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The Bell Tree
Accompanying her father and their guide to the planet Tanin and the country of the bell trees, Jenny explores the ruins of an ancient civilization, in a land where nothing is as it seems
169 pages, Hardcover
First published September 20, 1982
About the author
Helen Mary Hoover
19 books60 followershttp://www.orrt.org/hoover/
Over the course of her twenty-three-year career as a writer, H.M. Hoover won eight awards for her writing, including three Best Book for Young Adult designations from the American Library Association and two Parent's Choice Honor Awards. Another Heaven, Another Earth received the Ohioana Award in 1982.
H.M. Hoover lived in Burke, Virginia. Her last published work was The Whole Truth - And Other Myths: Retelling Ancient Tales, in 1996.
Hoover changed her pen name to H.M. Hoover before Children came out because there was already a children's author named Helen Hoover.
Over the course of her twenty-three-year career as a writer, H.M. Hoover won eight awards for her writing, including three Best Book for Young Adult designations from the American Library Association and two Parent's Choice Honor Awards. Another Heaven, Another Earth received the Ohioana Award in 1982.
H.M. Hoover lived in Burke, Virginia. Her last published work was The Whole Truth - And Other Myths: Retelling Ancient Tales, in 1996.
Hoover changed her pen name to H.M. Hoover before Children came out because there was already a children's author named Helen Hoover.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
February 1, 2019
Another wonderful YA SF book by this author.
A fifteen year old girl of privilege goes with her father (in a far distant future for humanity) to track down the source of a strange alien artifact. She meets the discoverer of the artifact, a wild child of a boy, spiritual and attuned to his planet in ways most of the adults aren't, and they discover odd and beautiful and terrifying artifacts galore. This includes the titular bell tree, which rings like bells when it rains.
There is so much going on in this layered book. There's a critique of colonialism, an ecological message, questions posed about who is more or less civilized, a plot that includes the impossibility of communicating across the species divide with another intelligent civilization. Just a LOT going on. And yet it is a page-turner of book, peopled with likeable and complex characters. Elegiac at times, poetic at times, it's a quick read that you won't put down.
I can't say enough good about this author, and I plan to read everything by her. I muse about the years she wrote--late 70s through the 80s--and how hard things were for women then, and how she was in two ghettos in SF--the kiddie lit ghetto and the one her sex put her in. (and probably a third, the one her age put her in.) But oh, the wisdom she had, the world building skill, the language, the ability to plot and create wonderful characters and depict perfectly nuanced coming of age tales. I don't know to what extent she was ignored back then, but we should resurrect her work now, for it's marvelous stuff.
A fifteen year old girl of privilege goes with her father (in a far distant future for humanity) to track down the source of a strange alien artifact. She meets the discoverer of the artifact, a wild child of a boy, spiritual and attuned to his planet in ways most of the adults aren't, and they discover odd and beautiful and terrifying artifacts galore. This includes the titular bell tree, which rings like bells when it rains.
There is so much going on in this layered book. There's a critique of colonialism, an ecological message, questions posed about who is more or less civilized, a plot that includes the impossibility of communicating across the species divide with another intelligent civilization. Just a LOT going on. And yet it is a page-turner of book, peopled with likeable and complex characters. Elegiac at times, poetic at times, it's a quick read that you won't put down.
I can't say enough good about this author, and I plan to read everything by her. I muse about the years she wrote--late 70s through the 80s--and how hard things were for women then, and how she was in two ghettos in SF--the kiddie lit ghetto and the one her sex put her in. (and probably a third, the one her age put her in.) But oh, the wisdom she had, the world building skill, the language, the ability to plot and create wonderful characters and depict perfectly nuanced coming of age tales. I don't know to what extent she was ignored back then, but we should resurrect her work now, for it's marvelous stuff.
December 7, 2019
A father/daughter bonding treasure hunting vacation on a distant planet gone awry with a sweet, understated budding romance hidden between the lines. This book is a memorable, sometimes eerie, adventure to the planet Tanin—a place where mostly scruffy miners or researchers live.
But are the mysterious ruins of a long-gone civilization as abandoned and forgotten as they seem?
Wait for it.
The third time around reading this, the mysterious ‘lemur’ beings ‘conversion’ (changing from ‘matter to energy’ as Jenny put it) seemed rather akin to Stargate ascendtion. Turning into balls of pure electric glowing energy and whizzing around. Of course, this book would have come first.
But that scene with the endless glowing statue eyes…eerie, atmospheric, & unforgettable. I so don’t want to be there in that moment. H. M. Hoover writes just the type of gritty, relatable, day-to-day sci-fi I like.
While reading I realized some of this book has worked its way into my psyche and unconsciousness, and it was amusing to see the parts I’ve been quoting, half unknowingly, for years.
And here, along with that, are a few standout selections—witty, profound, and descriptive—that I saved for this review:
The steward smiled the impersonal smile of those who have dealt too long with the public.
&
She felt a little tired now that the excitement of getting here was over. But then, she thought, there were some people who made you tired when you just listened to them, and this woman might be one of those. "Drainers," her mother called them. "They absorb your energy and give back nothing. The true living dead."
&
Discouraged trees tried to shade the thoroughfare.
&
"Why don't you tell the computer what you know?" suggested Jenny.
"You have to be important to add to the world data system," Eli said. "Data's only data if you have the right credentials. Otherwise you're laughed at. Besides, I wouldn't know where to begin."
&
"I don't like touching people," he said. "People think inside their skins. Animals don't. If you touch an animal, it either likes you and moves closer, or it bites you and runs away. But it doesn't think about it."
"Thinking's bad?"
"Where touching is involved."
&
Eli was right, Jenny thought, people did talk too much. She could tell from her father's tone of voice that he wasn't really interested in telling Dr. Bower about Wok Lake; he was just being polite, and Dr. Bower was listening for the same reason. People wasted a lot of time being insincere.
&
"Do you believe me?" she asked as they walked to her truck. "I know it doesn't sound real, but it was. It happened. That's how I got outside."
"I'm never sure what's real," he said. "I just watch and listen and hope. The pale blue ship that radar never sees is as real to me as Dr. Rule-and I've seen her often. I don't think people know what's real; they just pretend.
But are the mysterious ruins of a long-gone civilization as abandoned and forgotten as they seem?
Wait for it.
The third time around reading this, the mysterious ‘lemur’ beings ‘conversion’ (changing from ‘matter to energy’ as Jenny put it) seemed rather akin to Stargate ascendtion. Turning into balls of pure electric glowing energy and whizzing around. Of course, this book would have come first.
But that scene with the endless glowing statue eyes…eerie, atmospheric, & unforgettable. I so don’t want to be there in that moment. H. M. Hoover writes just the type of gritty, relatable, day-to-day sci-fi I like.
While reading I realized some of this book has worked its way into my psyche and unconsciousness, and it was amusing to see the parts I’ve been quoting, half unknowingly, for years.
And here, along with that, are a few standout selections—witty, profound, and descriptive—that I saved for this review:
The steward smiled the impersonal smile of those who have dealt too long with the public.
&
She felt a little tired now that the excitement of getting here was over. But then, she thought, there were some people who made you tired when you just listened to them, and this woman might be one of those. "Drainers," her mother called them. "They absorb your energy and give back nothing. The true living dead."
&
Discouraged trees tried to shade the thoroughfare.
&
"Why don't you tell the computer what you know?" suggested Jenny.
"You have to be important to add to the world data system," Eli said. "Data's only data if you have the right credentials. Otherwise you're laughed at. Besides, I wouldn't know where to begin."
&
"I don't like touching people," he said. "People think inside their skins. Animals don't. If you touch an animal, it either likes you and moves closer, or it bites you and runs away. But it doesn't think about it."
"Thinking's bad?"
"Where touching is involved."
&
Eli was right, Jenny thought, people did talk too much. She could tell from her father's tone of voice that he wasn't really interested in telling Dr. Bower about Wok Lake; he was just being polite, and Dr. Bower was listening for the same reason. People wasted a lot of time being insincere.
&
"Do you believe me?" she asked as they walked to her truck. "I know it doesn't sound real, but it was. It happened. That's how I got outside."
"I'm never sure what's real," he said. "I just watch and listen and hope. The pale blue ship that radar never sees is as real to me as Dr. Rule-and I've seen her often. I don't think people know what's real; they just pretend.
April 27, 2020
I love all of Hoovers books! This one is good for boys. It has adventure and makes you think too! I would recommend this for 5th grade and above.
Warnings:
Drugs: no
Sex: no
R&R-aliens
Language-no
Violent- no
Warnings:
Drugs: no
Sex: no
R&R-aliens
Language-no
Violent- no
May 17, 2020
I feel confused, and while a state of genteel bemusement is not unknown for me, it has more to do with this novel than my incipient dementia. What is it all about? At first I thought that it was one of those 1980s science fiction stories that promote environmentalism by showing that humans have the knack of disrupting or destroying the natural world – wherever that world may be. But as the book progresses that fits less and less.
To begin with we have Dr Sadler and his daughter Jenny on a trip to the planet Tanin. Tanin seems to have been chosen as a base for corporations to establish their food and crop research laboratories away from the searching eyes of Earth's authorities. Dr Sadler is a senior player in one of those corporations: the Silas P Sadler Research Institute, while Jenny is a rather subdued rebellious teenager ready to disagree with almost anything the adult world suggests. Environment scandal seems to be written there in capital letters – then, not a great deal happens with that.
Instead Dr Sadler and Jenny go off to search for ancient ruins with Eli as their guide. Eli's confusing. When he first comes on the scene he is introduced as: “[Jenny] sat quietly and waited, hoping to see a potoo [a native Tanin bird, like an ostrich]. To her disappointment, a man appeared,” later he turns out to be and behaves more like a boy, presumably around Jenny's age, and we get the beginnings of a teenage romance.
When they find some ancient cliff dwellings Jenny is surprised by a very large and angry local carnivore, hungry and not at peace with the world - imagine confronting a polar bear that has heard about global warming - and only just avoids becoming a meal. Her father's attitude, instead of retreating to a safe distance with his daughter, is to enter the dark alien tunnels alone. As with Abimelech at Thebez, he was asking for it. What follows then is old fashioned science fiction high adventure, with intelligent aliens described as bipedal giant ants and equally large threatening guinea pigs, from which Jenny and Eli have to rescue Dr Sadler.
By this time the author seems to have lost interest in preserving the environment. In the course of the adventure Dr Sadler has found a cache a gems, which he says are worth a fortune on Earth, and he is willing to share them with Jenny and Eli. Strangely Eli, who all along has been posing as the planet's protector, jumps at the chance of untold wealth and gaining a rich man's daughter. It is as if American astronauts found a hotel and golf course complex on Mars when Donald Trump was in Houston visiting NASA. Eli couldn't have moved more quickly.
The story is OK as far as it goes, but it does have the feel of a pot-boiler.
To begin with we have Dr Sadler and his daughter Jenny on a trip to the planet Tanin. Tanin seems to have been chosen as a base for corporations to establish their food and crop research laboratories away from the searching eyes of Earth's authorities. Dr Sadler is a senior player in one of those corporations: the Silas P Sadler Research Institute, while Jenny is a rather subdued rebellious teenager ready to disagree with almost anything the adult world suggests. Environment scandal seems to be written there in capital letters – then, not a great deal happens with that.
Instead Dr Sadler and Jenny go off to search for ancient ruins with Eli as their guide. Eli's confusing. When he first comes on the scene he is introduced as: “[Jenny] sat quietly and waited, hoping to see a potoo [a native Tanin bird, like an ostrich]. To her disappointment, a man appeared,” later he turns out to be and behaves more like a boy, presumably around Jenny's age, and we get the beginnings of a teenage romance.
When they find some ancient cliff dwellings Jenny is surprised by a very large and angry local carnivore, hungry and not at peace with the world - imagine confronting a polar bear that has heard about global warming - and only just avoids becoming a meal. Her father's attitude, instead of retreating to a safe distance with his daughter, is to enter the dark alien tunnels alone. As with Abimelech at Thebez, he was asking for it. What follows then is old fashioned science fiction high adventure, with intelligent aliens described as bipedal giant ants and equally large threatening guinea pigs, from which Jenny and Eli have to rescue Dr Sadler.
By this time the author seems to have lost interest in preserving the environment. In the course of the adventure Dr Sadler has found a cache a gems, which he says are worth a fortune on Earth, and he is willing to share them with Jenny and Eli. Strangely Eli, who all along has been posing as the planet's protector, jumps at the chance of untold wealth and gaining a rich man's daughter. It is as if American astronauts found a hotel and golf course complex on Mars when Donald Trump was in Houston visiting NASA. Eli couldn't have moved more quickly.
The story is OK as far as it goes, but it does have the feel of a pot-boiler.
July 9, 2024
Such a great story
September 1, 2024
Oh man, that one was BORING
December 4, 2011
This on was just O.K. It's a pretty typical example of the soft sci fi for young readers that proliferated during the 1980's. The themes are anthropological and environmental. The book reads as a way-too-long short story. There's no real character or plot development. Some stuff just happens, and then it ends.
May 28, 2008
Science fiction always creeps me out. This is a good read and its creepy.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews