A Whisper of Time

by Paula E. Downing

Found alone in the ruins of an ancient city, Medoret, an alien girl, is taken in by her human discoverers, and, exploited by her guardians, she throws herself into her studies of the ancient ruins that were once her shelter. Original.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction

295 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Paula Downing King lived in Pinetop, Arizona, where she worked as a managing attorney of five Legal Aid offices and was also the Public Defender for the White Mountain Apache Tribe. She sold her first two novels, Mad Roy's Light and Rinn's Star, in 1989. In her spare time she enjoyed reading, cross-stitch and playing guitar.

She published science fiction novels in the 1990s as Paula King (Mad Roy's Light), Paula E. Downing, P. K. McAllister (Orion's Dagger) and Paula Downing King, and a fantasy trilogy in the early 2000s as Diana Marcellas.

For more information, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_E...

Reviews

[Peter Tillman · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best introduction to this unjustly-neglected book is the back-cover blurb by Harry Turtledove:
"An intelligent, thought-provoking blend of [Mayan] archaeology and alien contact, with exotic backgrounds, well-realized characters, and a tight plot." This is the author's fifth novel. Medoret wandered away from her family's spaceship as a young girl. The ship vanished, the humans found the girl and took her to a different planet. She was the only living alien the humans had ever found, so she became a celebrity of sorts. And the meal-ticket for the dominating psychiatrist who took her over as his life-work. . .

Ten years later, Medoret is a young adult, chafing at her captivity. The archaeologists she lives with don't treat her badly (mostly). She's finally allowed to go back to the planet where she was found, and manages to re-connect with her mother's ship. The aliens reluctantly allow limited contact with the humans. It's quite a story, and I thoroughly enjoyed the book. Recommended reading.

Note that I had marked this as a re-read, but in fact the book had been sitting on the shelf unread for years, decades even. I'm glad I finally got around to reading it!

Paula King died in 2017 at age 66, and has mostly been forgotten. Her Wikipedia biography has the details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_E...

[drowningmermaid · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am shocked to be the first reviewer here for this one. I quite liked it as a child, and am sad to see that no one else here seems to have read it. It has stayed with me quite vividly in my mind: ancient spacefaring civilizations interacting with earth, an alien love-triangle, flowers that prove important, and the character is so unusual-looking (thumbless and eternally pre-pubescent).

Now I want to re-read it.

[Patty · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was only OK. A slow start that didn't grab me, but I persisted and the novel improved with more stuff happening, approximately starting with the second half of the book. Definitely not enough action (except towards the end) and too much in the character's head for my tastes. For such a slow start, the story wrapped up pretty quick, too quick. A lot of scenes seemed like filler, making the first half of the book even more boring and could have been skipped if the book had tighter editing. Descriptions, style of writing were great, dialogue only so-so (not always believable imo). I liked the concepts also. I didn't care for this book in particular, but with the skillful writing and creative ideas, I am definitely going to give this author another try. I prefer a lot of action in my books and I do prefer hard science fiction, which this is not, For those who like to be in a character's head, there is a lot of that here.

[QueenAmidala · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyed this book. More fun Sci Fi. Written from the point of view of the alien.

[Gregoire · Rating 3 out of 5]

an intelligent story of alien contact through the discovery of a lost alien child Nice story (a little old school style) Not the best of Downing but enjoyable reading