This is an excerpt of a review of Immortal and Immortal II: The Time of Legend written by world renown writer Charles Saunders, creator of Sword and Soul, and author of the Imaro series, the Dossouye series and Damballa.
So without further aideu here is Charle’s amazing review: Immortality.
“Consider a world that is much like our own, but better in a ways that matter most, especially considering the ecological chaos, economic malaise and ethnic discontent.
Consider a world that is post-racial, but still acknowledges racial differences.
Consider a world in which shape-changing and sorcery co-exist with advanced technology.
Consider a utopia on the brink of disaster…
Author and poet Valjeanne Jeffers has considered all these things and more, and has synthesized them in the form of two novels: Immortal and Immortal II.
These are novels of magic and multiplicity. Their setting is New World Tundra, which may or may not be an alternate earth, or our earth in the future. The time is the year 3075 — four hundred years after a spasm of war, crime, and pollution came close to destroying the planet. In the wake of this warfare, known as the Time of Legend, Tundra’s population pulls itself back from the brink of destruction and transforms itself in a Great Society.
Here’s how Valjeanne describes it:
‘But in the year of our One 3075, war, crime and pollution didn’t exist.
Contamination of the environment was illegal. Recycling was mandated by planet law. Weapons had been outlawed and purged from New World Tundra.
Only a few remained on display in museums. Prisons had become behavioral clinics where inmates were taught the life skills they needed to be mainstreamed back into society.
It was illegal to have homeless living within one’s borders, and cities were punished with heavy fines if they didn’t house them in private living quarters.
Junkies were the exception to this rule, since so many of them lived in dormitories; and they were locked out if they missed curfew. It was forbidden for a citizen to be unemployed if he could work. Tundra law dictated that every able-bodied man and woman must be given a job, and it was forbidden to pay a citizen less than she needed to buy both necessities, and a few luxuries.
Racism and sexism were also relics that the New World had discarded during the Time of Legend, when everyone had been fighting to survive the holocaust. Then, they were luxuries the planet couldn’t afford.
Now, like the chemical waste that had once poisoned Tundra, they’d been forgotten.’
Race is still recognized on Tundra. But the labels are different. Blacks are ‘Indigos.’ Whites are ‘Fuchsias.’ Native Americans are ‘Coppers.’ Asians are ‘Ambers.’ Hispanics are ‘Bronzes.’ The words are different, but the melody lingers on.
Addictive drugs — an upper called ‘rush’ and a downer called ‘placid’– are legal in the New World. At the same time, admittance to government-sponsored rehabilitation clinics is free.
The protaganist of the Immortal novels is a young, Indigo woman named Karla. She works as a caretaker (healer) at a clinic called CLEAN (Clean Living Experiences and No Chemical Dependency). She’s a former addict who is now helping others to kick their habits.
Karla’s personal life should be as ideal as that of her society. But it isn’t. She is plauged by dreams and hallucinations involving a mysterious Indigo man, a seductive figure who seems to want to take her out of herself.
This dream-man is not a figment of Karla’s imagination. He is real, though his reality is not the material, rational, world of Tundra.
His name is Tehotep. His is Other. And he spells trouble, not only for Karla but also for the benevolent-but-rigid underpinnings of the New World.
Change is the operative word. Karla and her new friend and lover, a Copper artist named Joseph, discover that they can transform themselves into werewolf-like creatures that are immensely fast and powerful, but retain their human intelligence. In the meantime, Tehotep is collecting acolytes and remaking them into nightmarish monsters that obey him without question…
In Immortal II, the shape-shifting lovers find themselves transported to the Tundra of the past…the Tundra of the Time of Legend, ‘The most violent era Tundra had ever known.’
The wars are not only occurring on Tundra. There are another ones as well, between Tehotep and beings known as Guardians–and an incarnation of Karla from another time…
The Immortal novels are multi-racial, multi-cultural, and multi-dimensional. Valjeanne is adept at writing about relationships,everyday activities, conflicts, near-future technology technology, and mind-boggling magic. She can also snap a plot twist on par with the best of the thriller writers. These books are a wonder and a pleasure.”
To read this review in its entirety vist Charles Saunders site and click on Recommended and then Immortality. And check out the rest of Charles’s awesome reviews.
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