South Coast: A Shaman's Tale from The Golden Age of the Solar Clipper.
South Coast is set on the planet St. Cloud. In orbit above the planet is the St. Cloud Orbital station which serves as a stop between star systems and a point of distribution for the two products produced on the planet. Those include seafood and various agrarian products.
Everyone living on the planet is either an employee of a large corporation that owns the planet, or are family members of employees. This is an arrangement that works well. Children of employees are either expected to secure employment with the corporation when they come of age, or are required to leave to seek their fortunes elsewhere.
The exception to the rule are the Shamans. Shamans are men who act as the spiritual center of a village. People come to them with their problems, and they seek people to help where needed. They also possess a certain magic described as the “gift.” Mostly what Shamans do is listen. They listen to the world and seem to have the ability to feel changing conditions in weather, fishing conditions, and other factors in flux. That, however, is not all they do.
Shamans carve whelkies; small animals made from driftwood with bits of shell embedded in them as a heart. Whelkies are not a product for sale on St. Cloud, and people don’t choose their whelkies, the carvings choose the people that need them. Part of a shaman’s gift is to make sure that a person receives the correct whelkie, which becomes a sort of spirit animal or a focal point to help a person make wise decisions.
The overall theme for South Coast is family and relationships. The story follows two families; a young teenager named Otto and his mother and dad, and Jimmy Pirano. Pirano is the planet supervisor for the fishing industry on St. Cloud.
Young Otto Krugg lives in the shadow of his father, Richard, the Shaman for the fishing village he lives in. As with many young teens, Otto is not sure what he will do with his life. You see, “the son of a shaman is the shaman.” Since Otto is Richard’s only son, it is his destiny to become a shaman, at least as far as Richard is concerned. Otto’s mother, Rachel, is a market analyst and knows Otto has other ambitions. He dreams of being a fisherman on one of the many boats that leave the harbor every day. This conflict causes Otto a lot of anxiety as he wanders the beach with his father, looking for driftwood to carve into whelkies. He doesn’t understand how being a shaman works. Rachel is an understanding parent and finds a way to let Otto have at least a bit of his dream of being a fisherman.
Jimmy Pirano takes care of the fishing industry on St. Cloud. He likes what he is doing and takes care of his people, the thousands of those running fishing trawlers and working in the related processing plants along the coast. St. Cloud manages to supply seafood to a large quadrant around St. Cloud. Everything is going along smoothly until word comes from the company’s board that the planet’s quota of production is to be raised. When Jimmy and his accountant learn the amount of the quota increase, they deem it impossible and speculate what motive the board has in mind.
The CEO of the company confronts Jimmy, helping to realize he needs to do some innovative, outside-the-box thinking to meet the challenge.
As always with Stories by Nathan Lowell, the strong point is the characters and how they pop off the pages to become real people a reader can care about. His narrative gives a backdrop for the characters to play in that is colorful and believable. One can almost smell the sea while reading.
Within the families, there is tension a reader can feel and will find themselves rooting for their success.
While South Coast seems more like a tale of the sea, it is set on a planet with a huge space station in orbit around it serving merchants who travel back and forth to other stations in the galaxy. It is very low-tech science fiction. If you’re looking for space battles, or aliens attacking, or post-apocalyptic tropes, they are not in this story. However, if you are looking for a break from the usual fare and would just like to read a good solid story with excellent characters, this is one for you.
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| Nathan Lowell |
There is a sequel to South Coast called Cape Grace. I have also read that one and will write about it later when I have a chance to re-read it.
In the meantime, pick up a copy of South Coast and dive in. You won’t be sorry.
Well, there it is...
Qapla!
