David Schwinghammer's Blog - Posts Tagged "the-amish"
The Cydonian Pyramid
I was first exposed to Pete Hautman when a critique partner recommended THE MORTAL NUTS, a Joe Crow mystery that involved the Minnesota State Fair and Texas Hold 'em. Needless to say I was rather surprised to see Peter win the National Book Award for his young adult novel, GODLESS.
And now he's switched genres again, with science fiction. The CYDONIAN PYRAMID starts half a millennium in the future, Lah Lia, a Pure Girl has experienced her Blood Moon and is about to be sacrificed and thrown into a portal leading to another time and place. If she returns, she will be a Yar, or holy woman (nun?). Just as a priest is about to stab her, Tucker Feye (supposedly the boy Abraham sacrificed to the Old Testament God) saves her and they both jump into the portal.
But they go in different directions. Tucker ends up at the North Pole just as a nuclear submarine breaks through the ice; Lah Lia falls from such a height she needs hospitalization. A Medicant wants payment after she's treated. She's sold to a Boggsian, a kind of cross between an Amish adherent and a Quantum mechanics technician. There's a bit of satire in Hautman's books. The Lah Sept, Lah Lia's people, blame a plague on the Boggsian's and their obsession with technology and numbers. The Lah Sept don't mention numbers.
Hautman has Lah Lia and Tucker jumping in and out of these portals or disks, perhaps too many times, throughout the book. Lah Lia likes Tucker but she can't find the right disk to take her where Tucker is.
Oh, yes, there's also a war going on between the priests and the Yars, eventually anyway. There's a big battle scene atop the Pyramid.
It's a bit disconcerting and ironic to think that a five hundred years into the future, Quantum theory will have joined with the Amish to fall further into the past, while advancing in years. In both THE MORTAL NUTS and GODLESS Hautman displays a wicked sense of humor. That's missing here, perhaps necessarily.
And now he's switched genres again, with science fiction. The CYDONIAN PYRAMID starts half a millennium in the future, Lah Lia, a Pure Girl has experienced her Blood Moon and is about to be sacrificed and thrown into a portal leading to another time and place. If she returns, she will be a Yar, or holy woman (nun?). Just as a priest is about to stab her, Tucker Feye (supposedly the boy Abraham sacrificed to the Old Testament God) saves her and they both jump into the portal.
But they go in different directions. Tucker ends up at the North Pole just as a nuclear submarine breaks through the ice; Lah Lia falls from such a height she needs hospitalization. A Medicant wants payment after she's treated. She's sold to a Boggsian, a kind of cross between an Amish adherent and a Quantum mechanics technician. There's a bit of satire in Hautman's books. The Lah Sept, Lah Lia's people, blame a plague on the Boggsian's and their obsession with technology and numbers. The Lah Sept don't mention numbers.
Hautman has Lah Lia and Tucker jumping in and out of these portals or disks, perhaps too many times, throughout the book. Lah Lia likes Tucker but she can't find the right disk to take her where Tucker is.
Oh, yes, there's also a war going on between the priests and the Yars, eventually anyway. There's a big battle scene atop the Pyramid.
It's a bit disconcerting and ironic to think that a five hundred years into the future, Quantum theory will have joined with the Amish to fall further into the past, while advancing in years. In both THE MORTAL NUTS and GODLESS Hautman displays a wicked sense of humor. That's missing here, perhaps necessarily.
