- Paperback: 320 pages
- Publisher: Red Deer Press; 1st Edition edition (Oct 28 2002)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0889952523
- ISBN-13: 978-0889952522
- Product Dimensions: 22.9 x 15.4 x 2.2 cm
- Shipping Weight: 449 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #443,341 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Product Description
Set on a distant planet, far in the future, West of January tells the story of a world in which time moves very slowly. Because it takes a lifetime for each region of the planet to experience dawn, midday and dusk, the planet's population does not remember the catastrophes that occur as the sun moves across the sky-entire civilizations have been scorched into oblivion. The only people who remember the dangers of the past are the planet's "angels"-a people who have tried to preserve past technologies to save the planet. This action-filled story of a very strange planet showcases Duncan's remarkable ability to create unique worlds.
About the Author
Originally from Scotland, Dave Duncan has lived all his adult life in Western Canada, having enjoyed a long career as a petroleum geologist before taking up writing. Since discovering that imaginary worlds are more satisfying than the real one, he has published more than thirty novels, mostly in the fantasy genre, but also young adult, science fiction, and historical. He has at times been Sarah B. Franklin (but only for literary purposes) and Ken Hood (which is short for "D'ye Ken Whodunit?").
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
highly original,
By Serendipity (Toronto) - See all my reviews
This review is from: West of January (Mass Market Paperback)
I was captivated by this book. Set on a world which revolves so slowly that everyone has to move steadily West in order to escape Dusk and Night, which is a devastating ice world, and avoiding High Summer, so hot it kills everything in its path, West of January is highly original and superbly written. Not only is the world divided into Months and Days, each a particular climate steadily moving west, but the inhabitants are very segregated, each following the same patterns every cycle, never learning from the previous one (that often ends in disaster) because they do not pass their knowledge down.Knobil is born into the savage herder race, where family groups of several women and their children belong to one dominant male, slowly making their way across the grasslands with their huge stupid beasts that must be constantly walked. With his blond hair and blue eyes, he is obviously the child of an Angel, a group of men of various races who live in Heaven, hoarding knowledge, and travel in their chariots trying to prevent disaster every cycle by getting different groups through the passes or around water to safety. When he reaches puberty he avoids his destiny - being sent out with one of his many sisters, who he may trade with a girl from another herd to start his own - by falling in with an Angel. This starts his own awakening, and his determination to reach Heaven and become an angel, something he must do alone. This goal loses its importance when he is taken in by the sea folk and starts fathering children left right and centre. When the sea begins to dry up as High Summer approaches, he looks for passage south for his adopted family but is caught by Ants. Ants, miners who use captives as slaves to mine in the temperate southern parts of the world, are brutal, and Knobil spends several years merely surviving. He is sold, because of his blond hair and blue eyes, to the traders, whose men are small and crafty and the women are huge and stupid, but doesn't find out why until it is too late. His adventures continue, but I don't want to give everything away! In the course of his journeys, Knobil examines and confronts stereotypes, elitism, and learns not only the history of people on this strange planet but also that things are transient, and changeable.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Like nothing you've read before,
By A Customer
This review is from: West of January (Mass Market Paperback)
This was my first Dave Duncan book, and I find it hard to believe the others were written by the same guy.An interesting Sci Fi concept, great profiles of cultures in a very different world, personal growth, voodoo, world conquest: this book's got it all!
4.0 out of 5 stars
Early Dave Duncan book -- quite good,
By A Customer
This review is from: West of January (Mass Market Paperback)
Like "Shadow," another of Dave Duncan's early books, this is the story of an iconoclastic hero set in the far future, in a world that doesn't work exactly the way ours does. In this world, because of the way the earth revolves and rotates, the sun moves across the sky with agonizing slowness. It takes lifetimes for a region to experience dawn, midday and dusk. From generation to generation, the people of this world forget the catastrophes that occur when the sun moves -- except for the "angels," people who have preserved the ancient knowledge and work to try and save the other people from the destruction that threatens them when the sun moves. The hero of this book, Knobil, was born among the herdsmen, a savage race where the men kill each other and exile their sons so that every man can have as many women and children as possible. Knobil, however, is the son of an angel, and his destiny soon takes him among all the other people of his world -- the beautiful but mindless seafolk, the cruel slavers, the wily traders, the terrible spinsters whose secret he discovers nearly too late.
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