Trenekis faces his impending coming-of-age in the small village of Hiera with a lot of trepidation. Survival of the isolated village on the semi-arid planet requires that each young man take a wife and begin procreating within a year of turning twenty, but Trenekis can’t imagine doing that. His best friend and former lover Keenam came of age the year before and seems to have adapted to married life, but Trenekis doesn’t want to live that lie, even though declaring his true nature means banishment. Adding to the young man’s troubles is the disclosure that the only mother and father he has ever known are not really his birth parents. And then there’s the rapid decline of the man who leads the village and has been closer than an uncle to Trenekis.
All of this inspires Trenekis to journey to the city the villagers abandoned when he was just a baby, to hopefully find some forgotten technology that might help his ‘uncle’ as well as possible answers to his heritage. The city was founded by a radical religious cult that rejected technology and left the few settled worlds behind. The cult’s charismatic leader brought the colonists to this planet almost 50 light-years from the nearest human settlement to follow the ’true path’ but some of his followers became disillusioned. A devastating earthquake on the eve of their planned split with the group meant their departure to found Hiera went unnoticed.
The remaining true believers also left the city to establish their own village. The group is now led by the son of the original leader, who, like his father, maintains a firm grip on his followers and will not allow any interference from outsiders. He is aware that others survived the quake and split with the cult, and is determined to eliminate their ‘contamination’ from his world.
Meanwhile, back in the human worlds the cult left behind, they’ve discovered faster than light travel. This now makes traveling to further reaches of the galaxy to find worlds that can be settled more feasible, and a survey ship is on its way to Trenekis’ world to check it out. While everyone on the ship knows about the cult’s disastrous departure, it was never known where they went, so the existence of humans on the planet comes as a complete surprise.
Among the crew of the survey ship is Niko, a man whose family history is intertwined with the cult. Like Trenekis, Niko also prefers men, only he has never had to hide who he was or fear banishment. However, he still struggles with the choices he has made.
“Trenekis of Hiera” is one of those books that can be difficult to get into at first, as we learn about each character and their story. There are a number of flashbacks to Trenekis’ childhood as well as the events surrounding how he came to be with his adoptive parents. The numerous jumps can be a little hard to follow at times. However, about halfway through the book, all the groundwork is set and the pace begins to pick up considerably. It quickly becomes a real page turner as all the threads begin to weave into an exciting story that you can’t be sure of the ending.
This story shares some common themes with the author’s earlier work, Stealing Some Time, most obviously the meeting of two cultures at radically different stages of technological development. But, “Trenekis of Hiera” is not a rehash of the same story. It stands well on its own, and if you like the earlier book, you’ll most likely enjoy this one. The main characters are well drawn and engaging.
“Trenekis of Hiera” is available from Amazon
