Alpha Centauri, by Robert Siegel. A good book, and also the only one that I have decided to review (so far) that I have not found a decent image of! Well….. let’s rephrase that, I found two, but they were extraordinarily tiny, and would not be fit to be put on this blog. It would be ridiculous, one puny image of a book cover for one review, and (by comparison) gigantic pictures of other book covers for the other reviews? I am not doing that I can assure you. But I have just realized I am not going to get to the review this way if I keep on rambling on about the various sizes of images, so let’s change that to rambling on about the book shall we?
Okay first of all, there is a girl in here called Becky. Becky is a bookworm (kind of like me), and she has gone with her father to England. They reach Canters, the farm her father’s friend Charlie owns, and Charlie apologizes for not waiting at the gate for them, he was feeding the animals. Charlie has one old white horse (Rebecca) who’s father was a cavalry horse, and he has two cows, a calf and it’s mother (how sweet!), two dogs (Riff and Raff), and two ponies, but the ponies are currently somewhere else helping children learn how to ride. Anyway, Becky is going to bed when Rebecca wakes her up and manages to get Becky to climb onto her back to ride (what Becky said was “I do believe you want me to ride you”). This ride starts out nicely enough (as nicely as it could go on the bony back of an old horse) as they go around inside the fence, then Rebecca picks up speed.
The next thing Becky knows is that she’s rocketing towards the Queen’s forest on (seemingly) the back of a runaway horse. Past the trees they go, until they encounter fog and hear screams and other noises that served to make Becky shiver. And guess what? Becky almost got shot! What by? A centaur! Luckily, another centaur had the brains to realize that Becky wasn’t one of “the Rock Movers” (as a group of humans in Britain were called by the First Ones and Centaurs). The one who almost shot her was Flimnos, the one who saved her life was Lala. But that currently has nothing to do with the review, so let’s go back to where we were shall we? Becky and Rebecca are “taken prisoner” (you might say) by the centaurs, and are led to Silver Garth, one of the three centaur villages. Of course, there used to be more but the Rock Movers largely destroyed most of them, and their ancestors, Kalendos (a first one) and the Thing That Is Not are responsible for driving them into Britain over a neck of land that is disappearing under the waves, farther and farther over the years. Now that imagery is all very nice I’m sure but you are probably complaining you want the juicy facts (if you aren’t, then what kind of bookworm are you?! Please know that I am joking)! So let’s give you some juicy facts to stew in the pot of your head shall we? Sure we shall, so let’s go back to Silver Garth.
Becky finds that the Rock Movers might or might not be some of her ancestors, and gradually forms a bond with the centaurs. And Rebecca is almost spoiled rotten. But she’s an old horse and entitled to a little bit of pampering I guess. Becky also finds that the First Ones might have foretold her coming, through what they call The Eye of the Fog, which has led them through many different times to safety. Unfortunately though, the future doesn’t hold any safe haven anymore, seeing as they’d probably be hunted and shot (which I think of as a crying shame). So a messenger is sent to the First Ones to tell them about Becky’s arrival. Meanwhile, Becky gets to participate in their feasts and games (the games are a little awkward seeing as she isn’t a centaur, she has to mount Rebecca for them) and learn a lot more about them. And she becomes firm friends with Lala. But there is more in store for them! When the messenger returns, Becky finds she must go to the first ones alone. Cavallos (Lala’s uncle) protests and asks that some centaurs go with her for protection seeing as the Rock Movers have been more active lately. He proposed that they go with her most of the way and she could go alone on the last day.
This of course led to disaster. On their way they stopped and chased a stag (hunting, to make up for missing it back home at Silver Garth), Cavallos, Becky, and Rebecca got ahead of the others, and were caught by Rock Movers. Even though the experience wasn’t fun and Cavallos got beaten often and had to carry one log over his shoulders (his hands were tied to it) and had to drag the other (attached to one of his legs) they met a friend, a big man named Tull, who was rather simple minded. Tull liked them both a lot, and when they escaped, only to accidentally circle back and be caught again, Tull, even though he was blamed and beat up (because his comrades suspected he’d let Cavallos and Becky free), he was happy when they were caught again, saying he wanted to show them his home, and if they had gone “Tull would be sad”. And so they came to Longdreth, where Cavallos was often tortured so the Rock Movers could try and find Silver Garth, Applehame, and Rootholme (I think that was how it was spelled) and Becky was a serving girl. Luckily, we stay with Becky, the way we do for all of the story. I really don’t like to think what the Rock Movers did with Cavallos thanks to Targ, Prince Rhadas’s uncle. Prince Rhadas himself loves half-humans, and would love to get a chance to talk with them. So far, he had only talked with an old faun before it died in Targ’s dungeons. Targ is a maniac, and kills (or sends to the mines) anyone he suspects is out to kill him (he immediately classifies them “enemy”). Later though (with the prince and the serving girl Neetha’s help) they escape, they almost get caught, but it’s only Tull, and he helps them escape too. They rescue a faun on their way back to Silver Garth. But what now? What must Becky do now? Senecos takes her to this old centaur outside their village, a seer, and the seer tells her to go to the First Ones (alone this time, except for Rebecca), and that she mustn’t go into the village for a day, she must think over what he told her (he shared a vision with her). Has time run out for the centaurs this time, and will Becky make it to the First Ones in time? She only has a few days after all.
Of course, you must read this book yourself. On the back someone said that “Siegel is a bard”, and I agree. But then again, I think any person able to make a great story is a bard. Until my next review,
- LCD
