Story Teller

This story is going at a slower pace than "Through Alien Eyes". It was easier to stop reading for a while (and do the things you're supposed to do), or even to skip a paragraph. It's a different style, appropriate for a story teller in the Thalassian tradition. Only after reading all pages, the story began to resonate with me in a new way. This is a story about many aspects of identity: parenthood and childhood, memory, loss and grief, sexual identity, longing and addiction, coming of age and death.

In the future space travel is made possible by "jumpers" who have an almost telepathic ability to fold space to other planets and dimensions. However, jumpers pat a terrible price for their gift. They burnout after so many years/jumps. They can no longer jump anymore ever again. Jumping is addictive-like a drug- and without their jumping ability most of them committ suicide-either quickly and efficiently or slowly with drugs and alcohol. Once such Jumper burned out on a new world, the world of Thalassa. Thalassa was an ocean world filled with small islands-kind of like Hawaii world- and populated by sentient beings called Harsels. Harsels are huge-much larger than our largest whales-and bond-telepathetically with humans, called show more har-Captains, who use them to make cargo runs. Inside of the Hars is empty and they carry around merchandise and people. The burned out jumper discovers the Harsels telepathic ability with humans when she attempts suicide after her burn out. She bonds with that Harsel and when Thalassa is at last colonized she acts a bridge between humans and harsels. The Pilots story is told by Teller-a guild authorized storyteller. History is traditionally passed down through stories and lessons on Thalassa. This novel alternately tells the history of Thalassa, the Pilot and the Harsels and simultaneously follows the story of Teller and her adopted son Samad.
I am a huge Amy Thomson fan. She writes two of my favorite sci fi alien contact novels of all time-Through Alien Eyes and Color of Distance. So, I was very happy to see a new book by her. While I enjoyed Storyteller, it was rather dry. I was never that attached to the characters or the planet really. I did enjoy many of the stories though. It was an excellent novel and taught a lesson like most of the stories told in the novel. It just was not what I was expecting at all. show less