by Braemwiella » Wed Jan 22, 2014 6:09 am
Adventure, excitement, and gender equality... I would love to be Annie Jason Masmajean from Janet Kagan's Mirabile. In the book, humanity has colonized another planet(Mirabile) using "Generation Ships." In other words, the planet is so far away from Earth, that nobody alive has ever seen it, nor has anyone in living memory. These colonists have brought with them all the knowledge the Earth had up to that point, not just history, religion and ethics, but also a huge encyclopedia of "how-to"s. They also brought with them embryos of every type of plant and animal existing on earth, in case the native life forms on their new home were poisonous or unpleasant. To protect against disasters, a copy of the DNA of each plant or animal was hidden within a strand of DNA on a different plant or animal, in case disaster struck the gene banks and some things were lost. Disaster did indeed strike, as a meteor hit destroyed part of the information database. The characters in the book know that there are hidden strands of DNA inside each and every plant and animal they brought with them, but not WHAT is hidden in each one. Annie Jason Masmajean is a "gene jason"...one of a group of people who have invented a way to scan a tissue sample from one of the Earth life forms, and find out what is hidden underneath. She can't always tell what the creature or plant is called, and doesn't always know whether it is domesticated or dangerous, so that leads to some hair-raising adventures. Additionally, sometimes the native ecology of the planet Mirabile mixes up the gene coding, and beings come into existence that are a hybrid of two or more different animals(called Dragon's Teeth) or is an intermediate form between two related forms. So you can get animals like the "odders"...otters with moose heads; or the Kangaroo Rex...an intermediate creature that connects an ordinary kangaroo with the Tasmanian wolf(currently extinct on earth). There was also a dangerous critter that was a cross between a badger and a wild boar. Annie is also quite a bit older than the average heroine, proving that you don't have to be young and beautiful with breasts that defy gravity to be a popluar, likable character. She's always running around trying to fix emergencies(one of the native lifeforms on the planet starts fires) is creative, intelligent, and is considered beautiful by the other characters. She even has a romance with another character that describes my ideal courtship. Check out the book someday; I hope you like it. xenakat13's Recommendations Mirabile Amazon List Price: $3.99 Used from: $7.55 Average Customer Rating: 5.0 out of 5(based on 11 reviews) xenakat13 74 months ago Please sign in to give a compliment. Please verify your account to give a compliment. Please sign in to send a message. Please verify your account to send a message.