ABOVE THE LOWER SKY

A hardcover debut from the author of numerous fantasy paperbacks (The Soulsmith trilogy, etc.). During a hurricane in Ireland, resident American writer Kevin Mauney is visited by a selkie (a were-seal), who conveys an urgent message requesting his presence in Aztlan Free Zone, Mexico. In Aztlan, meanwhile, Cherokee diplomat and native dancer Thunderbird O'Connor stumbles upon a dying man, skinned alive and abandoned on the beach. Also in Aztlan, Carolyn Mauney-Griffith, Kevin's biologist sister, investigates a baffling mass beaching of dolphins, who seem to have been attacked by killer whales. As Kevin hotfoots it to Aztlan, Thunderbird is assaulted by were-orcas clad in human skins, while Cary drowns—then, impossibly, returns to life. What's going on? Well, it transpires that rebellious young were-orcas have decided to attack humanity by first exterminating its allies, the dolphins; the latter's magicians have thought up a plan, involving the three humans, to combat the evil whales. Some readers—the younger and more credulous section of the audience—may find the snappy, briny antics here exhilarating; the far-fetched multiplicity of were-things will strike many others as just plain daft.