McQuinn's second book (after Targets, 1989) is set in the Pacific Northwest several hundred years after nuclear holocaust, where varied tribal and feudal societies struggle for dominance and survival. Gan Moondark, of the nomadic Dog People, flees his tribe after being unfairly accused of treachery. With him are Clas na Bale; Neela, whose father Gan has killed; and Sylah, healer/priestess from Ola, a feudal nation. At the same time, in a hidden cavern, eight strangers awake from hibernation, frozen since the war that destroyed our technological world. On leaving, they are attacked by hostiles and split up, two of them being rescued by Gan's party and the rest being rescued by Olan troops. The strangers have modern weapons and are seen by Altanar, cruel king of Ola, as the key to his dreams of conquest. Gan sees the strangers as the key to the prophecy his mother made on her deathbed. McQuinn, a former Marine, writes his military action realistically, without glorifying or sanitizing war, but the real strengths here are the ways he examines the roles of women in various societies and shows that simple technology does not have to mean simplistic culture.
Pub Date: Nov. 15th, 1990
Publisher: Ballantine