarpunk utopian federation from colonialist invaders, and one thing I find really interesting is the "old person PoV" as a counterpart — with both similarities and contrasts — to "fish out of water" (think Luke Skywalker, Bilbo Baggins, and many many mostly young sword-and-sorcery or isekai/rebirth protagonists) for exposition. An older character's PoV can be a very effective way to worldbuild from the perspective of a character who has lived through upheaval and change, and can be particularly effective in near-future #scienceFiction like Blossoming where the distance between our time and the time of the story can be bridged with the PoV character's lived experience, as in this passing thought from the protagonist Adita:

¶The caller . . . was two thousand miles away in what used to be southern Tanzania. Even after all these years, she oriented herself by placing people in their old countries.

See how Adita, located in present-day #Uganda, thinks like us in terms of nation-states while living in a future where many of those states are gone, helping the readers in turn orient themselves geographically with the information? And it's such a particular effect that our mode of nation-centric thought, shared with this elderly character, is a faintly embarrassing throwback in the book's timeline.

And yet the book isn't ageist about this: Adita isn't just some grognard who can't get with future but very much at home with the new technology and reality, a resourceful, adaptive figure who's poised to play a central role in the survival of her community almost in spite of herself. I find this interweave of technique, character, and story fascinating and am eager to read on.

You can pre-order Dilman Dila's THE BLOSSOMING OF THE BIG TREE here https://www.ododopress.com/novellas/the-blossoming-of-the-big-tree/ or grab an ARC of the current draft with a BookSirens account! https://booksirens.com/book/BUG035E/WXLHD4W

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