The Embedding (Magill’s Guide to Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature)
At a glance:
- Author: Ian Watson
- First Published: 1973
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Science fiction—invasion story
- Time of Work: The mid-1970s
- Setting: England, the Brazilian jungle, and a Nevada desert
- Genres: Long fiction, Science fiction
- Subjects: Language or languages, 1970’s, Children, North America or North Americans, United States or Americans, West, U.S., England or English people, Jungles or rain forests, Southwest, Nevada, Amazon, Deserts, Aliens, space, Brain
- Locales: England, Brazil, Nevada
The Plot
The Embedding weaves together three plot lines. Chris Sole, researcher in linguistics for the Haddon Neurotherapy Unit, conducts experiments on four orphans (Rama, Vidya, Gulshen, and Vasilki), teaching them an “embedding language.” Soles former fellow researcher and friend, Pierre, is at the same time doing fieldwork in the Amazon, where the existence of a small tribe of Indians, called the Xemahoa, is threatened by a dam built by Brazilians but sponsored by Americans. The Xemahoa tribe speak a two-tiered language, Xemahoa-A and Xemahoa-B, the latter of...
[The entire page is 954 words long]
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