The Ragged World

Holy Ground Trilogy #1

by Judith Moffett

In the early years of the twenty-first century, Earth teetered on the brink of ecological destruction. Then the alien Hefn came, determined to save the dying Earth -- and to the Hefn, the ends always justified the means. Humans were given nine years to correct their mistakes -- alone, with no recourse to the Hefn's advanced technology. If by then the Earth's ecology had not stabilized, the Hefn would solve the problem for good . . . by eliminating humans entirely.

But slowly, against their will, some of the Hefn became deeply involved with their human counterparts. And to the handful of people who came to know them, the Hefn made a great as mentors, researchers, rulers . . . and saviors. But could those few friendships sway the Hefn to help save a despoiled planet -- and the human race?

"A considerable achievement." -- The New York Times Book Review

Genres: Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Fiction, Short Stories, Fantasy

276 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Judith Moffett was born in Louisville in 1942 and grew up in Cincinnati. She is an English professor, a poet, a Swedish translator, and the author of twelve books in six genres. These include two volumes of poetry, two of Swedish poetry in formal translation, four science-fiction novels plus a collection of stories, a volume of creative nonfiction, and a critical study of James Merrill's poetry; she has also written an unpublished memoir of her long friendship with Merrill. Her work in poetry, translation, and science fiction has earned numerous awards and award nominations, including an NEA Creative Writing Fellowship in Poetry, an NEH Translation Grant, the Swedish Academy's Tolkningspris (Translation Prize), and in science fiction the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer and the Theodore Sturgeon Award for the year's best short story. Two of her novels were New York Times Notable Books.

Moffett earned a doctorate in American Civilization from the University of Pennsylvania, with a thesis on Stephen Vincent Benét's narrative poetry, directed by Daniel Hoffman. She taught American literature and creative writing at several colleges and universities, including the Iowa Writers' Workshop, the University of Kentucky, and for fifteen years the University of Pennsylvania. She has lived for extended periods in England (Cambridge) and Sweden (Lund and Stockholm), as well as around the US, living/​teaching/​writing in Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Colorado, Wisconsin, Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Utah. In 1983 she married Medievalist Edward B. Irving, Jr., her colleague at Penn. Widowed in 1998, Judy now divides her year between Swarthmore PA and her hundred-acre recovering farm in Lawrenceburg KY, sharing both homes with her standard poodles, Fleece and Corbie.

Reviews

[John Loyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Several hefn are abandoned on Earth in 1623. In 2006 the hefn ship returned to pick up any survivors. After giving up the search they left, but came back in 2010. The first four stories introduce different characters which are then picked up again in the next four. Very enjoyable. Individually most of the stories stand alone, four have been published in IASFM and another in F&SF, but together as a novel they work even better.

9 • Remembrance of Things Future • 20 pages
Very Good/excellent. Carrie Sharpless is grading essays when she sees Terry Carpenter has a very strange answer to the second question. Coincidently he is stopping by to deliver his take-home exam. When confronted with this strange answer he says it's his hand writing and gets a little light headed. Then they discuss what he was doing leading up to the exam.

29 • "Ti Whinny Moor Thoo Cums At Last" • 54 pages
Very Good. Jenny Shepard is hiking through some English moors when Elphi accidentally let's her see him. The hefn kidnaps Nancy, tells her the history of the hobs and then wipes her memory. She doesn't realize she has lost a day until she reaches the lodge. Twelve years later when a gafr ship comes to look for the lost hefn it all comes flooding back.

83 • Tiny Tango • 48 pages
Fair. Biology student Nancy "Sandy" Sandford contracted HIV at the age of 22. Joined a support group, started a regiment of healthy eating, exercise and low stress. She put off going to Cornell to stay at the state school and continued her career taking an easier less stressful job. She started working with plants, trying to make disease resistant varieties. Probably a better written story than the credit I give it. The mood was too down for me.

131 • Final Tomte • 20 pages
Good. In Sweden Gunnar Lundqvist talks to a troop of girl scouts about how when he was a kid he knew a tomte named Lexi and helped him travel north. The word got to Pomphrey and he put out the word that Lundqvist must be brought in for questioning. That raises some issues with the humans about liberty.

151 • Glass and China Dogs • 39 pages
Very Good. Picks up from the end of "Remembrance..." with Terry deciding he's going into politics, the birth of his son and Carrie's cousin Liam, the closeness of the families all leading up to the disaster.

190 • Elphi • 14 pages
Good/VG. Elphi who has been playing the hob for Jenny and Frank openly talks with the couple.

204 • The Ragged Rock • 47 pages
Good/Very Good. Liam is super depressed. He runs away planning to go back to the park where he, Jeff and Carrie spent so many times together.

251 • Twenty Twenty • 24 pages
Good/VG. A nice wrap-up of the stories.

[Christopher Schmehl · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed The Ragged World. I should have thought to log this book a long time ago! I am on the last twenty or so pages of Geoff Ryman's Was, and the thought occurred to me that The Ragged World was another book released in the first years of the '90s that had an HIV-positive main character. Nowadays, having an LGBTQ+ character or a character facing AIDS seems to be a trend in publishing; back then not so much.
The author of the book, Judith Moffett, did a reading at Kutztown University while I was a student there. She read a section from the book titled "Tiny Tango". Very interesting stuff.
The Ragged World is science fiction. It follows more than one protagonist through a timeline involving alien visitors to Earth. They are dwarven beings responsible for historical accounts of hobs, tomte, and goblin-like folk.
The Hefn approach Earth with a mandate. The people of Earth have nine years from the time the Hefn present their message to fix the planet's man-made ecological problems. If the planet isn't on a progressive track in that time, the Hefn will destroy the planet. Humanity must do this without technological help from their visitors.
A small group of the Hefn become friends with their human contacts though, and bend the rules to save their friends.
The Ragged World is definitely a good read. Good speculative fiction. Top notch characters and character development.

[Guy Marsden · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book because I enjoyed "PennTerra" a great deal because it was well written science fiction and incorporated Quakers (FYI, I am a Quaker). I struggled with this one because the story did not move along fast enough for me, it kept getting bogged down in personal narrative. I would've liked to have seen her pull back the zoom a little bit on the impact of the hefn on human culture. If you take the intervention of aliens out of the story, it is a relatively pedestrian book about several people and their interactions over several decades.

[TheWearyWanderer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting story about alien visitors deciding that the earth is on the brink of ecological disaster and that they are going to help us deal with the “situation” whether we want them to or not. The story is told from the POV of several main characters whose encounters with the aliens impact their life decisions. The personal stories of the main characters (Terry, Carrie, Nancy, Jenny and Liam) are engaging and flow logically from their alien interaction. However, there is no big picture discussion about alien take over, which I felt should have been addressed.

The aliens have the ability to create windows in time that allow for viewing of past events but not the ability to influence them. Half the story revolves around an accidental time window encounter and how it impacted Terry, Carrie and Liam’s lives. The author does a nice job of enfolding this into the story and answering the question if time is absolute.

The environmental themes is one of the things that attracted me to the book. However, I found myself annoyed/uncomfortable with how self-righteous the characters and aliens behaved towards the actions of the general population. I am not sure if this is more telling on the author or on me. It made me think.

Side note. I will never use a public restroom with quite the same nonchalance. lol.

[Ebenmaessiger · Rating 5 out of 5]

one of the more oblique first contact stories you'll read. and one that will, undoubtedly, be frustrating for a certain type of inveterate sf reader, trained according to a set of narrative expectations that moffett just has very little time for, as she skews at the exact moment that pavlovian bell tells us she'll dig in.

she rejects a full exploration of the speculative mechanics at the heart of her story in favor of fleshing out the domestic repercussions of the same, forcing our attention to what seem like extraneous vignettes, but are the point regardless.

there are spots where the refusal to look her story in the eyes brings down the whole, rather than uplifts the particular (as is usually the case), but these are uncommon missteps. her perspectival and emotional instincts are strong, and relatively unique within the sfnal space. this is not, however, "literary" sf, in the sense that the style is meant to elevate the work above a set of generic elements it otherwise ignores or disdains. no, there are few definitions of sf that it wouldn't meet. it is instead more akin to jane smiley writing sf. that's a good thing.

[Cheryl]

For Chapter Three, the short story "Tiny Tango," especially.

Also avl. on openlibrary.

[Mawgojzeta · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have gone out of my way to find sci-fi/fantasy writers who include Quakers in their stories and, as far as I know, are Quakers themselves. I thought it would be interesting and I wondered if I would notice a difference in focus or some other component because of this (I have done this with Mormon writers of the genre, too). So far I have read a few and Judith Moffett in my latest. I was pleased with the book. This is a collection of intertwined short stories/novellas, although I think only a couple could truly stand on their own. I am going to follow with the sequel and hold off on commenting on the world created until I have finished that.

[Deb · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a book club choice. The girl who wrote it back in the early 90's is one of our members. The book was a bit strange, but I liked it. My kind of strange. Our discussion was great because she was there and could discuss how she came about writing such a book.

[Klara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gut geschrieben, an sich die idee auch super. Klappentext hat aber nur vage was mit der wirklichen story zu tun und man verliert manchmal den überblick

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alien environmentalists? I wish. That is all I am going to say.