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Greets:

Just going to throw this out an yet another attempt to see if anyone remembers it. It's an Apocalyptic setting where the main character, I believe a young female, is undergoing her adulthood trial which consists of climbing a mountain. At the top she discovers aliens living there.

I remember it being a Science Fiction Book Club title as I received it in the same shipment as Nancy Kress' Beggars of Spain so that would put it 1993ish.

It's not Battlefield Earth which usually gets suggested to me when I ask.

Thanks, -drmike

flag	asked Jan 14 at 19:51 drmike 111●4

1spacyhammond · Answer 1 · 2010-01-22 18:43:06Z UTC

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It could be Sheri Tepper's Shadow's End, except the young woman undergoing the adulthood rite in that one doesn't realize the beings are aliens until quite some time later, and none of the aliens gets a lot of screen time.

answered Jan 22 at 18:43

1spacyhammond
21●1

	I don't think that's it either but again, thanks for the answer. The cover looks different from what I remember (I remember it being brown with only words. Don't reference librarians love people like me? "The cover was brown and it had words! Does that help?") and a quick read of a <a href="suite101.com/article.cfm/…; suggests that this was off planet and I could have sworn this was Earth based. I do remember though that the aliens were not met until the very end. I'll see if the local library has a copy to double check though. Thanks again – drmike Jan 23 at 0:38
	Could I get someone with the power to fix the link in my comment please? Thanks – drmike Jan 23 at 0:40
	I can delete it but not edit it. (I could paste it into the body of a comment and attribute it to you and then delete your comment.) That what you want? – Gene Ambaum Jan 26 at 19:40

vikehi · Answer 2 · 2010-01-21 22:09:15Z UTC

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I believe the book you're looking for is called The White Mountain by John Christopher. It is the first novel of the Tripods quartet. Here is a link to the book on amazon.

answered Jan 21 at 22:09

vikehi
11●1

No, not White Mountains as I'm familiar with that series as well as the BBC version. (Dang I wish they would have finished it.) Thanks though for the answer. – drmike Jan 23 at 0:32

Joann · Answer 3 · 2010-01-25 22:27:04Z UTC

Another possibility is Dreamsnake, by Vonda McIntyre --- in a far-future, post-holocaust Earth, a young woman healer named Snake travels the world, healing the sick and injured with her companion reptiles, the most useful of whom is the dreamsnake, whose venom(among other things) brings deep, pain-impervious sleep and pleasanrt dreams. But when a tragic misunderstanding kills her dreamsnake, her search for a replacement brings her to a mountaintop city, where she discovers that the dreamsnakes are actually alien creatures

Jim · Answer 4 · 2010-02-12 13:27:33Z UTC

it sounds like something I have read recently, but now I realize I don't remember the name. Did the lady have siblings? Have they taken the same test? What sort of test was she facing? Did she undergo a physical change when climbed the mountain?

Trying to remember a specific science fiction novel

4 Answers