This next one was written 11 Feb 2008. It is clear that these pieces of writing are not just book reviews, but book reviews with additions: the whirlpool of thoughts in my mind.

Changelings and a sentient planet

Changelings by Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Scarborough

A few days ago I finished a novel by Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough. It is called Changelings. It takes the reader back to the world of Petaybee which was introduced in a novel Powers That Be, and continued in Power Lines and then in Power Play. I have them all and read them some years ago. These books introduce an interesting idea: a sentient planet which communicates with its inhabitants. It is set in a future where humans live on many different planets terraformed to suit humans who have come from the old earth with their old beliefs and customs. The changelings of the novel are twins born to a fully human and a human who becomes a seal in water. The twins have inherited this. They are different from the majority of people. So they have to be very careful in order to avoid being discovered as different from other humans, apart from a few who know and can be trusted.

This book deals with the idea of other, of something different from the norm, and how we humans deal with it. It is a sad truth that we are not very good at dealing with otherness, with too much difference. It is feared and distrusted, often ridiculed and debased and even annihilated.

The other foreign idea for us is the planet being sentient and actually communicating with its people. I think we, some anyway, accept that the planet we live on is a living thing, but we, that is at least most of us, think of it as something that we own and can do anything to or with. Imagine what it would be like if we came to really accept that our planet is a living being instead of a thing. Would it become too much of another and would we try destroy it even faster than we are doing now? Or could we perhaps learn to accept its otherness and respect it and its right to existence? Could we learn to be grateful to it for allowing us to live on it and find sustenance for our bodies and souls from it? And could we stop the destruction before it is too late? Probably one of the most benign ways we see our earth at the moment is that we are looking after this thing for our children who actually own it. Would it not be even better if we saw that all of us, whatever colour, creed, gender, sexuality etc, are a part of the huge whole living entity with the planet and the whole universe. Perhaps we all could be humbled a little by the hugeness of it all and stop our quarrels over our tiny problems and differencies. Instead we should help each other and share the bounty of our planet so that none of us would lack the necessities of life.