Them Bones [Hardcover]

Why Howard Waldrop isn't revered as one of America's greatest authors is something I'll never understand. I guess it just could be that the way he rewrites history is just not to everyone's taste, but I can't believe this book is "Out of Print" when so many other less worthy tomes litter the shelves and bargain boxes of our bookstores. I was lucky enough to find this in a secondhand bookshop while on a trip to Melbourne almost six years ago.

In 1929, a horse skeleton is found in a mound on a dig in the Louisiana swamp. No problem with that, you might think, but the mound pre-dated the accepted time when horses were introduced to America. However, the mound contained something even more anachronistic; the thing that killed the horse - corroded by time - a brass rifle cartridge!

This is a story of time shifting, what could have happened and what the consequences could have been. From the bombed-out, radiation drenched 21st century (this book was written in 1989), Madison Yazoo Leake, a member of the Special Group, is transported back in time in an attempt to stop the human species dying out completely. Leake thought he was entering 1930's Louisiana, but instead journeyed to a world where Arabs explored America, the Roman Empire never existed, and the Aztec empire extended to the Mississippi. And his back-up never arrived.

Although the concept of future humans backstepping in time to save the human race has been handled many times by many authors (the last one I read was Orson Scott Card's "Pastwatch"), Howard Waldrop gives it the spin only he can.

I live in an ancient country which accepted history tells us was only recently (212 years ago) settled by Europeans, but where someone thinks he's discovered ruins of a thousands-of-years old Phoenician harbour in Queensland (maybe he's a nut, who knows?), where people in Victoria are seaching for the "Mahogany Ship", supposedly the wreck of a Portuguese ship, that when documented by white settlers in the early 1800's was already more than 200 years old. Maybe they're all nuts, but the story is now almost 200 years old itself. The latest excavation in the area revealed a piece of several hundreds of years old European oak "driftwood" 12 feet under the dunes - anachronistic enough in itself to be further investigated, I would have thought.

Howard Waldrop had nothing to do with either of these stories, but they are almost worthy of him. This world is a strange place, and it gets stranger with every discovery. Who knows what could have happened, what really happened? Howard Waldrop is the very best at asking and answering these questions. That's why I love this type of speculative fiction.

Coming as I do from a culturally impacted area (the lands behind the Iron Curtain were no greenhouse for writers or publishers, I can tell you - they still aren't), I only read a few of Mr. Waldrop's stories before hitting on that book and its prequel of sorts, "The Texan-Israeli War: 1999". Pure accident, that. And while the TIW1999 was a badly aged concoction, "Them Bones" simply blew me away. The story moves fast, and moves you deep, and even if I saw some similarities between it and Silverberg's "House of Bones", the dates of publishing are unequivocal: if at all,it was Silverberg who was influenced by Waldrop.
Every tale of Waldrop's that I've read afterwards just reinforced my feelings - this is a man to watch. And it's a pity indeed there aren't as many of us watchers as the man deserves.

First Line: "There's a horse in the small mound," said Bessie.

It's 1929 and archaeologists are digging in a mound in Louisiana when they find something very exciting: the skeleton of a horse. What's so exciting about that? From the skeleton's position in the mound, it was in America a few centuries before it was supposed to be. Then the archaeologists dig a little more and find something even more curious: the cause of the horse's death--a cartridge from a rifle.

Them Bones sticks to the Moundbuilder culture of prehistoric America, but the story is told from differing viewpoints: the 1929 team of archaeologists, a scout sent back to the wrong time to prevent World War III, and the group of soldiers who followed him.

The story moves quickly--too quickly--and the chapters involving the group of soldiers tend to be downright confusing. The 1929 group of archaeologists and the scout had the most interesting stories to tell, especially Leake (the scout) who became well-acquainted with the group of Indians he found himself amongst. I've visited Cahokia, the one remaining supreme example of Moundbuilder culture. It is awe-inspiring, so I enjoyed Waldrop's choice of setting and the Indian characters Leake met.

The bones were there for a wonderful book, but they just weren't fleshed out. The setting was a winner, but the pace was too fast and the characters not fully realized. I'm glad that I read the book because it encouraged me to go online and do a bit more research on Cahokia, but Them Bones left me feeling like Oliver Twist. Please sir...couldn't I have had some more?