I was checking my emails after dinner when something made me open my spam folder. The first few items were genuine spam, but then I found an email from Chris Graham [aka The Story Reading Ape] alerting me to a brilliant review of Vokhtah. If this were fiction, you wouldn’t believe it!
“They were now just two frail iVokh pitting themselves against the might of the wild.”
Vokhtah is a difficult but rewarding book. If you like unusual conceptions of extraterrestrials, this is for you. Once you’ve read about half of it, the complexities begin to clarify themselves, but two readings are needed for complete understanding. For example, it took me quite a while to grasp that the Blue and the Messenger were the same individual, and I also didn’t realize that there were two traders’ caravans wending their way to Needlepoint – I thought the Junior and the Messenger were in the same caravan and I got confused. Part of the problem is that the characters don’t have names, only titles. In her end matter, the author addresses this – it seems there is a taboo in this culture about enunciating your real name.
Vokhtah is a grim and forbidding planet; it has two suns, one a hot white star and the other a red dwarf. Sometimes they both shine at once, creating a climate of extremes. The planet is populated with an assortment of mostly vicious and predatory lifeforms and that includes the intelligent ones, who prefer to consume their food animals live. It’s a tribute to the author that she can take these basically repulsive intelligent lifeforms and make them sympathetic. And I would recommend that any human ship of exploration steer clear of the planet Vokhtah – humans would probably be seen as prey animals!
My guess would be that the Vokh evolved from bat-like creatures – their ability to echo-locate is mentioned briefly. They have wings (which contain their lungs), so most of them can fly. They have two hearts. And they are telepathic hermaphrodites with seemingly magical inner powers, like mind-healing and also mind-killing (their Healers are also trained as assassins). There are two variant species – the Vokh (large and dominant) and the iVokh (meaning literally “small Vokh”). The Vokh have a serious flaw – breeding is consummated by means of violent rape; nobody wants to bear an offspring because the “female” always dies in childbirth (this doesn’t occur with the iVokh).
However, the people have a strong sense of honor and obligation – if you accept help from someone, you incur an obligation and if you don’t fulfill it, you are ostracized. In the second half of the book, after the episode at the Little Blue River, the main characters – the Messenger and the Apprentice – are shown developing a sense rare in these people – empathy, an ability to relate to and care about others with whom one has a relationship, beyond the obligations of the code of honor.
All this just scratches the surface of the author’s astonishing creation. I should also mention that the book is a cliff hanger, and no second volume has yet appeared.
I must say a few words about the language. Unfortunately, the Kindle version has no Table of Contents and so I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the author provided a brief treatment of the language in the end matter. It seems to have no pronouns, and verbs are consistently rendered only with the present participle form, all of which helps to create the alien language effect. Certain words used in the text are self-explanatory, like “ki” for “no” and “s’so” for “yes.”There is one etymological gaffe that I can’t help commenting on – the explanation of the word “boot” (a foot-covering). The character doesn’t know what the word “boot” means and it’s explained as a contraction of “bucket for foot.” And yet that derivation would be impossible since the iVokh aren’t speaking English. You have to assume that the Vokhtah words reflect a similar construction, which the author could have fabricated.
But that’s only a quibble – don’t be deterred! This really is an amazing book and while the culture may not be palatable to everyone (you need a strong stomach sometimes), I definitely recommend it to any serious reader of science fiction.
The review was written by Lorinda Taylor, also known as The Termite Writer. Some days just get better and better.
-hugs-
Meeks
April 3rd, 2020 at 2:11 pm
Cor! That’s a good ‘un! 😀
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April 4th, 2020 at 11:39 am
Ain’t it guv? 😀
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April 4th, 2020 at 3:16 pm
😀 … If you and I survive this thing, Meeks, we are going to have to meet up somewhere, at some point!!! 😀
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April 4th, 2020 at 6:59 pm
Absolutely. We’ll all be able to travel again, one day, and I promise I’ll make you and Mrs Widds a huge chocolate mousse cake. 😀
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April 5th, 2020 at 1:46 pm
You’re on! :d
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April 5th, 2020 at 6:47 pm
😀
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April 4th, 2020 at 3:17 pm
So far, so good. 🙂
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April 4th, 2020 at 3:19 pm
Ignore that ‘so far, so good’ … it was supposed to go on someone else’s comment on another blog. 🙂
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April 4th, 2020 at 6:57 pm
lmao – duly ignored!
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April 2nd, 2020 at 3:29 pm
Congrats! Such glowing praise is like manna from the gods. Glad you got it when most needed. 😊
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April 2nd, 2020 at 10:06 pm
Manna indeed. Food for this writer’s soul. 😀
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April 2nd, 2020 at 12:40 pm
Wow! Wonderful. 🙂
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April 2nd, 2020 at 10:06 pm
Thank you. 😀
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April 2nd, 2020 at 11:20 am
An excellent review for a book which sounds like a compelling read for a sci-fi buff… Hugs… You have every right to be thrilled xxx
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April 2nd, 2020 at 10:13 pm
Thanks Carol. So many nice things have been happening lately, it’s almost as if fate is compensating me for the lockdown. Whatever. I’ll take it, with thanks. 😀
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April 2nd, 2020 at 10:37 am
Wonderful, and well-deserved! And extra nice coming from another gifted sci-fi writer such as Lorinda! 🙂
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April 2nd, 2020 at 10:45 am
Thanks, Berthold. And yes, I’m still on a high because of that. Stay well.
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April 3rd, 2020 at 1:10 am
I’m glad Chris and you found the review! It was Berthold Gambrel’s review that made me want to read this book. Unusual depictions of extraterrestrials are among my favorite SF themes. Do you have any plans to publish another volume? I really want to know what happened after the Messenger gets to Needlepoint, and also how the Apprentice fares when it returns to the Quarter and confronts the ususper.
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April 3rd, 2020 at 11:11 am
God, I could hug you! Yes, there is more to the story, much more, but I’ve been suffering from story fatigue. I started the sage of Vokhtah in November, 2004. Worked on it until January 2013 when I published the first volume. And then I needed a break. Innerscape and some how-to books happened during that break, and now I’m finding it hard to get back into that world. But I will.
Thank you.
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April 3rd, 2020 at 11:26 am
OK, I guess we’ll just have to be patient! (virtual hugs back!)
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April 3rd, 2020 at 11:44 am
Stay well. 🙂
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April 2nd, 2020 at 9:11 am
What an excellent review! Congrats.
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April 2nd, 2020 at 10:07 am
Thank you. I’m thrilled. 🙂
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April 2nd, 2020 at 8:49 am
Hello Meeka, you did a grand review. It caused me to want to read the book. I hope you are being well and safe. Dang, first the fires and now a virus, please be well. Hugs
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April 2nd, 2020 at 10:10 am
Hi Scottie.Yeah, it’s been a rollercoaster ride here in Oz, and no sign that it’ll improve any time soon. That does make this wonderful review all the sweeter though.
We’re both well, thank you. Haven’t been out of the house in 2 weeks and minimal outside ‘travel’ for almost a month before that so fairly confident.
Hugs to you and Ron. Stay well. 🙂
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April 2nd, 2020 at 8:43 am
What a wonderful review!!!
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April 2nd, 2020 at 10:12 am
-grin- Ain’t it just? These reviews are like small, scintillating jewels in the gloom.
Stay well. 🙂
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April 2nd, 2020 at 8:38 am
Excellent news! It’s always good to get a positive book review, especially one so thoughtful and discursive as this. So often these days, I find, these things are weaponised. Good to get a heads-up over that from Chris, too (he’s a reader and occasional sharer of my blog also, and a good sort).
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April 2nd, 2020 at 10:18 am
Yes and yes. 😀 The online community makes this pandemic bearable in a way that none of us could have foreseen. Being online is no longer ‘nice’, or entertaining, or a distraction. It’s become a necessity coz we have no other way to connect. I’ve always valued my friends online, but never more so than now.
Stay well my Kiwi friend. 🙂
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April 2nd, 2020 at 8:26 am
One thing for sure,Ms Taylor has definitely read it. I shouldn’t say it but I’m going to, I told you so. The book is brilliant.
Hugs
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April 2nd, 2020 at 10:20 am
-giggles- yes you did, and yes /she/ did. Definitely a glass half full day. -hug-s
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April 2nd, 2020 at 8:12 am
Frankly speaking, it’s your own fault for writing such a brilliant, original and absolutely compelling work of genuine science fiction. I have no sympathy whatsoever *big hugs* 🙂
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April 2nd, 2020 at 10:21 am
LMAO! Oh, you meanie. 😀 -big hugs back-
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