Originally published July 21, 2012
The Visitant, The Summoning God, The Bone Walker, by Kathleen O’Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear. Available for approximately $8.00-$15.00 each.
This week I am doing something a bit special – a triple hitter! Actually a series written by the award-winning archaeological team Kathleen O’Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear. This couple has an incredible talent for bringing their field work on North American aboriginals into vivid focus. They develop their characters with such style you become certain you would know them if you met them on the street. Each book they have written draws a story around their own archaeological finds in such a way that they take you back to the fireside councils and the raging battle fields of peoples that lived on the continent nearly a millennia ago.
In this series, the Gears develop a modern day story around an archaeological team involved in trying to unravel the mysteries of sites known to have been inhabited by the Anasazi, including which ones might actually relate to the Anasazi, and the meaning behind their art and artifacts. Rulers of an empire, there was a point in their history when drought drove them to despair so deep that they turned against their own gods and their own people. This is not light-hearted reading. As the modern day scientists try to fathom the disaster they have found in an ancient kiva, the past tugs at their reason and their emotions forcing them to reassess what they may or may not believe about the ancient gods they study. The books are written using side-by-side story lines of the past and present. The two interact to solve both central mysteries as well as several conflicts between the characters and their own past histories.
I found this series truly “devouring.” It makes a statement about the assumptions and presumptions we take with us when we study those who came before us. Through the study of those that preceded us, we may be able to understand a bit more about ourselves. Sometimes it is easy to forget the power of belief and just how far it will drive the human spirit. It is best to remember…
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