Turbulence In Gannah -- Review of Yvonne Anderson's "Words In The Wind"

NEW SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY REVIEWS

Reviews Of Recently Published Science Fiction And Fantasy Books

Reviewer: Forrest Schultz schultz_forrest@yahoo.com 770-583-3258

Blog Address: http://newsciencefictionandfantasyreviews.blogspot.com

Turbulence In Gannah

August 4, 2012

A review of

Yvonne Anderson Words In The Wind (Risen Books, 2012)

298 pp $16.99 ISBN-10: 193683510X ISBN-13: 978-1936835102

Reviewer: Forrest Schultz

The fragility of the effort to re-establish civilization on the planet Gannah becomes apparent when the social fabric begins to unravel during the prolonged absence of Gannah's leader, Dassa, which was caused by her being marooned in a distant wilderness when her landing craft crashed there in a blizzard. The story which unfolds is especially interesting due to the distinctive features of Gannah. The most intriguing of these distinctives (for me) is the "meah", an organ in the Gannahan brain which enables communication by mental telepathy with other people, with animals, and with God. The meah is an especially important factor in the story here.

At the meeting of our local writers group this morning one of the speakers, a fantasy author, discussed the importantce of carefully crafting the story's milieu, a literary skill which is now being referred to as "world building", a term which is particularly appropriate for a science fiction or fantasy writer. Yvonne Anderson's world building ability is seen more clearly in this book than her first one, whose portrayal of Gannah was essentially a preview. Lots of details are added in the second book, so that the world building factor is a prominent feature of the story. And there are hints in this book that more will be forthcoming in the future books in the Gannah series, which I look forward to reading. I highly recommend this book not only as a good read but also for those authors wishing to see and study a good example at world building in science fiction.

Information on the author is available at http://www.yswords.com/ and http://www.risenfiction.com/.