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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Enjoyable Fantasy of Indians Riding Dinosaurs,
By
This review is from: The Year the Cloud Fell (Roc Book) (Paperback)
The Year the Cloud Fell is the first novel in the Fallen Cloud fantasy series. It is an alternate timeline story in which the Nebraska Sea never fully retreated over the past 65 million years. This allowed dinosaurs of all kinds to acclimate to the changing conditions until modern times. Furthermore, some of these dinosaurs were tamed by the natives and used as riding animals.
In this novel, George Armstrong Custer, Junior, is the son of the US President, a Captain in the US Army Engineers, and the commander of the experimental dirigible Abraham Lincoln. On its maiden flight, the dirigible is caught by a thunderstorm while flying over the Unorganized Territory and forced down. There George is nursed by Speaks While Leaving, a Cheyenne woman who has true visions, and then captured by a patrol led by Storm Arriving. George is offered the name One Who Flies and is taken back to the encampment, where he is exposed to Cheyenne ways. He tries to escape, but runs into a patrol, falls off his mount, and lands on his own knife. As he recovers, he makes friends among the Cheyenne, Storm Arriving and Speaks While Leaving among others, but one of his closest is Laughs Like A Woman, a Contrary, a subject of the Thunder Beings wrath and scrutiny. Eventually, George begins to see the errors in the white man's view of the Cheyenne and to regret the hurts done to them. To stop the killing, he joins with his new friends to ride coup on the chief of the Horse People, his father. This novel is billed as science fiction, but is really a fantasy. First, it explicitly involves direct intervention and contact with the Thunder Beings of Cheyenne legends. Second, it concerns a history that is basically unchanged until the United States collides with the Cheyenne, despite the major geological deviance of the Nebraska Sea; just the effects on world wide weather over 65 million years should be enough to change the course of European history, much less the direct effects upon the Spanish, French and English explorers. The chances of George Armstrong Custer fighting in a Civil War in the United States of America while North America still has such a geological feature, and dinosaurs as well, is extremely small. Maybe about as small as all the air around someone's head withdrawing to leave a vacuum; possible but not very likely. This novel probably should be classified as a native fantasy. However, with sufficient suspension of disbelief, this misclassification does not detract from the quality of writing, for the plot is interesting and the characterization is very well done. Overall, it is a pleasure to read. Recommended to anyone who enjoys adventure and exotic cultures in a fantasy setting. -Arthur W. Jordin
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Alternate history,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Year the Cloud Fell (Roc Book) (Paperback)
The Year the Cloud Fell by Kurt R. A. Giambastiani is a rather ingenious alternate history novel set in an America that never was. It is 1886 and George Armstrong Custer, the President of the United States, sends his son on a perilous mission into the Cheyenne territories. George Junior flies off in an experimental airship. An inopportune thunderstorm wrecks the ship and George Junior is captured by the Cheyenne, who see this as a heaven sent opportunity to negotiate from a position of strength. However a wise woman of the nation is not convinced that all is as it seems. She believes that the prisoner has been sent by the Thunder Beings in the sky and that a crisis much deeper and more profound than a simple war with the white men is looming.So far so straight forward and apart from the mention of an airship this might be almost any penny dreadful western novel. What raises it above the ordinary, however, is the sheer audacity of Giambastiani's vision. In this alternate America the war between the Indian and the white men has dragged on in a never ending stalemate. Neither side can defeat the other for they are both quite evenly matched. The dinosaurs never died out in North America and they occupy the same ecological niche that horses occupy in Europe. Since time immemorial the Cheyenne have tamed and ridden the great lizards. This gives them an advantage in warfare - they are mounted and agile and skilled in the arts of fighting. The lizards make them more than a match for the white man's cavalry. The war drags on endlessly and the Cheyenne occupy vast tracts of land and effectively prevent the expansion of the white men into the west of the country. Something has to give, and now in 1886 the crisis is at hand. It's a rousing tale, rousingly told.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Dancing With...Dinosaurs?,
By
This review is from: The Year the Cloud Fell (Roc Book) (Paperback)
Combining "Dances With Wolves", Harry Harrison's "Eden" series and a heaping helping of Harry Turtledove, Giambastiani has concocted a mostly satisfying, fast-paced tale. The amount of research that went into this was obviously prodigous as far as Native American culture goes and the Old West atmosphere rang true. The sequel is on my desk now and I look forward to contnuing the adventure.On the downside, contrary to one of the critical reviews, the Myth Of The Noble Savage is on full display here. Perhaps it was unavoidable since the story revolves around Native American culture but it would have been nice to have seen the author employ less of a politically correct angle and opt instead for a more textured, even-handed approach. Not that the Native Americans didn't get screwed. They did and royally so, but not every Indian was noble and not every white was a bigoted devil. Let's face it, people are people. Long before any European set foot on this continent the residents warred with, slaughtered and enslaved each other without reservations. They also managed to exterminate an entire Megafauna (Mammoths, Mastodons, Ground Sloths, etc..). Humanity has generally refused to learn from the mistakes of the past regardless of race, religion or creed. OK....off the soapbox and back to the book.... As a dino lover I would have liked to have seen evidence of a level of research on dinos equal to the rest of the research evident in the book. They are such fascinating creatures and they could have been put to better use here. They essentially inhabit this story in the same manner that horses do in conventional westerns. Still, it was a kick to see them ride hadrosaurs (derived Parasaurolophus descendents?) and therapods into Washington even if their successful march through settled territory was rather implausible. All in all, though, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. A promising debut by an obviously gifted and passionate writer. Recommended!
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