Redheads: A Comic Eco-Thriller Set in Borneo - Softcover

Sochaczewski, Paul Spencer

2.4 out of 5 stars

10 ratings by Goodreads

9782940573189: Redheads: A Comic Eco-Thriller Set in Borneo

Softcover

ISBN 10: 2940573182 ISBN 13: 9782940573189

Publisher: Explorer's Eye Press, 2016

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In the middle of a Borneo rainforest, a band of near-naked Penan tribesmen, encouraged by an equally clothes-challenged renegade Swiss shepherd, hesitantly blockade a logging truck, testing their commitment to protect their forest home. Nearby, a researcher studying orangutans is threatened with being thrown out of her study site unless she can reach a delicate compromise with the powerful minister of the environment. Meanwhile, loggers are busy at work, devastating the rainforest. And rehabilitant orangutans are not playing nice. Time is running out, for the people and the orangutans who share this threatened environment. Who has the answer to saving the world’s oldest forest—the marketing experts of an international nature conservation group or the earnest monkey-wrenchers? At the heart of Redheads' black-humored fictional action lies the very real problem of rainforest destruction and the philosophical question of where the real boundaries lie between apes and humans. And just what is it about red silk underwear?

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About the Author

Paul Spencer Sochaczewski has written Share Your Journey, the five-book series Curious Encounters of the Human Kind, An Inordinate Fondness for Beetles, The Sultan and the Mermaid Queen, Soul of the Tiger (co-authored with Jeff McNeely), and other acclaimed books and some 600 bylined articles in leading international publications. He has lived and worked in more than 80 countries, including long stints actively involved in nature conservation in Southeast Asia. He created and was director of WWF's global campaigns to protect tropical forests and biological diversity, helping to put these issues on the public agenda. He has other accomplishments that are mostly of such a dubious level of achievement that they are best left hidden from the general public ... although he is rather proud of the tomatoes he grows, his spaghetti carbonara and Indonesian fried rice, and his stubborn insistence on carrying his golf clubs.Visit Paul at:sochaczewski.com

Review

"... Sochaczewski's classic novel Redheads tells of the cultural genocide of Borneo's Penan people (and the destruction of the rainforests on which they rely) with wit, elegance, and insight. If you care about our natural world and the indigenous people who are being denied a choice in how and where they live, then read this tale. It's fiction, but the issues it exposes are, tragically, all too real."
--Robin Hanbury-Tenison, explorer and author of Mulu: The Rainforest, The Oxford Book of Exploration, and The Great Explorers

"Redheads is a roaring tale of tropical suspense, an eco-thriller that is witty and smart and altogether a wonderful treat. It is the perfect example of a new genre, an eco-thriller so suspenseful that you learn about this strange world while sitting on the edge of your seat."
--Thomas Bass, author of The Spy Who Loved Us, Vietnamerica, and The Predictors

"An absorbing story, reminiscent of the social commentary of Somerset Maugham and Evelyn Waugh. Everyone working in conservation should read it and heed it."
--Jim Thorsell, Ph.D., senior advisor, World Heritage, IUCN

"Redheads is a terrific book about apes and people, do-gooders and do-baddders, science and superstition, ecology and psychology, nature and nurture, and how we all fit together in this old world."
--Mark Olshaker, author of The Edge; co-author of Mindhunter

"A ribald, engrossing novel with a deeper message regarding the clash of cultures and our relation to the environment."
--Edwin Bernbaum, author of Sacred Mountains of the World and The Way to Shambhala

"A great read. Redheads accurately and entertainingly captures the cynical reality of today's conservation conflicts. This entertaining book is a must for anyone interested in learning how the global environment movement really works."
--Daniel Navid, director, Environmental Law Training Program of the United Nations

"Redheads pits the ideals of science and biodiversity conservation against the real world of nasty politics, reductionist thinking, and economic 'imperatives.' The engaging spell of the author weaves the impression that indigenous peoples and other primate inhabitants of the forest are the only hope we have left of saving the tropical ecosystems of the world."
--Darrel Addison Posey, Oxford Centre for the Environment, Ethics and Society

"Fast, rollicking ... pace is so brisk it easily fought off drowsiness on the flight from Seoul to Jakarta. An eco-thriller of the best kind, page-turning plot, and piquant--often hilarious character sketches [about] the jungled politics of deforestation. It is a complicated, messy plot equally in the novel and in real life; in both there are few untainted motives and very little hope."
--Dana De Zoysa, Curled Up with a Good Book

"This rambunctious romp through the Borneo jungles is both fun and deceptively insightful. If this is how the world really works in the realm of nature protection, then where do we go from here? The story reveals important realities about the way things can be in the hurley-burley world of nature protection and environmentalism. Noble-intentioned jet-setting environmentalists: Take Heed!"
--Sir Russell Betts, Ph.D., former director of WWF Indonesian program

"There are few global challenges more important than saving the environment, and Paul Sochaczewski has found a way to reinvigorate the movement through an engaging novel. Who doesn't love those hyper, cute orangutans of the diminishing rainforests of Southeast Asia? Who wants to live in a world without redheads? I don't."
--John Burdett, author of Bangkok Asset