Stunde der Klesh

Ler #3

by M.A. Foster, Ulrich Kiesow (Translator), Hans-Joachim Alpers (Nachwort)

"Sein Name ist Meure, und er sucht das Abenteuer im Weltraum, möchte fremde Planeten kennenlernen. Deshalb heuert er auf dem Raumschiff der Spsom an. Aber das Schiff ist in besonderer Mission für die Ler - genetisch veränderte Menschen - unterwegs, und diese Mission ist gefährlicher, als es zunächst den Anschein hat. Die Ler forschen alten Mythen nach, die mit der Legendengestalt der Sanjirmil zu tun haben. Aufklärung erhoffen sie sich auf jenem Planeten, der von allen Raumschiffen gemieden wird und dem allerlei merkwürdige Dinge nachgesagt werden: Monsalvat. Hier wurden wilde, seltsame Menschen ausgesetzt, Menschen, die einer verbrecherischen genetischen Zuchtauswahl entstammten. Einst Sklaven auf dem Planeten Morgenröte, haben sie hier ihre eigene bizarre, chaotische und gewalttätige Zivilisation entwickelt. Man nennt sie die Klesh. Die Expedition erreicht Monsalvat, aber sie erleidet dort Schiffbruch. Meure und die anderen sehen sich schutzlos der rauhen Wirklichkeit des Planeten und seiner erbarmungslosen Bewohner ausgesetzt. Aber es gibt noch andere Dinge, die ihnen zu schaffen machen, mysteriöse Dinge, die gefährlicher sind als die Menschenjäger der Klesh.
Da ist ein Mann, dessen Geist seit Jahrhunderten in einem „Geschichtenerzähler" gefangen ist und der nur darauf wartet, ein Chaos zu entfachen. Und irgendwo im Hintergrund lauert eine Macht, die ihre eigenen Pläne mit dem Planeten hat. Und nicht nur mit ihm..."

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction

286 pages, Paperback

First published October 2, 1979

About the author

Librarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name

US writer, former data-systems analyst and sequentially a Russian linguist and ICBM launch-crew commander to the US Air Force; he is also a semiprofessional photographer. After some poetry, released privately as Shards from Byzantium (coll 1969 chap) and The Vaseline Dreams of Hundifer Jones (coll 1970 chap), he began to publish sf with the ambitious Ler trilogy about a race of Supermen created by Genetic Engineering whose social structure is built around a form of line marriage here called a braid.

The Gameplayers of Zan (1977), a very long novel formally constructed on the model of an Elizabethan tragedy, describes a period of climactic tension between the ler and the rest of humanity, and is set on Earth. The Warriors of Dawn (1975), published first but set later, is a more conventional Space Opera in which a human male and a ler female are forced to team up to try to solve a complexly ramifying problem of interstellar piracy. The Day of the Klesh (1979) brings the ler and the eponymous race of humans together on a planet where they must solve their differences.

The Morphodite/Transformer sequence which followed comprises The Morphodite (1981), Transformer (1983) and Preserver (1985), all three assembled as The Transformer Trilogy (omni 2006), and similarly uses forms of meditative Shapeshifting to buttress complex plots, though in this case the alternately male or female, revolution-fomenting, protagonist dominates the tale as assassin, trickster and Superman.

Waves (1980) rather recalls Stanisław Lem's Solaris (1961) in a tale of political intrigue on a planet whose ocean is intelligent. The four novellas collected in Owl Time (coll 1985) are told in challengingly various modes, and derive strength from their mutual contrast.

More recently, the author has been involved with the writing of storylines for Acme comics http://www.acmecomics.com/node/69.

Reviews

[Teri Dluznieski · Rating 4 out of 5]

just came across this gem while cleaning out the attic. I loved this book, and it is now at the top of my read/ reread pile:) I didn't know it was book 3 of a series when i read it. i will now have to go back and read the first two books. however will I suffer through those as well.. such sweet sorrow.. woodchuck hard cider doth wax poetic:)

[Road Worrier · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked some of the ideas in this book. I expected it to be more related to the other LER books, but really was its own story simply set in the backdrop of the culture that you have familiar with from the first two books. There were many different types of people numerous names and complicated ideas. I think I might have been better off reading this rather than listening to it, because I became confused about who was who about 3/4 through. I enjoyed some of the quotes for example “Unless we live in the present, we do not live at all.”
—A.C.

I also enjoyed this little snippet of text: "Meure had seen no indication whatsoever that wealthy people formed a quarter of their own, or, for that matter, existed. Morgin had assured him that they were few, and so retiring as to be almost invisible. Meure had been somewhat surprised at that, for from the poverty he had expected to see evidence of at least part of a leisure class, but apparently in Yastian things had progressed much further than that; originally there had been a stratified class society, but that structure had eroded away long ago, by the operation of a sociological equivalent to Gresham’s Law: once the low classes reach a certain majority percentage, their values swamp the entire society. A wealthy class was only possible where there was something left over for the poorest"

[Dean Wilcox · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read the Gameplayers of Zan without realizing that it was part of a trilogy - a wonderful history of a complete world. The culmination of the series that draws together so many threads and ideas. Perhaps not the best read of the series (that goes to Zan) but develops some wonderful chaos in fused ideas about the structure and function of the universe .

[SciFiOne · Rating 4 out of 5]

1980 grade B-

Series book L3