The Gaia Websters

by Kim Antieau

In a desolate future 300 years after The Fall, Gloria Stone manages to carve out a good life for herself as her town's healer. But when sinister forces ally against her, she must use every skill at her disposal to survive and keep her community whole. And nothing can prepare her for the ultimate shocking revelation about the nature of her world and her her own being.

Genres: Science Fiction

226 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1997

About the author

Kim Antieau is the author of several novels and short stories for adults and teenagers, including Mercy, Unbound. She graduated Eastern Michigan University and lives with her husband, poet Mario Milosevic, in the Pacific Northwest. Aside from writing books, she works as a librarian.

Reviews

[Kevin Phyland · Rating 3 out of 5]

In a post-Collapse United States, where the Territories have devolved back to a form of local rule, Gloria Stone is a resident healer - more unkindly known as soothsayers, considered part witch, part some sort of psychic. In the small community of Coyote Creek she lives a rustic but happy life, content with the rules forbidding old tech but ever wary of something in her past that haunts her dreams. Gloria has no memory of anything up to a few years earlier when she woke in a cave and wandered until she found Coyote Creek. However, her bliss is disrupted when a messenger from the Arizona governor insists that she leave town and visit him. She refuses and suddenly all the citizens in town get ill with something she doesn’t seem able to cure. What she discovers in the capital will awaken her dormant memories and explain why her dreams are filled with chanting of some sort of code. Kim Antieau’s novel is entertaining enough but I tumbled to the central conceit about halfway through and it should be no surprise to any seasoned genre reader. Over-hyped but a pleasant enough way to spend a day.

[Julie Capell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this tale of Gloria, a woman with mysterious healing powers in a post-apocalyptic world. I liked the way it was told from her point-of-view, so the reader only knows what Gloria knows, which isn't much, given that she only remembers the most recent 10 years of her life. We glean that sometime in the distant past, a calamity befell the Earth and people blame technology. There is very little technology left, and it is considered dangerous. Humans have gone back to a more communal, small-scale way of life. But a sickness is spreading and although she has an amazing ability to heal through laying on of hands, Gloria cannot heal the new sickness.

As a character, Gloria is very compelling. She acts under a code of ethics of "do no harm," but she's definitely no saint. She likes sex--a lot--and also gets angry and annoyed. She prefers to be alone in nature with her animal companion, but yearns to feel connected other human beings. She defends her friends and isn't afraid to speak truth to power.

Although written in 1997, this book feels like it shares genetics with today's crop of "cozy" scifi by authors like Becky Chambers. There are great descriptions of the landscapes of the desert Southwestern US:

We got out and walked along the stone walkway, through piñon and twisted juniper, to a view that made me gasp. . . . Suddenly the world was completely silent as we gazed into the beautiful zigzag opening in the Earth. The Grand Canyon. Layers of red, white, green, turquoise. At the bottom of the canyon the river looked solid and immobile like a green vein on a young girl's arm. No, an old lady's arm: this place had been here forever.

And wonderful depictions of delicious food, including tea:

...I was greeted with a melding of aromas; this morning lavender and rosemary distinguished themselves. A pot of rose hip tea awaited on the rickety table off to the side of my examining table. A piece of corn bread slathered with butter lay next to it.

It was nice to read a book where the conflict isn't so much physical as it is emotional and philosophical. And the resolution doesn't come through brute force, but through love.

[Amber · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gloria has no memories from before she woke up in a cave, stumbled out into the world and accidentally healed someone, but she's had a good life for the last 10 years or so, living and working in Coyote Creek. She has no family but she loves her town and people she cares for who in turn care for her, she has a few lovers but she still keeps people at arms length.
Then one day a guy who gives her the creeps shows up and tries to force her to go see the governor of post apocalyptic Arizona, the Fall happened 300 years previous, but she has no desire to go and has heard rumors of healer's being kidnapped and kept. A series of unfortunate events see's her kicked from her home and roaming about trying find answers to the string of people who keep falling sick and losing their memories.
Kim definitely has a specific style and manages to draw me in with her characters and her world building, this world being arid and full of life at the same time. Gloria's growth was interesting and her origins were fascinating once they became clear as well.

[Marsha Valance · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cyborg healers wander a devastated Earth in a journey of self-discovery.

[Katy Lohman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I need to reread this book. It is very powerful.

[Deb Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Breathless

I can’t feel myself breathing when I read these books and then I put it down in order to breath thank you thank you thank you thank you

[Kerith · Rating 3 out of 5]

At first I didn't like it -- something bugged me, it was written too glibly and there was too much unnecessary sex. Turns out sex was one of the only ways the main character could "connect" with humans. She was a machine, but had no memories and so didn't know this.
It got better, and turned into a really quick, interesting read about the world left after our own crumbles. About a man-made technology -- the "Gaia Websters" -- whom nature reclaims and turns into healers. Light, entertaining fare.

[Shifra · Rating 5 out of 5]

for a relatively short novel, it has everything you could want! i absolutely LOVED this story ... no matter who or what other people expect you to be, what really matters is who you are and who you want to be.

and in many ways, we are all weavers and healers!

[HRM Maire · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd give this three and a half stars.
The concept was interesting and I did really want to know what happened to everybody and hoped it would all work out--and it did. "Websters" refers to a sort of weaver, in case you're wondering ('cuz I did).

[Andrea]

Very interesting premise. Takes place in a post-technological world. Has interesting twists. Cool characters.