duane@anasazi.UUCP (Duane Morse) (02/18/86)
The jacket reads:
"In the darkest corner of the universe -- a band of explorers search
for an ancient past...
A rain of burning fragments and a giant fireball streak across the dark
sky over the strange land of Rhomary -- the distant outpost inhabited
by descendants of a crew from Earth, shipwrecked nearly two centuries
before.
Now, watched over by the Vail -- the wise monsters of the great Western
Sea -- Maxim Bro, collector of information about past worlds and lives,
sets out with his band of followers across an incredible landscape
to find the answer to a dream prophecy -- that men from Earth will some
day come again in a rain of fire!"
The description about didn't entice me to buy the book; I had read THE
LUCK OF BRIN'S FIVE by the same author and liked it enough to take a
chance on this one.
The setting is as follows. Two hundred or so years before the main story
begins, a spacecraft from Earth crashlands on a planet. The survivors
set up housekeeping, but the high technology devices eventually fail
and cannot be replaced. Some time later a few people make contact with
an alien life form which they call "the Vail"; a new religion is
established, though not everyone believes the aliens really exist.
The book starts out with a rather confused account of the initial
contacts with the Vail -- confused because the reader doesn't know
the context yet (that comes later). Then the scene switches to Maxim
Bro, newly-appointed Dator ("historian"), who leaves the planet's
primary city to investigate reports of a new spacecraft crash.
There are many subplots in this book, and the transition between
them isn't always smooth. A number of times I got interested in
following one subplot only to have another take over for 20 or 30
pages. On the other hand, all of the subplots are interesting, and
they all tie together, so the transitions didn't bother me as much as
they might have.
I liked the book a lot. Unlike many "lost colony" books in which
the inhabitants quickly revert to barbarism and forget their
origins, the people in this book do know where they came from and
are trying to keep as high a level of civilization as possible.
Further, there aren't any villains, per se; rather, conflicts
arise out of natural circumstance (the weather, lack of information,
etc.), personal inclinations and ambitions, and motivations of
aliens that are, not surprisingly, alien.
The story moves along quickly, and you get a better-than-average
feel for the planet and its people. I gives this book 3.0 stars
(very good) and look forward to more from this author.
--
Duane Morse ...!noao!terak!anasazi!duane
(602) 870-3330