Yvonne Anderson - Words in the Wind

Words in the Wind
Gateway to Gannah


By Yvonne Anderson 


Kindle Version Available




Product Description (from Amazon)

Dassa is back on Gannah, but things aren’t going the way she’d planned.

A shuttle crash leaves her marooned 10,000 kilometers from the settlement just as a blizzard sets in. Injured, she takes refuge in Ruwach Gorge. Seeking food and shelter, she stumbles across the ruins of a place she’d always thought was a myth. What she finds there casts doubt on some of her fundamental beliefs.

Her husband, Pik, reluctantly takes charge of the settlement in her absence and organizes a search for her. Rebellious settlers and a wayward daughter make things difficult enough. But when the planet’s animals threaten to break the ancient treaty and resume the old Wildlife Wars, Pik’s hard-pressed to hold things together. If he can manage to find Dassa, will she have a home to come back to?

Alone in the mysterious canyon where reality and fairytale are flipped, Dassa wonders the same thing.

About the Author (from Amazon)

Anderson writes fiction that takes you out of this world. Words in the Wind is the second in her Gateway to Gannah series.

Visit her Website

O.Scarlett! REVIEW by Rachel


Warning .. don’t pick up this book unless you have time to be transported to another time and place for several hours.  At nearly 300 pages, it took me around 8 – 10 hours to read.
Pik and Dassa are again the main two characters, but where The Story in the Stars (first book) jumped from location to location, and shifted sub characters several times, this book has two primary locations and only one set of characters. Many of them were in the first book, and it was delightful to get to know them better.

Whereas the first book’s theme was love and forgiveness and the Gospel, this story is about maintaining our Walk with God and obedience and discipline.  There are many spots that will make you squirm in your seat, particularly if you find that character’s words and thoughts too much like your own.  Another splendid novel by Yvonne Anderson, and I feel sure she would say to give the glory to God.

Words in the Wind is not a soft read; it will grab you and work you over a bit.  It will stretch your comfort zone, and pull your comfy chair right out from under you.  I laughed.  I cried.  My heart ached and rejoiced.  I don’t often enjoy emotional books – but this one had a subtle lesson as it took you through the journey and was far beyond the typical “tear-jerker”.

While ‘Stars’ had an underlying “Star Trek” feel to the universe, because the entire story takes place on Gannah, there is very little of that feeling in this book.  Gannah was a familiar location from the first book, and so it felt homey and unique all at the same time.  The plot here is vastly different from ‘Stars.’  The book flips back and forth between Pik’s story and Dassa’s story.

Basic Plot

A decade or more has passed.

Dassa has just finished translating an ancient log book for the Karkar.  She has spent several weeks on a space ship, piloted by the captain of the rescue ship in the first book, Dr. Broward.  In spite of less than clear skies and her better judgment, she opts to return to the surface of the planet, she is so anxious to see her two children and husband Pik again.  But as the shuttle descends, Yasha talks with Dassa about her attitude of aloofness and hiding from him.  Suddenly, things go very wrong ... and the shuttle crashes.

Dassa survives the crash, only to find herself in the most edge of a gorge at the northern edge of the land.  A blizzard is beginning, and temperatures are dropping fast.  She needs to find shelter fast – and in spite of her injuries, including damaging her meah, she escapes the burning shuttle, kills a lion, takes his skin, and manages to escape down the edge of the gorge against all odds of her surviving.  She knows help will arrive ... eventually.  But she also knows that winter has begun, and the storm above could rage unchecked for weeks.  In the meantime, she needs to find food and shelter, warm clothes, and better shoes.  This is one part of her world that she knows very little about.

After many days of travel, which take several chapters due to the extreme danger, she arrives at a statue – and realizes that the mythical cities of the stories of her people are not myths at all.  What she finds inside shakes her to her very core and upends everything she thought she knew about her beloved Gannah’s history.

But she is determined to return home.  She estimates it will take her a year, maybe two, but she will cross all of Gannah with nothing more than her survival skills, her faith in Yasha, and the ghosts that haunt her memories.

Meanwhile ...

Pik has suddenly found himself the Gannah ruler of over 1000 Earthers.  None of them truly understand Gannah yet, and they feel the loss of Dassa as a young child would feel to be suddenly ripped from loving parents.  Dassa’s two children especially feel this loss, as they are separated from their mother’s meah as well – something they have never been without, no matter how far away she has been.  Eventually, the young daughter’s fears and anguish cause her to make an unwise choice and she is badly injured.

Meanwhile, one of the council members uses Dassa’s disappearance to advance his own agenda.  He wants to lead a group to start a second settlement, and he will stop at nothing to get his way.  Pik does his best to treat him fairly and keep the matter private.

The animals come to talk to them – only Adam had a meah to talk to them – and they try to trick the humans into breaking their agreement – and then report that one of them has seen Dassa, but was unable to communicate with her.

The first rescue attempt was called short, but they see signs that Dassa is alive.  But with so many things going wrong at the settlement, and the bad weather of winter, will she be able to continue to survive?  Can the settlement survive without her?

........

Whether you are “into sci-fi” or not, this book is compelling on so many human levels as well.  It will challenge you to re-evaluate where you stand in your faith, and compel you to a more faithful level of obedience.  At least, I found that true for myself.

Now that I’ve finished reading, I find myself mulling over things.  And definitely, I am looking forward to the next book.   The book comes to an end at a good place, but it leaves several problems unsolved and unaddressed, minor issues to be sure, but a vital part of the sub plot.

Thank you so much to Yvonne for inviting us into her world of Gannah.

I handed the books to my sci-fi loving 14 year old daughter, and she is devouring them as well, and has declared them “too good to let me sleep until I know how it ends!”


O.Scarlett! review by V. Kathie

This book did not captivate me as much as the first, but I still enjoyed it. Mom says it is probably because I am not a mother and I never had to deal with the problem of “what would happen to my family if I was separated from them for a large amount of time.” Although that broken arm of hers gave my imagination a work out as I tried to picture the book as it happened. I kept having her reach for things with her right hand but realized that was the one that was broken so I had to switch my mental picture to having her reach with her left hand.
I was able to put this one down a whole lot easier than the last one. But I still had trouble. I enjoyed the lesson and it got me thinking. (I love a book that makes me think, probably why I enjoy listening to Unshackled so much.) If you are the type of person who has a ‘camera’ running in your head while you are reading something you probably will have a bit more trouble reading it than if you are not. I had to walk away from it every thirty minutes to let my ‘camera’ cool off although I do enjoy a good mind stretcher that works with my brain to see things in different lights. I give this book a five star rating and will definitely be reading it over and over and over again.



Note:  Depending on a child’s ability to handle violence, this book could be enjoyed by most Jr. High students, and some in upper elementary.  Violence is not the theme of the book, but is “extreme” (not graphic) on the occasions that it occurs.   Theme is learning obedience and reliance on God through the things that you suffer.


Genre/Theme:  Science Fiction, Survival/Adventure, Christian,
Reading Level:  TEEN - high school to college  (ages 10 and up)
Profanity:  Mild
Sexuality: Very SUBTLE - hinted, but not explicit  -  people marry, have babies, and the Captain flirts
Other: Dassa crashes on the northern most extreme edge of her world (only one land mass) just as winter begins.  Describes crash and the extremes she goes to in order to survive.  At the settlement,  one child is badly injured.  A few descriptions of the violence of the animals of the planet.

Yvonne Anderson - Story in the Stars

Story in the Stars
Gateway to Gannah


By Yvonne Anderson



Kindle Edition Available 



Product Description (from Amazon) 

The inhabitants of the planet Gannah are known as bloodthirsty savages who once tried to conquer the galaxy. Now a plague has ravaged the planet and only one survivor remains, a young woman named Dassa. Pik, the doctor from the League of Planets assigned to her case, hates everything Gannahan and wishes every last one of its people had died. Bereft of everything she's ever known, Dassa clings to her God and the story he has written in the stars. He has given her an assignment: to return to Gannah and replenish it with a new race of people. But she must first overcome the prejudice of the entire galaxy and recruit her de facto enemy, Pik, to help her

About the Author (from Amazon)

Anderson writes fiction that takes you out of this world. Story in the Stars is the first in her Gateway to Gannah series.

Visit her Website



O.Scarlett! REVIEW by Rachel


When we were contacted by the author to review her book, I jumped at the chance.  Christian Science Fiction is very rare, and even rarer is Christian Sci-Fi that is well done.
The comments on Amazon were encouraging, so I volunteered.  I certainly am glad that I did!

“Story in the Stars” gets off to a slow start; at least it did for me.   It took a while to get to know Dassa, and I never could quite get my initial image of Pik being human looking out of my head, probably from watching too much Star Trek.  This book did have the world feel of Star Trek – the technology was more primitive, the people groups were all different.  It had a taste of Federation.. but called it the League of Planets.

In the first part of the book, the action is occasionally somewhat jerky, Yvonne would make a short comment about changing location (from one ship to another for instance), and then back peddle the story or make some explanation, then slide back to the location without additional warning ... this left me flipping backwards in the story a few times to find the missing details.  They were always there, I just missed them.

Also, some of the conversations were somewhat flat, especially if the conversations drew out long and without any action – such as the investigation “courtroom” scenes.

But then Yvonne found her groove, and the story just really took off.  I finally figured out where the Christian part of the story was, and began to get a feel for her point of view there.  Bible stories wove in and out with delightful effect.   And, it was a stroke of genius that the most war-like race of people were the bringers of the Good News.  From a gospel standpoint, the story was amazing, and I didn’t feel like the Bible was endlessly quoted in order to add word count – it was part of the story – the story itself breathed the Gospel.  In fact, the book contained very little fluff filler.  Almost every part of every page either furthered the story or helped the reader understand their characters better.  Shaky start – but a solid finish.



Basic Plot (not in the order of the book’s telling)

Gannahan people are a peaceful race, but are attacked.  They defend themselves, since they live on a harsh planet, become “blood thirsty” and begin attacking and destroying other civilizations.  As they conquer, their King begins to notice that every planet has a Story in their Stars.  It leads him to Earth, where he makes a heart changing discovery.  Eager to share with his people and others, he returns home to find that the Karkar have created a plague that has wiped out the Nasi left to guard their planet, and the ships autopilot course has brought the ships home.  He has the ships sunk to avoid spreading the virus.

Years later, nearly a millennium,  the plague wipes out the entire planet – Dassa was on her final mission to become a Nasi, and arrives at the palace already full of extensive death, a call was made for help, by the time help arrives as the Karkar, Dr. Pik, with the antidote, Dassa is the only living soul left.  Only her husband is still alive, somewhere off planet.  But she never sees him again.  Dassa is the last Gannahan left – and apparently the only soul in the entire galaxy left willing to keep and believe the gospel.

Dassa goes to earth to become a teacher ... and years pass.

She feels Yeshua calling her back to her planet ... and she is to bring Dr. Pik with her.  Theirs is a strange relationship.  He is not full Karkar – and the only one of his race of mixed blood.  Yet, he feels strangely compelled and attracted to this female – the lone survivor of her race – a race that his planet has hated and wished dead for nearly a millennium.   How does he allow her to tug at his feelings like she does so often?   She is strange, amazing, and frightening, she knows nothing of correct society – he cannot understand her at all.  Hate and fascination and compassion war within him.  All she asks of him is his forgiveness – and his race never forgives anyone, ever.

Together, they travel across the galaxy in a tiny ship.  But what will they find when they reach Gannah?  Will they reach an understanding?  Can Dassa learn to love Pik with God’s forgiveness and love?  Can Pik learn to forgive and accept the truth of the Story in the Stars?

---

I finished the story at 2:30am, having been compelled to keep reading page after page as the slow and steady mystery of what had happened and why it had happened began to piece together.  My heart was impressed with the impact of the story – years ago, like Yvonne, I had been impressed by the Story in the Heavens.  I wanted to write a story, and had a few rough ideas, but no idea how to proceed.  There aren’t many Christian Science Fiction books, and most are so poorly written and overpriced, that they are not worth reading, so I was at a loss for the time and inspiration to follow through.  But here I found the things I had wanted to say and write – no, not the exact same story – but the heart and soul of the book – it echoed my thoughts and feelings.  I finished this book with a gigantic grin on my face.   How inspiring!

What a story of love, and forgiveness, of sacrifice and redemption, and grace and obedience. What a beautiful picture of God’s story this book painted.  I was most pleased by the author’s closing comments.  It has been a great struggle today, to not go ahead and pick up the second book.

This book and the world of Gannah, does perhaps have a chance to become very popular among our youth and young adults of today’s churches.   This is one of the best written Christian Fiction books that I have read in many years.  Not to say that I’ve read very many lately, but very few were able to pull off a story that glorifies God while still compelling the reader to continue to turn pages, preaching through the actions and not sermons or pages of scripture.  There is too much God in the story to please many secular readers, but even this attitude, shutting God away and trying to dispose of Him, is addressed.  Still, the story is quite compelling enough to draw in a curious reader, and many will very much enjoy the book in spite of the Godly message.  This book is very much on par with the average published secular science fiction.  I very much enjoyed the world of Gannah!

O.Scarlett! guest REVIEW by V. Kathie (age 14)

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I started reading it to find out why my mom was enjoying it so much. I was enthralled, it had a rather rocky beginning that did not totally make sense but after I got to about the third chapter I was hooked. In my opinion this is twice as good as Star Trek. Same feel but different. When I met Pik the first thought that came to mind was “Oh look, she took Spock’s mannerisms and Dr. McCoy’s career and stuck them together in one character.” I am a huge Star Trek fan, the only thing I have against Star Trek it is its evolution. And this book practically eliminated it. Yes the Captain, and Pik brought evolution up but it never was presented as truth. For me this book had the perfect amount of gore, romance, creation, science, medicine, and spaceships to keep me happy throughout the book. I believe if this book was ever discovered in Christen circles it will become a best seller. I could not put it down till I was done with the entire thing.
I especially enjoyed the fact that she taught Hebrew in the course of the book.



Note:  Depending on a child’s ability to handle violence, this book could be enjoyed by most Jr. High students, and a few in upper elementary.  Violence is not the theme of the book, but is “extreme” (not graphic) on the rare occasions that it occurs.

Genre/Theme:  Science Fiction, Romance, Christian, Survival
Reading Level:  Mature TEEN - high school to college  (ages 12 and up)
Profanity:  MODERATE - mild words & a few stronger expletives  -  most of the words were “modernized” but were  spoken by rough characters and pirates during the travels.
Sexuality:  SUBTLE - hinted, but not explicit  -  Extremely rare, one mention of porn early on viewed on the doctors computer ... this was not the theme of the book, and it was a very modest and good taste when it occurred ... with the exception of the pirates threats – what they would do with Dassa and the other women.
Other: Dassa comes from an extremely violent race – due to the extreme danger of her home planet.  There are descriptions of death and dying from disease. Dassa kills two pirates with her bare hands, removing a windpipe of one and later destroys a dozen dog like creatures.  Descriptions are brief and not overly graphic, but they are rather horrific.   The book also includes descriptions of Dassa’s people conquering the galaxy while being “blood drunk”.