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Catalyst: A Novel of Alien Contact by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
01/10/2006 . Source: Geoff Willmetts 
pub: Tachyon Publications. 173 page enlarged paperback. Price: $14.95 (US). ISBN: 1-892391-38-4. Buy Catalyst: A Novel of Alien Contact in the USA - or Buy Catalyst: A Novel of Alien Contact in the UK  check out website: www.tachyonpublications.com
The title of this book should give more than a hint what the subject matter is. Oddly enough, it doesn't go far enough in terms of just how good the story actually is.
The colony world Chuudoku is a combination of government and capitalists out to profit from the planet. Those in the higher echelon and wealthy enough are augmented cybernetically like the Mapworth family, whose eldest daughter Histly is a bully to one of the lower classe boys at school, Kaslin Davorna. Chasing after him, they both fall down a hole into hidden caverns which Kaslin encounters spidery aliens who rather erotically transform him into a being capable of eating their kind of food. Histly, because of her implants, isn't a suitable subject and kept unconscious for a great deal of the first encounter. It's only when Kaslin returns to the surface and finds he's lost all his colour, body hair and suddenly becomes a recipient of seeds that grow over his body into plants that he finds he has to return, aided by his mother and another medical augmented medical technician.
The aliens are incredibly alien. Hoffman has written very visually and produced them with their own ecology that it's almost a shame when they start to communicate in English. In many respects, had the sex content been reduced, this book could well work as junior fiction. The teen-age characters act teen-age, rebellious, demanding and often confused. The book cover hints at touches of Ray Bradbury but personally, I see touches of the junior fiction of Robert Heinlein. This is definitely a page-turning book and apart from being great fiction should be on the list of any neo-writer to show how a story should be written. A fascinating read.
GF Willmetts
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