skygiants

mildly telepathic adolescent co-conspirators Milk and Mole Star are weird and reclusive

The mild telepathy—I can't remember which one of them finally thinks to try it with someone else and it works, proving that it's not just a one-off bond between them—is one of the elements of the book that makes me wish Kendall had written more in this world, because she had clearly figured out a whole lot of things about it since 1959 that were light-years beyond even the complicated parts of The Gammage Cup. In that vein, it interests me that she sets the difficulty levels of the protagonists of The Firelings as casually high as she does, to the point where it took several re-reads for the scope of their damage to register with me. I really, unironically love Mingy and his inability to let an argument go, but this novel looks at his crankiness and asks if he would hold its beer.

But they're still willing to stand up for each other, and help each other, in the ways that they can and at the moments when it counts -- and in the end, that turns out to be enough.

And that isn't the only reason I love the book, because I also love the worldbuilding and the language (scars, truckler, corsa; everything about the volcano), but I'm willing to bet it's not a minor one, because that kind of pulling together of imperfection to makes something better is very important to me.

. . . Carol Kendall was not to my knowledge Jewish, who left all this doikayt lying around.