5/17/10

Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure

Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure Review



I came to Duane Simolke's sci-fi novel, DEGRANON, after first having sampled the author's short stories, as included in THE ACORN GATHERING, Writers Uniting Against Cancer.

DEGRANON is sci-fi that warrants the attention of any serious aficionado, gay or straight, fascinated by alien worlds that mirror our own world -- complete with mind-bending drugs, political machinations, rigid class structures and struggles, cults, small-mindedness, corruption at all levels, loves, hates, aspirations, frustrations -- even bigotry; the planet Valchondria has mainly color-blind societies, long-eliminated prejudices arising from different colored skins having merely evolved into repression of the color-sighted minority by the majority who only see in black and white.

Admitteldy not a breeze-through novel, with its time-travel elements that take the plot from past to present to future to present to past, and its comments upon societal mores and relationships -- experienced through the complications of time travel -- it's nonetheless worth the effort for those who don't mind "food for thought" served up with the dessert of sheer good reading.

NOTE: For those who might prefer an experimental dose of Simolke, before taking on this, his 197-page sci-fi opus, try his and his fellow authors' "shorts" in his non-sci-fi THE ACORN GATHERING which -- all author and editor royalties donated to the American Cancer Soceity -- provides the dual rewards of good reading and benefiting a good cause.




Degranon: A Science Fiction Adventure Overview


The scientist Taldra is one of the few people on the planet Valchondria who can see in color, but a police force called "the Maintainers" won’t let colorsighted people reveal their ability to the public. Duane Simolke explores that "closet" metaphor more in this revised edition of Degranon; he also recreates three of the major characters as gay men. Taldra’s family becomes entangled with a violent religious fanatic from a war-torn planet called "Degranon." The first edition of Degranon received a StoneWall Society Pride in the Arts Award, and Simolke’s publisher, iUniverse, named Degranon one of their Editor’s Choice books.


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