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Kirinyaga: A Fable of Utopia
An ancient African culture is recreated on a modern-day utopia
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Kirinyaga: A Fable of Utopia
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By Mike Resnick
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Del Rey Books
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$25.00/$35.00 Canada
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Hardcover, March 1998
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ISBN 345-41701-1
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Review by Susan Dunman
 ong before Europeans arrived in Africa, the god Ngai ruled the universe from his golden throne on top of Kirinyaga (Mount Kenya). The Kikuyu were his people, simple village farmers who used the digging stick to plant and reap the Earth's rich harvest. But now it's 2129, and Kenya's wild Savannah has disappeared. A modern city replaces the abode of Lord Ngai, and native Kenyans are proud of their country's many accomplishments.
When a group of dissidents insist on following ancient tribal customs rather than modern ways, the government allows them to relocate to the new Kirinyaga, a transformed planetoid complete with authentic African landscape and climate. The group is led by Koriba, an elderly gentlemen educated at Cambridge and Yale, who is passionate about emulating the beliefs of his forefathers. Shunning "black Europeans," he insists that the old ways and gods must be followed.
Koriba holds the powerful position of mundumugu in Kikuyu society, a combination witch doctor, wisdom keeper and spiritual leader. He uses his power to insure that the villagers follow his dictates, thus preventing outside influences from corrupting the utopian society. In Kirinyaga there are only spears for weapons, herbal medicines for illness and no machinery whatsoever. Koriba does have a direct computer link to the outside world and can insure his predictions of rain or drought come true by requesting specific orbital changes--a handy tool for any prophet. But Koriba cannot predict people as easily as the weather, and he finds he may not be the only source of wisdom on Kirinyaga.
It's utopia, but it isn't perfect
Mike Resnick has combined 10 individual stories to create a powerful tale about a remarkable African who refuses to accept the belief that a nation's hope lies only in its future. These stories, which originally appeared in magazines and anthologies, have won awards on their own merits and have virtually given Resnick a second career as a short story writer (the 57 awards and award nominations are listed in an afterword by the author).
The main character of the novel, Koriba, tells each chapter/story with the simplicity and dignity befitting a tribal leader. Within these stories are Koriba's disappointment with his own son for not sharing his vision, the inability of outsiders to understand seemingly harsh Kikuyu customs such as infanticide or allowing the infirm to be eaten by hyenas, the difficulty of maintaining traditional laws within the tribe, and the impossibility of preventing change within the African utopia. Because Koriba likes to use parables to teach, there's the faintest hint of Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories in almost every chapter.
As each story originally stood alone, there is some repetition of facts that can be slightly tedious when reading them as a complete work. Other than this small complaint, the stories are both entertaining and thought-provoking. The narrative pulls readers in slightly different directions with each chapter, offering another image of the enigmatic Koriba and his obsession with creating his vision of what Kenya should have been. Resnick once said that he was concerned with the human heart in conflict with itself. That must be true, because Kirinyaga takes an uncompromising look at one person's heart and then lets readers make their own judgments about that heart's intentions.
Some characters you remember long after a book is finished. Koriba invites as many questions as answers, and it's well worth your time to make his acquaintance.
-- Susan
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Dinosaur Summer
Finding The Lost World a second time
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Dinosaur Summer
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By Greg Bear
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Warner Books
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$23.00/$29.95 Canada
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Hardcover, 1998
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ISBN 0-446-52098-5
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Review by Tamara I. Hladik
 eter Belzoni is a vintage 1947 kid, 15 years old, a New York City boy, although he's traveled a lot with his impresario father, Anthony. Anthony's a jack-of-all-trades, a finagler just a shade short of a con man. Usually he has nothing in his pockets but fistfuls of wanderlust, but this summer, luck is with him, and he has a chance to capture fortune and adventure, and even include Peter.
Anthony's forte, if he has just one, is cold-cocking life, knocking it hard so that it slows down long enough for him to snap a picture of it with his trusty Leica. He's parlayed this talent into an assignment with the National Geographic Society. It seems the last lot of dinosaurs from the last dinosaur circus is to be repatriated to the practically inaccessible plateau in the Amazon where Professor Challenger found his "lost world" so many years ago.
The dinosaurs were a hit when first discovered, but the public is bored with them already, and no one attends dinosaur circuses anymore. In fact, there's just one dino circus left, and it's been losing money for six years. National Geographic wants to record the end of an era, when the saurians travel back to their wilds. But the affair is not as simple as letting a bird loose from its cage. There will be all sorts of perils, and safety is not guaranteed. Physical hardships, native peoples, the local juntas, the dinosaurs themselves will all weigh in, so who's to say success is assured?
A great concept needs great storytelling
Dinosaur Summer has one of the most promising premises seen in a long while. It's a continuation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's work The Lost World, taken a few decades further in time. Additionally, as the book leans upon the preternatural appeal of dinosaurs, it's hard not to be reeled in as author Greg Bear angles for readers.
Equal to the dinosaur hook is the interweaving of the plot with notable characters. Peter meets all sorts, even unassuming folks like Willis O'Brien and Ray Harryhausen, who are also part of the repatriation effort. Others seep through the ether--C.B. De Mille, P.T. Barnum, the Geographic Society's Gilbert Grosvenor--subtly off-screen.
With all this going for it, how could Dinosaur Summer be anything but a screaming success? Well, the concept, plot and pacing are good, but, ironically, what's lacking in the whole affair is good storytelling. Bear's prose levens the tale instead of compelling it to rise to page-turning fervor. Reading Dinosaur Summer is like watching the most exciting show on Earth through a pane of thick, thick glass, and it's just too much effort.
Undoubtedly for some, the dinosaurs, Harryhausen, etc., will be so mesmerizing that the flat prose will not be a deterrent. However, there is just no getting around the fact that the novel is not the masterwork of prose that is needed to honor its inspired concepts. In the end, a story is not just an idea, but execution, and without the right sentences to serve as settings, precious gems of nouns like "Harryhausen" and "dinosaur" are diminished.
It's hard not to love the subtle touches, like the use of a name such as "Belzoni," who was actually a real-life, 1800s circus strongman turned quasi-Egyptologist and full-fledged-impresario. Belzoni is famous for discovering many tombs, and equally infamous for the way in which he entered them: breaking down the doors with an army of men and a battering ram.
-- Tamara
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