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Haadri: Prime Contact by Joules Taylor
02/08/2008 . Source: Pauline Morgan 
pub: Heartsown. 448 page enlarged paperback. Price: £12.95 & P&P (UK). ISBN: 978-1-869817-54-1). Buy Haadri: Prime Contact in the USA - or Buy Haadri: Prime Contact in the UK  check out websites: www.heartsown.biz and www.haadri.com
It is now acknowledged that it is very difficult for a first-time novelist to break into the high distribution market of the major publishing houses. Of the books turned down by them there are gems that have escaped notice (perhaps the editor was having a bad day when the manuscript landed on their desk). There is also an awful lot of dross. A lucky author may discover a small press, such as Tindal Street, Immanion or Pendragon who are willing to take them on. Others resort to self publishing (and there are still some unfortunates who are fleeced by vanity press but that is a different rant.)
One of the major problems small press and self-published volumes have, other than the problems of distribution and publicity, is the lack of experience of the editors/authors. They are prone to make elementary mistakes that would have been spotted and corrected in larger, more experienced establishments. Often, they do not have the funding to learn by these mistakes.
Taylor's book commits a number of errors even before the volume is opened. A cover is a selling point of a book. It must be eye-catching, clear and tell the truth. The cover illustration is beautifully executed and may be a good representation of the main character. It is of a feminine, animé figure. The impression is elf-like, therefore the cover shouts fantasy. The content is Science Fiction. The lettering on the cover is almost unreadable, it looks like a foreign language. A book needs to declare title and author clearly on the front, just on the spine is not good enough. This font is used for the initial letters for some paragraphs internally, to the detriment of the reader's understanding. It is always worth remembering that not all readers are capable of picking up all visual clues. The other, serious omission from the cover, is the price. If a buyer cannot find it, the book goes back on the shelf.
Internally, the layout and production looks good and seems well proof-read but the lack of chapters is disconcerting. The text is broken at intervals by strange symbols in place of such but this practice is irritating. Included at intervals, are sketches of some of the aliens in the story. These are unnecessary and cartoonish in appearance, adding nothing significant to the text. We are told that more information is present on a website - this is where these belong, not within the text of the book as space fillers. The storyline involves aliens of different sorts and alien terms. There is a glossary but it is woefully inadequate. The exhortation that a fuller one is available on-line is not helpful if you are sitting on a bus, especially as most of the words I wanted to look up are not included in this hardcopy. If the full glossary is too unwieldy to be printed here perhaps it would have been better to omit it completely.
Now for the story itself. It would be cruel to call this an adolescent wish-fulfilment fantasy, but that is probably how it started and from which this book evolved. The main race of beings, the Fohmatraans, are exotically beautiful telepaths. They have evolved on a peaceful water world in a complicated orbit around three suns. They have long, sensual 'hair' and spend a lot of time pleasuring each other. (There is a lot of alien sex in the book.) Immediately, we are in trouble. I know there are probably undreamed of alien places in this universe with strange alien races, some of which may be intelligent but physics should remain roughly the same. If a planet is within the gravitational pull of three larger bodies, the planetary tides would rip it and the suns apart. The planet would have horrendous seasonal and climactic changes in its passage and a water world, with no land masses to moderate it would have ferocious circulating currents and winds. Unless this planet has had a lot of geological and geographical changes, a species that evolved in water, with relatively no land mass would not have had any reason to develop lungs and legs. Even our land animals that have returned to the water have exchanged feet for flippers and no self-respecting aquatic sentient would evolve a head covering just because it looks good. 'Hair' has to have a purpose. It slows a swimmer down and predators get them.
Frequently, the reader is being told how beautiful and exquisite the Fohmatraans are, but from what perspective? This is a universe without humans. Even C.J. Cherryh plonks a genuine, monkey descended human into novels like the 'Chanur' series so that we readers have a marker to compare everything else against. Here, this is a missing ingredient.
The structure of the plot has its own problems. The novel is double plotted with one major strand which occupies perhaps ninety percent of the narrative and a minor plot filling the rest. With proportion of time allotted to the two parts, it is perhaps a mistake to introduce the characters from the minor arcana before the major ones. In the next section/scene/chapter, we leap straight into the life of Kazestrel, a Fohmatraan who we are told has problems. The narrative then goes back to his birth and loops round until we get back where we started. A good editor would have told Taylor that this was not the place to start
The thrust of the plot is that the telepath Kazestrel has become a victim of a vicious and cruel attack on his mental abilities and has become deaf to other telepaths. He is however deemed capable of being part of a mediation team that visits other planets, meets other races and solves problems. Meanwhile, his bond partner is determined to find a way to heal the damage. There is a lot of potential in the ideas hidden in the text but much of the action is in small bursts and the team moves too quickly on to the next problem.
This would have been a much more successful book if Taylor had concentrated on Kazestrel's problems and dilemmas and given us a deeper understanding of what it feels like to him to be disabled and saved most of the incidents for succeeding volumes. There is insufficient of his frustrations and emotions and overall, all the situations he is put in are solved too easily. Taylor is trying to put too many events in to the detriment of character development.
In some ways, the minor plot strand is more satisfactory. Short sections are interspersed within the main narrative and involve two races that appear to have evolved on the same planet. They have barely got into space. The planet has two moons so it is not Earth, yet the principal, most populous race are referred to as human. The other race is telepathic and is hidden from the others. Not only are they in the minority and they have a good deal of influence in their planets affairs (or wish to) but they are given characteristics which are supposed to suggest to the reader that they are vampires. If this sub-plot had been written as a vampire novel, it would have been quite good. However...
In Kazestrel's world of intergalactic travel, many, many years pass within the scope of the novel, yet on the other world only a few weeks pass. To have the two narratives interspersed makes little temporal sense.
This is a book with serious flaws yet there is potential here. Taylor would do well to find a people with knowledge of biology, geography and astronomy and have brainstorming sessions to eliminate some of the major problems. Some of us hang out at SF conventions. It is the way that other authors get their science right.
Pauline Morgan
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