The Drune
Jane Palmer
ISBN 1-874082-27-8
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"How do we know it's real? I sometimes get the feeling that the molecules in our minds are conspiring against us."
(Walton Clarke, pp. 8-9)
I suppose I should say, right at the outset, that I've loved Jane Palmer's books since I first read The Planet Dweller, back in 1986. Somehow managing to combine the riotously funny with a dry and piquant view of things that should be quite ordinary (but aren't, in Jane's hands!), the stories can be read on at least two levels. They're ideal to read when you need something a little different to give your chuckle quotient a boost: closer attention reveals wry social commentary delivered with a unique female slant. My only complaint is that they just aren't long enough!
The Drune is no exception. Jane's human characters are perfectly ordinary people. Well, kind of ordinary. Well, ordinary liberally spiced with eccentricity... Come in and meet Akaylia Jackson, radical geologist and poet extraordinaire, Walton Clarke ("I'm an astronomer, not a Witch-Finder General."), Uncle Arthur and his UFOs, and Poppy and Bryony the art students. Then there are the decidedly extraordinary characters - the Ossiane, Pyg, Rabette, articulate statuary, post wasps and errand moles. And as for the eponymous Drune... yumm!
And the story itself is the most remarkable blend of sci-fi, fantasy, the self-defeating effects of bigotry, power, control, love, self-sacrifice - and the ending is simply perfect. Reading this book is like taking a careering, perception-altering voyage of discovery into an entirely new (and slightly disconcerting) world. Jane has the rare ability to write the completely impossible and make it perfectly believable. Highly recommended!
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