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Before the Gods (The Chronicles of Fate and Choice)
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Albedo One's issue 39 - a prime issue with stories from Mike Resnick, Uncle River, Mari Saario, Annete Reader, Martin McGrath and J. L. Abbot, an in-depth interview with multiple Hugo Award winner Mike Resnick, and review columns from Juliet E. McKenna and David Conyers. Buy it now for only €5.95 and support Albedo One!! |
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Overall, a good, light read. Enjoyable and interesting and it kept my attention right to the end. It is the first of a trilogy. The story consists of two threads that gradually come together in the final chapters. In one thread we meet the Kutu, a race of rainbow coloured beings with wings. They are very beautiful and I would say that the author is deliberately trying to conjure up an image of angel, especially as they are immortal in the sense that they do not grow old and die – but they can be killed. They manifest partially as an energy body and partially as a physical body. With the help of crystals they can become more or less physical. The main Kutu characters are Chia, Orion, Jychanumun and Shursa. We soon learn in the story that Chia is a “sensitive” with powers of detection and intuition whilst Orion is a great musician. There is some back story behind Chia and his failures but it is not well developed. Shursa is not noble and not special and it didn’t take me very long to realise that he would be the source of many of the difficulties faced by Chia and Orion. Jychanumun is mysterious, having been found floating in a spacecraft on his own and, whilst he is similar to the Kutu, he is from a different race for he is black and white where they are multi-coloured. It is not apparent as to whether he is good or bad. There are many hints that Jychanumun’s race is very evil. The Kutu have come from Eden to Earth looking for new worlds and a source of “energy”, but not energy in the physical sense. The Kutu detect a new energy source on Earth and set off to find it, taking on almost entirely physical bodies to accommodate to the limitations of being on Earth. Whilst they are searching for this new energy they are cut off from the rest of their community and so the story unfolds. The other storyline revolves around Tachra a young human girl who seems to be very different from the rest of her community. Physically, she is human, although she does seem to have extraordinary powers of survival in difficult places. Mentally, she is very special. Her community only appeared with her parent’s generation who have no memory of being children nor do they know how they learnt to manage the "fields", etc. Tachra is constantly asking questions that the rest of the community ignore and do not understand. Tachra is also in mental contact with a mysterious entity. She sets off on a journey and discovers along the way that she has special powers. The story overall was well written and the action scenes were sufficiently exciting to keep my attention. My sympathies went out to Tachra as she struggled through her journey. However, the plot line is somewhat predictable – and the names of Eden and Earth, the angel-like beings and the names of the Kutu give plenty of hints as to the sources for the story and perhaps its resolution. The strap line on the front cover says “every evil ever told began somewhere...” which also provides some heavy hints. My main criticism of the story revolves around the Kutu. Basically, they are created from a collection of new age concepts thrown together. They use chi, energy bodies, crystals, space craft and nano technology with unthinking abandon but the implications of such power are almost ignored. Considering that they have been around for a very long time and have such high technology, they are astoundingly naive. It is very obvious right from the start that Shursa is not to be trusted and yet he has only just exhibited his evil nature at this time with no explanation as to why. We get almost no in-depth insights into why Shursa has gone so bad whilst Orion, Chi and Jychanumun are fairly well developed characters (if somewhat stiff in their dialogue). Orion and Chia are also incredibly dumb – they don’t seem to even consider that Shursa might be deceiving them for most of the story, and when they discover he is, they don’t seem surprised. But... As this is the first book in a trilogy, perhaps these issues could be explained in the next two volumes, although I can’t see how this bundle of popular new age ideas could ever become believable and looking at the advertising for the next volume, Tumult, I don’t see any hints for surprises in the rest of the story. The main plot of the Kutu storyline is based on “Overcoming the Monster” (see The Seven Basic Plots by Christopher Booker). Tachra’s storyline is based on the “Mythic Journey”. The novel is enjoyable despite my criticisms because it is based so well on these archetypal story lines. For the awards (all out of 5) I give:
My final summary is: it's worth reading if you’re looking for something to do on a rainy afternoon and you have nothing better to watch or read. Before the Gods (2009) Review by Wayne J. Harris |
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