Ganwold's Child

A book review.

Ganwold's Child

by Diann Thornley

published: 1995.09.01

ISBN: 0812550951

genre: Sci-Fi

reviewed:2001.12.20

Ganwold's Child is sci-fi, set in a interstellar milieu with no evident links to Earth. It's about a boy who - while still a toddler - crash lands on an Earth-like world with his mother. The boy and his mum are discovered by the native species - a race of bipedal carnivores - and are taken into the natives' culture. We know that the ship they escaped from was under attack by enemies or pirates or someone, and that the mother purposefully damaged the escape pod so that it couldn't be traced.

Years pass. The lad has grown into a teenager, who hunts with his alien family and knows next to nothing about human society (other than to read, and the fact that his father is a pilot of space ships). When his mother falls ill, he heads off with his hunting partner to go find the father and bring back some medicine.

However, it turns out that the planet they're on is under the control of the boy's father's worst enemy. An evil duke (or whatever) rules the local inhabited planet, and when he discovers the boy, all kinds of evil schemes come to the tyrant's mind. The rest of the book is about the family history and intrigue and the problems the boy faces in finding his father and saving his mother.

I couldn't get into the plot, but I was very impressed with the author's seeming knowledge of things military and medical. The authentic feel of much of the story's plot and setting was quite interesting.