/lit/ - Literature

This book won a lot of awards when it came out in 1977 (Hugo, Nebula, Locus) and it still holds up well IMO. It combines a narrative of space exploration and relic hunting with a series of psychological explorations, years later, during the narrator's therapy.

There is lot of psychology and character study in this book, a lot more than I expected, with a protag full of guilt, repressed memories, sexual hangups and mother issues. The way these are unraveled by the therapist, while details are gradually and obliquely revealed in the space exploration narrative, is the most interesting thing about the book.

Also, I thought all of the randomly inserted media (work rosters, contracts, mission reports, classifieds, technical notices, memos) worked well as a device, giving a fuller sense of the spaceport and the life within it.