SELECT * FROM uv_BookReviewRollup WHERE recordnum = 1740 The Silver Hawk, by Beulah Pragg Book Review | SFReader.com

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The Silver Hawk, by Beulah Pragg
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Unknown
Published: 2012
Review Posted: 2/26/2015
Reviewer Rating:
Reader Rating: Not Rated

The Silver Hawk, by Beulah Pragg

Book Review by Allen Stein

Have you read this book?

This is the first in a projected series, "Chronicles of Tyria."  No publisher, printer or distributor, only a note in the back, "Made in the USA / Charleston, SC / 13 April 2012."  

Mikael and Maat are brother and sister. They are Narians, a starfaring race made effectively immortal by nanites (nanobots).  The downside to this includes inability to reproduce unless the people running the Narian community allow it, and then usually in brother -- sister combinations and small overall numbers. The nanites also moderate their emotions and thoughts, though Mikael and Maat are wiggling (a bit) on the hook.

Tyria is a planet, currently the scene of an experiment with normal humans as subjects.  They are currently on borrowed time, as Mikael and Maat have been told to wrap the thing up, after which the humans will be killed. They have won an extension, mostly because of a mysterious presence on the planet. 

There is some magic(?).   Mikael and Maat are worshiped as gods, by direction of their superiors, but Maat's followers, the Order, especially women, have won a war against Mikael's followers. The Mikaelites, mostly male magicians,  have maintained an underground resistance, and have sent Tasya, a young girl, into the palace as a spy, while her brother Tynan  is imprisoned and tortured by the Order. They are in mental communication, which no one knows about.   

Mikael and Maat are observers of all this.  It is their first assignment at only a thousand years old, which they are Not To Mess Up (direction of their mother.)  They, seemingly alone among their people,  have any scruples about wiping the planet when the experiment is over.  There is a relative of theirs, that No  One Talks About, who went to the bad (didn't obey) and was exiled form the Narian community.

There is a reversal of fortune, with a rather odd plot twist (or lack of one) between Tasya and her brother.

Not bad, reminded me a bit of The Thirteenth Zookeeper, but the Narians are a nasty piece of work, as are the Order. The Mysterious Presence is not explained by the end of this book, but the second book is said to be in the works.  Presumably there will be more of the Presence and the relative.
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