Rainbow Reviews

BOOK BLURB:
This revised version of Duane Simolke's science fiction adventure Degranon features more gay characters and a sharper focus on diversity themes. On the planet Valchondria, no illness exists, gay marriage is legal, and everyone is a person of color. However, a group called "the Maintainers" carefully monitors everyone's speech, actions, and weight; the Maintainers also force so-called "colorsighted" people to hide their ability to see in color.

The brilliant scientist Taldra loves her twin gay sons and thinks of them as the hope for Valchondria's future, but one of them becomes entangled in the cult of Degranon, while the other becomes stranded on the other side of a doorway through time. Can they find their way home and help Taldra save their world?

BOOK REVIEW:
Geln was born on the world of Degranon where fighting, political maneuvering and murder were common place. His leader sent him to the planet of Valchondria to infiltrate the scientific community, find the true origin of their religion Degranon and find a way to overpower their society so their people can return to their home world of Valchondria. Geln walked to a spatial doorway into Valchondria and found a world very different from his.

Valchondria is controlled by Maintainers who have little by little taken away people’s freedoms to the point of outlawing words and freedom of speech. One outspoken opponent is Dr. Lorfeltze, one of the leading scientists who supports colonization to other worlds to solve their overpopulation problems. Geln is sent to help her with her task to find a portal into the past and find the creator and origin of The Book of Degranon, his religion.

Lorfeltze, Geln and another assistant, Dr. Naldod work to create a sophisticated and life-like computer called Life Unit in hopes of finding gateways to other worlds and scientific breakthroughs. Things become complicated when Naldod and Lorfeltze begin seeing anger in Geln, whose feelings for Lorfeltze begin to unbalance his mind. Lorfeltze finds herself pregnant with twin boys, a situation that isn’t acceptable in their world. Geln devises a plan to send one boy into the past to save him, except he has a hidden agenda to use both of her children to further his personal schemes. Will Lorfeltze and Naldod find a way to protect their family or will Geln’s plans for world domination win in the end?

Mr. Simolke has created a world not unlike our own where freedom to think and feel independently are forbidden. There are people today that believe that strict control of society will solve all the problems, but as we have seen, power begets power. Once rights are taken it is much harder to get them back. It was fascinating to read how same gender preferences were looked on in a positive way to prevent an increase in the population. I saw the character of Geln both tragic, from his childhood experiences, and frightening because of his fanatical beliefs. Dr. Lorfeltze, later known as Taldra, never gave up her hopes and dreams even when her world was crumbling around her. It was fascinating to watch her boys grow up in different worlds, but somehow find the same interests in spite of everything. This is an incredible book about the human condition and how one person striving for the good can, in the end, be a source of change.

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