Khe is not only the name of this quick read, but also the main character. She lives in a commune with other doumana (females) of her species, and will only see a male once a year when she mates. Very communistic - everyone has a job, and everyone works. They art tutored to find joy in hard work and sharing. They share a house with their age mates, and those become their closes friends and comrades. They are also the first to go to the commune leaders if they believe one is acting odd.
The world has an odd mix of high technology - moving cities, advanced medicine, advanced power supply, access to their version of TVs, and low technology - they do a lot of their work very manually, they create their textiles in old fashion ways, and they live very simply.
Khe is unique though - when she comes of age, she does not feel the urge to mate, to return to her birth place and create life with a male. And this colors the story, and the rest of the story hinges on this and Khe's search to be normal, and ending up being anything but.
A bit on Khe's people - these are not humans. They are another species on another world completely. And it becomes obvious not in only in how they are described, but in their mating rituals - where once a year, they feel a strong urge to return to the place they were created, and choose a mate. They do not give live birth, but lay eggs. They do not raise their young themselves, but the eggs are distributed among the communes, and their is great competition to receive more eggs in the communes. The only time during the whole books we see a male of the species is during mating.
This is really a story of finding one's gods are anything but, and learning to live without the tampering of one's 'gods'.
BTW, this book in the e format is only 99 cents on Amazon. An amazing price from an author I would love to hear more from.
No comments:
Post a Comment