People of the Sky - Hardcover

Bell, Clare

3.8

66 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 031293131X ISBN 13: 9780312931315

Publisher: Tor Books, 1989

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Old technology survives and even thrives on the challenges of a new planet populated by ancient human spirits. Kesbe Temiya, a freelance flyer, accepts a commission to deliver an ancient-but-restored C-47 (a Gooney Bird in 20th Century parlance, named The Gooney Berg by its new owner) to a collector of rare aircraft on the planet Oneway. Dropped off by a starship, Temiya gets side-tracked by bad weather, rescued by a mysterious figure riding an alien flying creature and stranded in a long-vanished Pueblo Indian colony which follows the prophecy of the Blue Star Kachina and lives the old ways, isolated from technology and away from the white man. Despite her own Pueblo blood, Kesbe is an outsider and only by adopting the ways of the People of the Sky, including a ritual that may turn her, too, into a throwback and could even kill her, can she find the help she needs to fulfill her mission-and find the life that is right for her.

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From Publishers Weekly:

Bell has written several YA novels, including Ratha's Creature , an ALA Best Book. This futuristic novel is an intriguing blend of adult material and YA tone. Kesbe Temiya grew up on 23rd-century Earth, 220 years after most of her Pueblo Indian ancestors left Earth in order to preserve their traditions. While flying an old C-47, dubbed Gooney Bird , to its new owner on the planet Oneway, Kesbe goes down in a storm, and is rescued by Imiya, who says he is a member of a tribe called the People of the Sky, and who flies on an insect-like creature called an aronan. Kesbe realizes that Imiya is a descendant of her own long-lost tribe, who secretly settled here and abandoned their technology. What she learns about their symbiotic relationship to the aronans, and her own mixed heritage, is interwoven with Imiya's fears of his coming-of-age ritual. Bell creates a believable cultural blend of Indian and alien.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

When her antique plane crash lands on the surface of the planet Oneway, Kesbe Temiya encounters a lost colony of Hopi Indians whose sacred rites hold not only the key to her rescue but also reveal the secret of the tribe's successful acclimatization. Steeped in Native American myth and legend, this graceful novel by the author of Ratha's Creature explores issues of human sexuality and cultural evolution with acute sensitivity. Recommended for sf collections.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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