Mother Earth Father Sky by Sue Harrison review

Genre: Historical Fiction.

Length:384 pages of story and a Glossary in case you forget what a term means. (the terms are mostly explained in the story, unless it is a name.)

Setting: The Aleutian Islands in the year 7056 BC
Warning: Spoilers in here for the first few chapters.

Summary: This is the story of Chagak, a woman of the First Men tribe. All the people of her village are brutally massacred, and she sets out to go to the village of her grandfather, chief of the whale Hunters. Along the way she meets an old man named Shuganan who lives alone on an island between her own and her grandfather's. A man from the tribe that massacred her own also comes to Shuganan's beach and wants to take Chagak as wife and return Shuganan to his people The Short Ones. His name is Man-Who-Kills, and it's a pretty apt name. He wants Shuganan because Shuganan carves, and his carvings are very powerful, and bringing him will make Man-Who-Kills an important man in his tribe. Neither Shuganan or Chagak want Chagak to be wife to this evil man, so Shuganan sets a pretty high bride price to buy them some time. At night they are tied up so they can not escape, and they are not allowed to use knives. 
Another man named Sees-Far shows up. He's also a man of the Short Ones.  Man-Who-Kills tells his buddy to go back to their people and explain the situation, and to come in the spring to get him and his wife and the old man and all of the old guy's carvings, and that from there they will then go raid the Whale Hunters.

It doesn't take nearly as long as they had hoped for Man-Who-Kills to raise the bride price, despite their efforts to slow him down. Of course Man-Who-Kills beats the crap out of them for the efforts, and Shuganan nearly dies from one beating. Man-Who-Kills takes Chagak as wife, rapes her and beats her. She finds the knife Shuganan had hidden under her bed, and manages to kill him.

The following spring she has her baby, a parting gift from her one night with Man-who-Kills. 

Meanwhile, a small group from another tribe of the First Men has been displaced by a tidal wave, and they are looking for a new beach to call home. The leader of this little band of travelers is Kayugh, and his wife just bore a son. Well, medical treatment being what it was back in 7055 BC, and the rather difficult lifestyle of the people, lots of women died during childbirth, or shortly there after. Kayugh's wife certainly does. No one in the band of travelers has any milk, though one woman is very pregnant and somewhat near to giving birth, her milk just hasn't come in yet. Kayugh can't bear the thought of leaving his newborn son on it's mother's grave to die, so he gives him to the pregnant lady hoping she will birth soon enough to be able to feed his baby as well.

A whale washes up on Shuganan's beach, and he and Chagak set out to flensing it. Kayugh had been scouting ahead of his party, and sees the beached whale and eventually comes ashore.

From here on out, if you wanna know what happens, go read the book. My review is entirely too long, and I haven't even given an opinion yet.

Review: I read a lot of Historical Fiction. This book is pretty well written, you certainly get a good idea of the landscapes and a feel for the people. It isn't hard to imagine yourself there. It isn't the first time I've read this series, and it won't be the last. In fact, it wasn't until writing this review that I began to question things. There are an awful lot of coincidences, so many they almost feel like cheap parlor tricks to move the story along. Why does Man-Who-Kills agree to pay a bride price before raping Chagak anyway? Would a man truly as evil as the author paints him to be say “Yeah, sure, I'll give you 16 otter skins and two seals for her?” and only screw her after he paid it? I don't think so. And for a guy who doesn't get many visitors, Shuganan's beach sure as heck is seeing a lot of traffic this year ain't it?

Overall, it's worth reading. I find the characters interesting and believable. The story as a whole, is interesting and fun to read. It would suck if you had to go through all the things this poor girl does, so you really feel for her throughout the book, and I gotta say that when she kills Man-Who-Kills, it's hard to suppress an outcry of “Get 'em girl!”, which if you are reading next to someone, will earn you a raised eyebrow or two.
/ [hanhepi]

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