PEOPLE OF THE SKY

by Clare Bell ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 6, 1989

Well-realized, medium-future, cultural science-fiction tale from the author of various YA hard-covers. Pilot Kesbe Temiya flies the storm-wracked skies of planet Oneway in an ancient, refurbished C-47 Gooney Bird in order to investigate rumors of a lost colony of Pueblo Indians. In a particularly violent storm, Kesbe crashlands in the mountains after glimpsing a young boy astride a large, flying, insect-like creature. Of Hopi ancestry herself, Kesbe soon contacts the boy's village. Slowly, she learns that the people have gone far into a symbiotic relationship with the flying creatures, called aronans, but only adults are told the full story (to the uninitiated, the details are hair-raising). The boy, Imiya, knows only that he must stop flying, give up his aronan when he becomes an adult, a step he fears and resists--it seems to involve pain and dismemberment as well as separation. Unwittingly, Kesbe assists Imiya to flee the prescribed rites, precipitating a cultural crisis involving Sahacat--the tribe's powerful, hostile shaman--that only Kesbe herself can resolve by fully joining the society and entering the symbiosis with her own aronan. Carefully detailed and often evocative, if rather unsurprising and with only mediocre characters.

Pub Date: Dec. 6, 1989

ISBN: 0759296170

Page Count: -

Publisher: Tor--dist. by St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1989

Categories: FICTION