| In
a world ravaged by a disease epidemic and in the solid grip of a mini
Ice Age, civilization is atrophied down to a few enclaves of power and
survival.
As people migrated up into Death Valley to find a warmer climate, the Government of North America (GNA) began recruiting and army and building a fence. By the third year, the freeze was permanent in all but the lowest elevations. There were nearly two and a half million people trying to get into the Western Simulate. The GNA took the strongest and drove the rest back down to the old city of Bakersfield. The line was drawn and the Barrier War began. Hidden far to the north, under the permanent ice, the HPRC (Human Procreation Research Center) produced the first children from the genetically engineered Animal Mothers called Nasurwo Tears of the Willow is the story of Bluesky and Adam, created out of desperate scientific experiments in a hidden northern stronghold to continue a dying human race. The "First Borns" carry the seed for healthy, natural procreation plus the spiritual insight and mental powers to lift mankind to a higher level. The creators of these hybrid children would sterilize and destroy their abilities, seeing the maturing teenagers as a threat to their powerful hold over all of their closed enclave known as the Western Simulate. Billy, the youngest Tech at HPRC, like most of the others has no idea about the outside world and especially that the ice has begun thawing until he stumbles onto some dangerous information and helps Marble, the young woman responsible for the care of the First Borns. With the help of Katherine Brunswick, a member of the ruling council, Billy escapes the HPRC with Marble, Adam, Bluesky and the teenager's two Animal Mothers who are now pregnant with two more unsterilized embryos. They make their way through underground tunnels and caves and finally aboard a government lifter that flies them to a tenuous freedom into a primitive and dangerous world. The man, Swardkin, halfway down the slope, turned to Billy, arms holding Adam tightly. He has a good head taller than any of the others, his voice penetrating and contemptuous. "You burned-seed fool! To lose a boy child in this world is the highest crime of all. Be assured, I will never let him out of my sight!" He turned and ran lightly down the slope to the waiting boat. The story ranges from the glittering pomp of the Western Simulate to the rat-infested holes in the ground of the hidden Deform camps; from the heroic citizens of Duboice surviving against all odds in the wilderness to the Sanctuary called Brights where Barton bitterly opposes Bluesky and her younger siblings as they become a part of the Tears of the Willow. Copyright © 1999 by Gale Peterson |