Basic Judy
New Member
- Joined
- Oct 21, 2018
- Messages
- 3
I read this book in 1997. It was a paperback from the library. The lead character is an adult woman who is travelling on a spaceship. They visit a planet with a human colony on it. The planet has a brutally long winter season during which the population must live underground. It is not winter when the ship arrives. The lead becomes involved with a local man who is an actor in a local video series called "Winter Wife." Though he is married he takes the lead on a weeks-long romantic local trip so she will not be distressed to realise that she and all of her crew are succumbing to an incurable mind-degenerating disease that they have all been exposed to when they landed on the planet. As she travels with him she watches the video series. It becomes obvious that her mind is slipping.
The lead offers to trade scrimshaw items hat the crew has made. She is only mildly curious that members of the planet have moved into the bunk space on her ship and are starting to remove things from it (The locals know the crew will soon no longer need the ship.)
One of the realities of life on the planet is a shortened lifespan for all creatures because of the disease. All crimes are capitol crimes. There is a young woman secondary character that has to report for punishment for a minor crime. She is made to eat a jellybean out of a jar of 100. One is poisoned. The ratio of poison to safe jellybeans is in proportion with her relatively young age. There is an old man who goes in before her who has only 8? jellybeans to choose from. She doesn't see him come out.
Does this plot sound familiar to anyone? Searching the keywords on the internet has not produced any results for me so far.
The lead offers to trade scrimshaw items hat the crew has made. She is only mildly curious that members of the planet have moved into the bunk space on her ship and are starting to remove things from it (The locals know the crew will soon no longer need the ship.)
One of the realities of life on the planet is a shortened lifespan for all creatures because of the disease. All crimes are capitol crimes. There is a young woman secondary character that has to report for punishment for a minor crime. She is made to eat a jellybean out of a jar of 100. One is poisoned. The ratio of poison to safe jellybeans is in proportion with her relatively young age. There is an old man who goes in before her who has only 8? jellybeans to choose from. She doesn't see him come out.
Does this plot sound familiar to anyone? Searching the keywords on the internet has not produced any results for me so far.
