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Erthring Cycle
The Erthring Cycle: The Memoirs of Alcheringia / The Master of Norriya / The Gaian Expedient
Sci-Fi at its best...Time was running out for the Project and everyone was feeling the presure. If there was no major break-through soon, certain fractions would demand that changes be made...changes which would have far reaching impact. Shem, Dream Master of West Norriya, knew full well what was at stake - most immediately the fate of Alcheringia. But recent visual transmissions from field units had given him hope for the future. Hope in the form of a defiant young abor with a red hand painted across his face....
- GenresScience Fiction
657 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 1986
2 people are currently reading
40 people want to read
About the author
Wayland Drew
23 books33 followersWayland Drew (1932-1998) was a writer born in Oshawa, Ontario. He attended Victoria College at the University of Toronto, where he earned a BA in English Language and Literature (1957). Shortly after graduation he married Gwendolyn Parrott and together they raised four children. From 1961-1994 he was a high school teacher in Port Perry, Bracebridge, and Muskoka Lakes. He also worked for the Ontario Ministry of Education.
Drew began to write seriously in high school and published a number of short stories (to magazines such as The Tamarack Review) and non-fiction pieces throughout his career, while also selling radio and film scripts. His first novel (and sometimes stated to be his best) was The Wabeno Feast (1973). While rooted in Northern Ontario, the story indicted modern industrial civilization as an extension of the European colonization of Canada by depicting an entire society's fall into ruin. In her essay on "Canadian Monsters: Some Aspects of the Supernatural in Canadian Fiction ", Margaret Atwood noted that Drew's use of the aboriginal wabeno revealed a concern "with man's relationship to his society and to himself, as opposed to his relationship with the natural environment" and she concluded that Drew's novel combined "both concerns in a rather allegorical and very contemporary fashion".
Many readers, though, surely know him better as the author of an ecological science fiction trilogy, the Erthring Cycle (1984-1986), and of several movie novelizations (Corvette Summer, Dragonslayer, Batteries Not Included, and Willow, the last three of which were translated into French and the second in German). His non-fiction also reflected his concern for the environment and interest for Canadian landscapes, as seen in books such as Superior: The Haunted Shore and A Sea Within: the Gulf of St. Lawrence. His final novel, Halfway Man (1989), echoed themes from his first, The Wabeno Feast.
Drew began to write seriously in high school and published a number of short stories (to magazines such as The Tamarack Review) and non-fiction pieces throughout his career, while also selling radio and film scripts. His first novel (and sometimes stated to be his best) was The Wabeno Feast (1973). While rooted in Northern Ontario, the story indicted modern industrial civilization as an extension of the European colonization of Canada by depicting an entire society's fall into ruin. In her essay on "Canadian Monsters: Some Aspects of the Supernatural in Canadian Fiction ", Margaret Atwood noted that Drew's use of the aboriginal wabeno revealed a concern "with man's relationship to his society and to himself, as opposed to his relationship with the natural environment" and she concluded that Drew's novel combined "both concerns in a rather allegorical and very contemporary fashion".
Many readers, though, surely know him better as the author of an ecological science fiction trilogy, the Erthring Cycle (1984-1986), and of several movie novelizations (Corvette Summer, Dragonslayer, Batteries Not Included, and Willow, the last three of which were translated into French and the second in German). His non-fiction also reflected his concern for the environment and interest for Canadian landscapes, as seen in books such as Superior: The Haunted Shore and A Sea Within: the Gulf of St. Lawrence. His final novel, Halfway Man (1989), echoed themes from his first, The Wabeno Feast.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 13, 2015
Not a very easy read. the story and settings were interesting but the character development was lacking.
July 10, 2023
I’ve read this three times now, and will no doubt read it another time or two. With over 200 SF novels under my belt this is still among my Top Ten. Yet it receives a very modest point score. Part of that is the result of some one-star reviews that found it “atrociously misogynistic.” And now that I think of it, it is true that all the main characters are male, as the story closely follows of group of “indigenous” young men on their coming of age quest. But here are my thoughts (and my wife’s too, as she also loves the story):
In order to describe the broad outline of the story I will have to reveal a few things, but I don’t consider them spoilers because when I reread this story, and already know the arc of the story, it is still the myriad details and subtleties that I find captivating over and over again. In some stories, once you know the outcome (as in David Brin’s Postman) it is hard to relive the same level of enjoyment as the first read. Not so in this case. So…
In a future not many decades from our time, the world falls into chaos, and a manmade cataclysm (I won’t reveal) nearly wipes out humanity. A group of super wealthy billionaires have the foresight to create a protective repository of technology, libraries, and manufacturing facilities buried deep under a remote island. The human survivors on the outside, having been thrust backward into stone-age hunter-gatherer conditions, gradually repopulate into small tribes. From the time of the apocalypse until the time of our story, several hundred years have passed. Meanwhile, the hidden high-tech watchers are looking to see if humanity will repeat its same mistakes. If so, will they be able to subtly influence and redirect the innocents before they fall into the same trap? Is the advent of technology the ultimate undoing of mankind? In spite of all the intensive planning and redundancies, the tech ages and becomes more and more unreliable until Asa, the main character, discovers that these god-like apparitions are not gods at all.
This is the real and earnest dilemma that Asa (and we as readers) face: the cost of truth and the striving for unproven ideals, versus the happiness of living simply and in harmony with nature. Drew creates lasting narrative tension with characters who veer one way or the other. And the big question is: once things start to fall apart, will it all end in the same cataclysm as before?
So, as for the misogyny part. Yes, it is true that Drew could have easily created a stronger and more impactful female character in the administrative high-tech society to represent our more modern attitude on gender. But in the atavistic hunter gather society I feel that he was spot on, as males typically did all the external work such as hunting and warring, while the females created continuity and order within the close-knit tribe. The two female characters in Asa’s life, his mother, and his lover, provide a strong emotional ballast in this story. So, I’m not so bothered by the balance of the story, given the richness of the ideas explored.
Originally published as three separate novels, they are put altogether in this nice hardcover volume. Read at least the first book, and if it’s not your cup of tea you needn’t keep reading. As for me and my wife, we enjoy this story so much, and the imagery evoked by Drew is so vivid in our minds, that we’d love to see a mini-series adaptation one of these days. No shortage of top SF ideas out there for film adaptation, and this would be one of our Top Ten choices, for sure.
In order to describe the broad outline of the story I will have to reveal a few things, but I don’t consider them spoilers because when I reread this story, and already know the arc of the story, it is still the myriad details and subtleties that I find captivating over and over again. In some stories, once you know the outcome (as in David Brin’s Postman) it is hard to relive the same level of enjoyment as the first read. Not so in this case. So…
In a future not many decades from our time, the world falls into chaos, and a manmade cataclysm (I won’t reveal) nearly wipes out humanity. A group of super wealthy billionaires have the foresight to create a protective repository of technology, libraries, and manufacturing facilities buried deep under a remote island. The human survivors on the outside, having been thrust backward into stone-age hunter-gatherer conditions, gradually repopulate into small tribes. From the time of the apocalypse until the time of our story, several hundred years have passed. Meanwhile, the hidden high-tech watchers are looking to see if humanity will repeat its same mistakes. If so, will they be able to subtly influence and redirect the innocents before they fall into the same trap? Is the advent of technology the ultimate undoing of mankind? In spite of all the intensive planning and redundancies, the tech ages and becomes more and more unreliable until Asa, the main character, discovers that these god-like apparitions are not gods at all.
This is the real and earnest dilemma that Asa (and we as readers) face: the cost of truth and the striving for unproven ideals, versus the happiness of living simply and in harmony with nature. Drew creates lasting narrative tension with characters who veer one way or the other. And the big question is: once things start to fall apart, will it all end in the same cataclysm as before?
So, as for the misogyny part. Yes, it is true that Drew could have easily created a stronger and more impactful female character in the administrative high-tech society to represent our more modern attitude on gender. But in the atavistic hunter gather society I feel that he was spot on, as males typically did all the external work such as hunting and warring, while the females created continuity and order within the close-knit tribe. The two female characters in Asa’s life, his mother, and his lover, provide a strong emotional ballast in this story. So, I’m not so bothered by the balance of the story, given the richness of the ideas explored.
Originally published as three separate novels, they are put altogether in this nice hardcover volume. Read at least the first book, and if it’s not your cup of tea you needn’t keep reading. As for me and my wife, we enjoy this story so much, and the imagery evoked by Drew is so vivid in our minds, that we’d love to see a mini-series adaptation one of these days. No shortage of top SF ideas out there for film adaptation, and this would be one of our Top Ten choices, for sure.
May 14, 2015
I got these in paperback then got them in this combined volume. It is a post-apocalyptic story of a group of scientists who set up an experiment on a land, trying to keep the people in a less developed state so they never reach the point in civilization where they are able to destroy mankind. This book follows the scientists as well as the people on the mainlands. There is much action as well as politics and partway through you figure out how it will end and feel self-satisfaction as it does turn out that way.
I would read more of this author
I would read more of this author
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews