By Rodolphe & Leo
Publisher: Cinebook
ISBN: 9781849182201
I look forward to reading plenty of titles, but it’s not often I get the buzz of excitement and anticipation that I did when I first saw there was to be a new Leo book. His Worlds of Aldebaran series is an audacious and compelling story of exploration coupled with an inventive speculation as to the possibilities and potential of life beyond our Earth. However, in Kenya, he’d be again looking at life’s diversity but using what came before man on our own planet, and this time he would just be drawing the tale as Rodolphe would be providing the writing.
Set in 1940s colonial Kenya the story opens with a mixed group of nationalities on safari, where their arguments and arrogance look as if they will spill out into an utterly different story entirely, but Rodolphe is skilfully setting you up for the twist. The story then moves on to Mombasa and the arrival of a young woman, Katherine Austin, who is to teach at a local school, except it’s clear from the start that she’s been tasked with more than just improving young minds. Unfortunately, it would appear she’s not the only one with an agenda, as two other teachers at the school just might be the eyes and ears of their respective governments or, perhaps, are just intrigued by the young Englishwoman and are just a little too keen for her company.
What solidifies our suspicions is when Katherine mentions the fact of the recent lost safari and ends up as the guest of one of the teachers, Mr Fuchs, on a flight out towards Kilimanjaro. They’re effectively hitching a lift with a pilot making a delivery to an eccentric Italian noble who has built a beautiful but all-but functionless palace out in the bush. Katherine later employs the same pilot to take her out again, but this flight reveals another surprise in the form of a desiccated Diatryma, a giant flightless prehistoric bird. Something very odd is going on on these African plains, but it’s only when Katherine has a close encounter with a survivor of the missing safari that things that at first looked absurd begin to look plausible.
So it’s a very different book to the Aldebaran series, and yet its historical setting in a colonial African country makes it feel other-wordly all the same. Katherine’s a strong female character that drives the story forward with her tenacity, curiousness and courage, and it’s all beautifully set up for maximum intrigue. I was particularly pleased to see they’d added in a Indricotherium, but quite why and how is yet to be explained, although some hints have been dropped, not to mention a large hairy brute seen from the sky.
A problem with looking forward to a book so much is that high expectations can prove a disappointment. Well, not in this case, and I can’t wait for the next one.
And if you liked that: Get hold of Leo’s Aldebaran
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