Far-Seer: Book One of the Quintaglio Ascension ANNOTATION
Afsan, a young saurian, learns much about the heavens while apprenticed to the court astrologer. But he is ostracized when he contradicts the saurian religious belief that the great glowing body which fills the sky each night is a divinity. An intriguing story set in a world where the age of dinosaurs never ended. Original.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
The Face of God is what every young saurian learns to call the immense, glowing object which fills the night sky on the far side of the world. Young Afsan is privileged, called to the distant Capital City to apprentice with Saleed the court astrologer. Buth when the time comes for Afsan to make his coming-of-age pilgrimage, to gaze upon the Face of God, his world is changed forever- for what he sees will test his faith... and may save his world from disaster!
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Sawyer ( Golden Fleece ) postulates a world (not the earth) in which dinosaurs, called Quintaglios, have evolved to humanlike levels of civilization--cities, formal government and religion. While on a sea pilgrimage to a heavenly body known as the Face of God, Afsan, a prodigy and apprentice to the court astrologer, makes some astounding discoveries with a ``far-seer'' (i.e., telescope). He realizes that the stars and planets and moons are at varying distances from his world; that the world is round; that the planets revolve around the sun; that their planet is also a moon that will crash into the planet it revolves around and that they must build flying machines to save themselves. Unfortunately, the planet they revolve around is the Face of God, and Afsan's discoveries go against the Quintaglios' religion, though some see him as a messiahlike prophet. Sawyer does a fine job presenting the physiological features of Quintaglios but is less convincing in making one young stargazer play the combined roles in Quintaglio society of Pythagoras, Magellan, Copernicus, Galileo, da Vinci and Jesus of Nazareth. Science Fiction Book Club alternate. (June)
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