Ripple - A Dolphin Love Story [Kindle Edition]

Tui Allen (Author)

Book Description

Ripple is the twenty million year old story of how one dolphin was inspired by love to an intellectual achievement that changed the universe.

Ripple is Visionary and Metaphysical Fiction and also belongs firmly in the mind/body/spirit genre.

The print version of this unique New Zealand book was selected by the NZ Society of Authors to represent it at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2012, NZ's year as "Country of Honour" at the fair. Ripple is already attracting critical acclaim from reviewers around the world and is often favourably compared to Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

Ripple - the story taking the world by storm.

Now contracted for translation and traditional print publication in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Product Details

• File Size: 437 KB
• Print Length: 211 pages
• Publisher: Tuiscope; 1 edition (September 19, 2011)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B005O8J5YA
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Not Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #307,971 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Simply Astounding January 13, 2012

By Jonathan B

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

Before I begin this review, I should point out that while my doctoral dissertation concerned dolphin mortality, and while I might find the dolphin's dual brain or two pods' cooperation with fishermen in Brazil and Mauritania fascinating, other than perhaps orca art, I don't have any great affinity nor enamor with any species of dolphin. Furthermore, I am not a great fan of anthropomorphization. So before I even picked up Ripple, I had already two strikes against it. But pick it up I did, and Ripple is, well, fantastic!

Ripple is the story of a prehistoric dolphin of the same name, roaming the primeval seas. Infused while still in the womb with a tired, worn-out spirit by an interfering deity, she is somewhat of an outcast, driven to find her place in the world, to discover the secret which gives her purpose in life. Ripple interacts with others of her pod, learning and growing in a world beset by predatory sharks, bad weather, and an evil, ravenous cephalopod. But there is also the joy of family, of belonging, of birth, and surfing.

Reading the short paragraph above, though, would not entice me to give the book a try. This book stands on the writing, the wordsmithing. It is a lyrical, well-crafted song, a poem in narrative.

The author has published children's fiction before, and that shows through in the clean, descriptive text. There is a little of Rabbit Hill in it, in the rhythm and pace, but I think there is more of Jonathan Livingston Seagull in concept and spirit. But with all due respect to those two books, Ripple transcends them both.

Most of the book is in the third-person subjective narrative mode from the point of view of several characters, Ripple being the primary protagonist.... But to get some more omniscient information presented, part of the story is told by a deity, who along with a junior deity who imparted the spirit into Ripple, oversees and watches her progress. By providing a narrative voice via a first person viewpoint character, the information provided seems far more real and insightful.

As I wrote above, I have no great love nor affection for dolphins. No disdain, either, but I am not a delphinophile. However, I loved these dolphins, Ripple and Cosmos, a young male dolphin, in particular. I found myself actually getting stressed, my pulse rate climbing when Ripple was having problems getting her point across to the other dolphins. I was agitatedly asking myself how could they not understand her. I wanted to somehow will myself into the pages and make them see, make them understand. Needless to say, this was a pretty strong reaction for a middle-aged guy lying in bed with his Kindle, reading a book about a fictitious character. That the author was able to arouse my emotions like that is a testament to her skill.

The author has a vivid imagination. Dancing within the primary plot are fun, interesting, and engrossing threads which are being woven into a beautiful tapestry. While this is a fantasy, there is still enough biology to keep it running true. Dolphins ram sharks with their rostrums, they eat small squid, they surf waves for the seeming enjoyment of it, they rush to the surface to breath at the moment of birth, and they lift injured or sick dolphins to the surface so they can breathe. The dolphins in the story are in fact dolphins, not just people in dolphin skins.

I hate to sound too enthusiastic in praise in my reviews, but in this case, Ripple deserves all accolades. It is one of the best books I have read in a long, long time, and it may have vaulted into my all-time Top Ten list. If anyone gives the slightest value to my opinions, I ask you to take this book and absorb it, treasure it, make it part of you. And if any editor for a publishing house happens to pass by my little review, for goodness sake, grab this and get it out on the wider market. This book deserves a huge readership.

I read a lot, and I enjoy the written word. I almost didn't download Ripple, but I thank my lucky stars that I did. Thank you, Tui Allen. Read more ›

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars You've never read a better book! November 24, 2011

By Louis Tyrrell

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is the most original book I have ever read! Tui Allen is a genius. The story is thrilling, the setting amazing, the reading almost a religious experience. Here is a book that denies classification. Is it young adult, is it fantasy, sci-fi, time travel, romance, biography or all of the above? The answer is yes, it's everything. Enthralling, you're captured in a unbelievable world so wonderfully brought to life by the author's brilliance. Ripple's birth, Ripple's adventures, accomplishments, romance and near death experiences keep the pages turning or the Kindle page button smoking. You're caught in a story losing track of everything around you. You're deep in the dark sea escaping killer octopuses, you're flying into the sky dazzled in golden sunlight. You're trapped in a winter with dwindling food. You're in ancient waters surrounded by thousands of dolphins whose thought transmissions fill the air with ideas. You meet Rigal, Ripple's brilliant father is an astronaut, Pearl, Ripple's mother is the epitome of what mothers should be. Get lost in this wonder of reads and earn the reward of a brilliant conclusion that puts dolphins in your life forever.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Fiction of the Great Import, an "Everyone Should Read". November 28, 2011

By Mr. Richard Lw Bunning

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

Tui Allen's book "Ripple" should be as important to new generations as Rachel Carson's book "Silent Spring" was to mine. Carson's grew out of a life time of interest in Marine Biology. We now understand on a scientific level that by destroying our environment we are diminishing ourselves. Allen's book is a seminal work that takes us to the next level, more than most other work has done in the 50 years since. Allen can do for our metaphysical spirit what Carson did for our intellectual comprehension. Carson wrote of the nuts and bolts of environmental structure, and Allan of the essence of life itself.
But isn't this book just a short sentimental journey, flowing from Allan's clever perception of what cetacean life might actually embrace, namely, a sentient consciousness to rival our own.
Yes, and yet it is so much more.
This is a timely reminder, though we don't lack them in number but only of this quality, of what we are doing to the waters of this azure planet.
Can we heed this story as any more than a brief sentimental journey, as our brief tears over the likes of Joy Adamson's "Born Free"? Probably not! However, I insist we should. Allen's Ripple needs to be on our reading lists and perhaps it could even be some sort of film. Time will tell. Many reviews by far more influential critics than I will have to appear first, but this book is every bit good enough to join the common vernacular of our savage modern tribe, if the brush of fame can just be applied.
Who is to say whether "Ripple" will be simply another "science fiction drama" that touches a few lucky readers, or one that grows to touch our common consciousness, our understanding of ourselves? All I can do is send this weak bleat into the ether, without any hope of where it might fall.... I hope that this sentimental delight doesn't prove to be a visionary documentary drama foretelling of the final extinction of sea mammals, sometime between 2207 and 2217 Anno Domini.
I hope the book's cover doesn't confine it to the young adult, and mostly female, shelves. It will sell well from them, but it is so much larger than this market. This is a book for every one of us who has a thread that still ties them to concern for the wellbeing of life, and not just a rope connecting them with the selfish survival of man. Unlike the other books mentioned here, this is certainly fiction, but not mere fiction, not mere, not for one fleeting second. Read more ›

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A remarkable book. Loved it! September 26, 2011

By Jason Matthews

Format:Kindle Edition

I had the pleasure of reading this book before it was published, and I urged the author to get it on Kindle. It's a rare treat and has stayed with me long afterward. This book is true art and a marvel at how the author came up with the ideas, taking the reader into so many foreign worlds: the lives of dolphins, of universal guides, of life happening on and around this planet that our minds are completely unfamiliar with. The writing is professional and fun. All of the dolphin characters, especially Ripple and Cosmo, are such beautiful characters. As the story unfolds it feels like the reader is in the ocean and a part of their world, which in my opinion is the essence of great fiction.
Bravo, Tui Allen.

More About the Author

Tui Allen (full info at www.tuiscope.co.nz) was born in 1952 in Te Awamutu, an inland town in the Waikato region of New Zealand. At age six catastrophe transformed her family. After a year of turmoil, she spent the rest of her childhood growing up in a large his/hers/theirs family of "typical Auckland yachties."

Her first marital home was a small classic sailing boat in which she sailed the South Pacific. There she came face to face with the cetaceans who influenced her life.

Approaching her fifties she felt the pull of home and returned to the Waikato to live in the countryside near the town of her birth, the perfect environment for the cycling she now enjoys.

She has worked at motherhood, teaching, web design and writing and has published children's picture books, poetry and stories as well as many web sites. Ripple was her first novel.