Review: Kenai by Dave Dobson

The Book

A planet steeped in mystery...

Jess Amiko is long past her days as a space marine, with all the glory of that time tarnished beyond repair by what came after. Trying to rebuild from the ashes, she's taken a job as a security guard on Kenai, a lonely world far from the Council systems. It's supposed to be easy duty - quiet and peaceful, on a docile world with no real threats, watching over an archaeological dig at a site built by a race long vanished.

Betrayed and attacked by forces unknown, and finding that nothing on Kenai makes sense, Jess is plunged into a desperate fight for survival that leads her deep into the mysteries of Kenai's past, and deep into the hardship and paradox the planet imposes on all who call it home.

 

My Thoughts

This blurb had me instantly intrigued. I love a good archaeological mystery, blended into Science Fiction, so this book was right up my street.

And what a good read it was! It’s written with a very clear military SF vibe. The female narrator is well drawn and compelling and I was immediately drawn into her world, empathising with her past and her predicament.

The worldbuilding is also one of the best things about this story. The universe that has been created here has great depth and history, but all this is fed naturally into the narrative. The pacing is spot on and the mystery unravels.

There’s not much I can say about the plot without giving away spoilers, but what I will say is that the underlying concept is both clever and original, but also the author executes it with great skill. It’s mind-bending and fascinating. And aliens? Should I mention the aliens?

I’ll say no more, other than this is an excellent book which I strongly recommend.

 

'The Forgotten City' published at Neo-Opsis

 My short story, The Forgotten City, has just been published in Issue 32 of Neo-Opsis Magazine. You can purchase a copy here: Neo-Opsis Issue 32.

Revisiting Malta

In most of my novels the action moves around geographically. I love writing about interesting places, and I love visiting those places. Whenever I travel it is always with half a mind on how I can incorporate these settings into my fiction.

Red Rock was no exception. The action moves across Europe, and one of the places Danni ends up in is Malta.

I revisited Malta earlier this year, after quite a long gap, and I went back to some of the settings where Danni has her adventures. Malta has changes a lot in recent years, the most noticeable difference being the amount of development that has happened, and is still going on – skylines dominated by cranes and half-finished buildings all along the coast. But some things haven’t changed and it’s still easy enough to escape the main tourist centres and explore the island's less visited corners.

So here are a few pictures from my travels.

Megalithic ruins, very like the ones Danni hides in on Comino - 

only these are actually on Malta

Danni doesn't visit Gozo but I thought I'd include this - 

it's where the Azure Window used to be.

The citadel, Victoria, Gozo

Fishing village of Marsalforn, Gozo, on a stormy day

Comino viewed from the ferry. 

The chapel you can see was the inspiration for the monastery Danni finds.

Typical Maltese coastline with Gozo in the distance

Sacred Wells

We wandered through the village towards the Abbey ruins and pushed open an iron gate to take another path; through the cemetery, past the gravestones. Here, down a cobbled track, in a dell surrounded by a grove of lime trees, was the sacred well.

Springs and wells have been revered by people for thousands of years and standing here in the Easter sunshine surrounded by birdsong and daffodils and listening to the tranquil sounds of the running water pouring out from the Earth, I knew I was standing somewhere special. For this is St Augustine’s Well in Cerne Abbas. It was once part of the Abbey and previously had a shine built on top of it, but that has been stripped away and all that remains now are the stone channels through which the water flows.

One strange thing about this well are the ribbons which festoon the surrounding trees. I am aware that in some places people dip rags into healing waters and then tie them to nearby trees as healing prayers. Indeed, this well does come with its own batch of folklore attesting to the healing properties of these waters, but I’m not aware of this being a local tradition, and many are ribbons rather than rags.

And so I’m curious. Why do people do this? Is it a healing ritual, are people tying their prayers to the trees, or is it simply a memento of their visit, a bit like graffiti? There are also a fair few ribbons tied to the trees around the abbey ruins, and that makes me think that it might be the latter.

(A bit more information about this well can be found on the Dark Dorset Website.)

The Ghosts of Forgotten Roads

There’s something fascinating about ancient forgotten roads. They crisscross our countryside. So often we pass along them and do not see them for what they really are.

This looks like any other path through the forest but if you take notice you’ll see it is so much more – the width - the ditches to either side – the way it is ever so slightly raised above the surrounding heath. And then of course, its straightness – the final clue that betrays its true origin – a Roman Road.

For the best part of two thousand years people have trodden this path. First the Roman legions heading west, seeking out Cornish tin. Now the only people I meet are hikers and dog walkers. But we all tread the same road.

They say, if you come here late on a summer’s eve, as the shadows lengthen and the nightjars start to call, that Roman legionnaires have been seen marching through the dusk, the sound of Roman footsteps, the clank of armour and weapons.

Do all those people who once walked this road walk here still?

Only the forest knows.

People of the Green Mounds

We raced to the top of the hill – to be the first to stand on top of the fairy mounds.

They say that if you listen carefully on a calm summer’s evening you can hear the fairy music playing.

They also say that should you fall asleep on the mounds the fairly folk will steal you away and you will never be able to return to your own world.

But we know it’s a tumulus – one of the many Iron Age burial mounds that line the hills in this region; the last resting place of someone who once lived and roamed this land – but is now forgotten.

Yet they were deemed worthy of a memorial to last millennia. And I can’t help wondering who they were.

This is what fascinates me about lost civilisations – a handful of artefacts and the rest is guesswork. And for a civilisation like that of the ancient Celts who had no writing but an oral tradition instead – when they were gone their words were lost.

What other civilisations have come and gone without our knowing?

The Once and Future Island

I stood, looking up at Glastonbury Tor from the Somerset levels. This flat coastal plain has been drained since the Middle Ages – a patchwork of water meadows and drainage canals, which, before, was a fenland landscape of reed swamp and willow.

Glastonbury itself has been inhabited since the iron age, and the tor is believed by many to be the Isle of Avalon of Arthurian legend, rising from the wetlands in the days before the fenlands were drained.

But being so low lying these meadows are vulnerable to flood. The whole region is only slightly above sea level and, in the past, frequently flooded during high tides. Sea defences, built in the early 20th Century have stopped these floods – but for how long? How much will the sea level have to rise before these defences are breached? I fear it may not need much.

3000 people drowned during the flood of January 1607. Farmland was destroyed and livestock swept away. In the world of Red Rock this whole region would be under several metres of water, and Glastonbury Tor would once more be an island.

The Greenland Vikings

We think of Greenland as an inhospitable place – a land of ice and rock. The only inhabitants are the Inuit (their lifestyle finely tuned to their environment), men who plunder the land for valuable resources such as rare minerals, and explorers and scientists braving those icy wastes for the greater good.

But once there were settlements and farms. And these settlers were Vikings.

Greenland was discovered by Eric the Red back in the 10th century. He named the place Greenland to make it sound lush and encouraged his countrymen to move there and settle. There were a number of settlements, all located in the South.

It seems strange now, to think that anyone could survive there, let alone make a living from farming. But this was a time when the climate was warmer than it is now. This was known as the Medieval Warm Period. In Britain vines flourished, and here in Greenland farming was feasible. The settlements thrived and the population grew to 3,000 - 5,000 people.

But it was not to last.

The Medieval Warm Period gave way to the Little Ice Age. In Britain the Thames froze solid. Here in Greenland the crops failed and the trade routes were cut off by ice. In the 14th century the colony went into decline. The last written record is a wedding solemnised in 1408, but after that – nothing.

And so the Greenland Vikings became victims of climate change.

On Top of the World

This is an ancient landscape and if you look you will see the traces of past civilisations – from the tumuli that form grassy mounds along the skyline, to the roman roads that run straight and true and, often, are still used to day.

 

 

For a long time the flat topped hill you can see in the picture, Pilsdon Pen, was throught to be the highest point in Dorset. But a few years ago it was re-measured and its neighbour, Lewesdon hill, was found to be a couple of metres higher. It is from this second hill that the picture was taken.

But both are part of the ancient landscape of which I speak, for both were Iron Age settlements. This was an area on the border between two of the tribes of that ancient world, the Durotriges to the East and the Dumnonii to the West. What ancient battles did these ramparts see? What lives were lives out on these hills?

The fortifications are better defined on Pilsdon Pen, rampart and ditch, and I stood, on one of the few sunny days this winter, staring out at a landscape that stretched below me.  I thought of the people who stood here over millennia past, and looked at this same view, as the landscape changed from forest the field. Did they stand here and watch as the Romans came? Are they watching now?