About the Book

This novel takes place in a fantasy country that has reached the early Industrial Age of technology and recently instituted a democratic government.

An alien space ship arrives over the planet. The ship is owned by a mining corporation and searches for exotic mineral deposits to mine and bring back to its home planet, Zaftan 31B where rare elements are extracted from the minerals and sold.

The two main characters are MACDRAKIN GEMSEEKER, a dwarf miner and LESLIE HIGGINBOTTOM, a half-dwarf, half human constable in the small town of Skensfirth where the two have a budding romance. The alien captain, YUNTA, orders her second-in-command, SHTAP, to negotiate an agreement with the president of the country, ALBERT WEBLEY, a human.  Webley agrees to allow the aliens to mine the minerals if they can find them, provided the aliens respect property rights and don’t harm folks.

Yunta faces a time limit, the ship’s supply situation dictates they start the return voyage in less than two weeks, and has no intention of slowing down the exploration and mining to protect property.  Explorations are carried out by robots who cause considerable damage to property as they follow their search programs.  MacDrakin destroys a robot when it trespasses on his land.  After a few other robots are destroyed, Shtap demands that Webley take steps to protect the expensive robots and Higginbottom gets a telegram to that effect.  Upset that she must protect the robots rather than the property, she learns that MacDrakin has destroyed yet another robot.  Despite their mutual attraction, the alien presence and the telegrams are straining their relationship.  The strain becomes acute when MacDrakin declares war on the aliens and Higginbottom gets another telegram ordering her to arrest anyone who damages or destroys a robot.  Meanwhile, Webley’s staff get reports the folks in Skensfirth are on the verge of revolt.

The robots discover two major mineral deposits.  One is on MacDrakin’s land, the other is beneath the town of Skensfirth.  On their first attempt to mine MacDrakin’s land, he and several hunter friends destroy all the robots who operate the mining machinery.  Yunta, with the deadline approaching, is outraged by the truculent natives and sends reinforcements to get the mining operation back on track.  Faced with more aliens, MacDrakin abandons his land and sets out to prevent the aliens from entering Skensfirth.  A group of retired dwarf soldiers answer his call and join him. He is also joined by several government officials sent by Webley to solve the Skensfirth problems.

In the ensuing battle, the aliens are thwarted by weather problems, mutinous crew members and the MacDrakin’s determination.  After many machines are destroyed, Shtap, the alien commander of the ground operation, calls for a truce and tells Drakin that he admits defeat and that the aliens will leave.  The aliens abandon the remaining mining machines, damaged robots, weapons, and a damaged cargo pod.  Engineers and scientists are ordered to examine these artifacts and decipher their secrets.

With the departure of the aliens, the reason for Higginbottom’s and MacDrakin’s feud disappears and they resume their romantic interest.

Review

Contact is a mixture of science fiction and fantasy – or at least when it comes to dwarves, elves, and other magical beings.

While this book isn’t long, the story is engaging and mirrors some of what we see in our world with politicians, small towns, and people in general – corruption, the hope for a better world/life, those that do not want to work or are lazy, and the search for items that will make one richer.

I appreciated the detailed descriptions of the various races – that the female dwarves also had beards and that both male and female dwarves wore ribbons in their beards, the half-pints with their coveted toe hair (with beads and all!), and the wizardry that some possessed.  This book also reminded me a little bit of Star Trek when it came to the Zaftans seeking out the world where these various races lived and wanting to explore and potentially mine the planet.  The similarity to me was that the Zaftan’s had much more advanced technology and they weren’t supposed to interfere with the planet’s level of technology, which made for some interesting twists in the book.

Two of the main characters are MacDrakin and Leslie. Both are dwarves but it was funny to me when MacDrakin thought Leslie was a male.  Very easy to mistake as they both have beards and the name could be male or female. Plus Leslie is the constable in their village and he finds most of the dwarf women to be unacceptable in his book.  He is quite intrigued once he does come to realize that Leslie is a female dwarf and a potential mate…could there be a match in the works?

I had to shake my head at Webley, an ineffective leader as he did not like to make decisions plus he had a nap each afternoon that could not be interrupted.  His right hand, Rodrigs, seemed to make a lot of decisions for Webley with the assistance of Boudreau, the Treasurer for the government.  Do these two have more in mind for the future of their world with its current regime or do they have their own motives?

This is the first book in a series of 7 and the ending will want you racing off to start the next book.  Since these are shorter books, they do not take a lot of time to read but are very satisfying.

We give this 5 paws up.

About the Author

Hank Quense writes satirical fantasy and sci-fi. Early in his writing career, he was strongly influenced by two authors: Douglas Adams and his Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and Joesph Heller’s Catch-22. Happily, Hank has never quite recovered from those experiences.

He lives with his wife in northern New Jersey, a mere 20 miles from Manhattan, the center of the galaxy (according to those who live in Manhattan). They have two daughters and five grandchildren all of whom live nearby.

For vacations, Hank and Pat usually visit distant parts of the galaxy.  Occasionally, they also time-travel.

Besides writing novels, Hank lectures on fiction writing, publishing and book marketing. He is most proud of his talk showing grammar school kids how to create a short story. He used these lectures to create an advanced ebook with embedded videos to coach the students on how to create characters, plots, and setting.  The target audience is 4th to 7th graders.  The book’s title is Fiction Writing Workshop for Kids.

Facebook * Twitter * LinkedIn * YouTube Channel