(Photo from the Alaska Community Photo Index http://www.dced.state.ak.us/dca/commdb/photopages/Barrow_Photos.htm)Twenty-three hours and forty-one minutes. That’s the hours of visible daylight we experience during Summer Solstice. That’s a lot of light.
Here in Alaska, we celebrate both Solstices, but Summer Solstice is my favorite. Summer Solstice is full of outdoor parties, midnight baseball games, kids running about well after their bedtimes. Who can sleep when the sun is bright until ten or eleven at night? The normal cues for activities are skewed when the sun doesn’t set. Energy levels run high, until you have to get up for work the next morning anyway.
How do we here in the northern latitudes deal with all that lovely, tempting light? Blackout curtains and routine. You see, we gain or lose light gradually, just a few minutes a day. We ease into those 23+ hours without realizing it because we try to keep our biorhythms on an even keel for work or school or sanity when it comes to getting kids into bed. Then, after Solstice, we ease back into shorter days, minutes at a time. Our bodies and minds get used to the coming winter darkness. Mostly.
But all this light has me wondering (because that’s what I do).
What if we were in a place where the sun NEVER set? Would the artificial dark of buildings be enough? Would we miss seeing stars and the moon? Would we lament the loss of mystery that night brings?
Over time, how would we humans adapt? Would we? What sort of psychological issues might erupt from not enough natural darkness? What about the flora and fauna in our all light, all the time location?
There are a number of SF and horror movies that use darkness because it scares the bejeebus out of us. Could we use light the same way?
Tell me what you think about a permanent Land of the Midnight Sun. Leave your email addy and I’ll choose a comment at random for a copy of
Rulebreaker and a $25 gift card to the ebook outlet of your choice. A winner will be announced on Sunday, the 24th.
If you can't wait to see if you've won, feel free to pick up
Rulebreaker at
Carina Press or
Amazon or
B&N or wherever fine ebooks are sold ; )
Liv Braxton's Felon Rule #1: Don't get emotionally involved.
Smash-and-grab thieving doesn't lend itself to getting chummy with the victims, and Liv hasn't met anyone on the mining colony of Nevarro worth knowing, anyway. So it's easy to follow her Rules.
Until her ex, Tonio, shows up with an invitation to join him on the job of a lifetime.
Until Zia Talbot, the woman she's supposed to deceive, turns Liv's expectations upside down in a way no woman ever has.
Until corporate secrets turn deadly.
But to make things work with Zia, Liv has to do more than break her Rules, and the stakes are higher than just a broken heart…And don’t forget to hop on over to the other
SFR Brigade Mid Summer Hop spots (Sorry a more convenient list isn't on this post! There is a complete list in the post below : ) for more prizes and a chance to win one of the biggies!
Enjoy the sun!
Labels: Alaska, Rulebreaker, SFR, win stuff
