Black on Black

It's always good to have a adventure novel well-grounded in something interesting; K.D. Wentworth's "Black on Black" fits that bill well. The main focus is Heyoka Blackeagle, a wolf-like Hrinn raised by the (Ogala Sioux) human who rescued him from the slave pens. Here he is returning to the planet of his own species, still at a tribal level, a people he has never known. The Hrinn culture the book spends most of its time inside is well-defined; focused around patterns and tribes, male business and female business. Just as importantly, it's not simply used to play against type or ignored (such as with Star Trek's often dishonourable "honourable warrior" Klingons). The patterns-in-progress idea - the view by the Hrinn that events fall into patterns, and that one should find the pattern and their place in it, then follow it - is nice and distinctive one. Blackeagle is slightly passive at times in dealing with the culture, but the frequently jumping viewpoint (following a number of native Hrinn, among others) keeps the pace moving and fleshes things out. Wentworth's action sequences are stop-and-start affairs, as much because of the nature of the Hrinn as anything else. They still move nicely, and don't lose the tension built up through the book. "Black on Black" is a good science-fiction read with a good alien culture.

Black on Black is the first novel in the Hrinn series. Heyoka Blackeagle is a hrinn who was stolen from his people as a cubling. Rescued from the slavers by a old trader, Ben Blackeagle, Heyoka has been raised among the Oglala Lakota. Now he is a Confederate Ranger and is spending a leave on Anktan searching for his hrinnti roots. Unfortunately, his partner, Mitsu Jensen, insists on joining him.In this novel, Heyoka approaches the hrinnti near the base, is disparaged as one of the Dead smelling Outsiders, yet is invited to the males' house for more talk. Mitsu ignores his efforts to go alone, follows behind him, and is caught by the hrinnti. Heyoka has just learned that he comes from the Levv Line, but rushes out of the males' house when he hears the sounds of Mitsu fighting her captor. Although he tries to hurry through the crowd, he is slowed and slashed by some of the males and she is gone by the time he gets there.Heyoka returns to the base to start a search for Mitsu, but the Director of the Research Station, Eeal Eldrich, refuses to let any of his people join the search. Moreover, the station doctor sedates him while tending his wounds. When he awakes the following morning, the trail is long cold, but he goes out anyway. As he attempts to enter the Line Hold where Mitsu is being held, the males catch up to him and escort him down into their meeting house. There he is accused of being a fake manufactured by the Outsiders and is challenged to a duel. The leader of the house, Nisk, intercedes, declares that he is sponsoring Heyoka, and takes the challenge for him. When Nisk loses, both he and Heyoka have to leave the area by sundown.Something is going on that involves the research station and some of the Line leaders, something that resulted in the destruction of the Levv Line almost thirty years ago. To the hrinnti, a new and awesome pattern/in/progress is forming, centered on the black-on-black male, Heyoka. Some of the hrinnti are trying to kill him and others are protecting him. Meanwhile, someone is using off-world weapons to kill hrinnti.The author obviously knows something about the American Plains Indians and other Indian tribes, for some the hrinnti culture and environment seems to derive from these people. However, the hrinnti society also has some similarity to the pack behavior of wolves. All in all, the author has created a believable sentient, but predatory, species and culture.The author does have some problems with human military ranks and terminology, but seems to have corrected these deficiencies in the sequel. However, the author does comprehend some aspects of human military thinking and the depiction of both the hrinnti and the flek aliens shows a rare talent in speculative xenopsychology.Recommended for Wentworth fans and anyone else who enjoys reading about exotic cultures in a science fiction setting.

Rarely are new alien species created with so much "backstory" so clearly delineated. In Black on Black, K. D. Wentworth brings us not one, but two new aliens: the Hrinn, and the Flek. Astutely camoflaged as an action-adventure space opera, Black on Black is really a meditation and a fugue on the concept of "other." Heyoka, who is neither human nor Hrinn, faces a lifetime of otherness. Raised by a consummate human outsider, a Sioux warrior, he tries to camoflage his otherness by joining the military...yet somehow, the fact that he is about 7 feet tall, with fangs and claws, and huge sharp teeth, and very black fur covering his entire body somehow keeps interfering with his desire to be considered fully human. His journey of discovery to find his roots as Hrinn get him into more trouble than it is worth, yet somehow he manages to float through it without getting too involved....until, that is, his human partner, Mitsu, turns up missing and is found to be a brainwashed slave of the Flek...Hrinn versus Flek...two complete opposites as alien species. The Flek, a hive species while the Hrinn are so individualistic they can hardly live with each other, let alone humans and Flek. Heyoka is very well realized, and stops way short of becoming the invincible star-guided hero that most bad space opera provides. He is a seven-foot-tall bag of insecurities and wants/needs/desires just like the rest of the universe. Wentworth craftily disguises this metaphysical tractatus as a rip-roaring space opera, with plenty of action to disguise the thought pill.

I was hooked from the very first page. Wentworth wastes no time in transporting us to a strange and inscrutable desert planet. The action starts with a bang, but skillfully interwoven with telling details about the planet, which provides a seductive, gritty, and sometimes surprising backdrop for the fiendishly clever plot. The twists and turns, enjoyable in themselves, add up to a fascinating story as the protagonist, alien-born but raised on Earth, sets out to unravel the riddle of his childhood kidnapping from his home world, and the possible religious significance of the color of his fur (yes, fur). Wentworth manages to get inside the minds of her characters, even the aliens, in a very satisfying, and sometimes hilarious, way. (For example, an alien using a radio communicator addresses her interlocutor contemptuously as "box," since that is what the radio looks like to her.)Emotionally jolting and intellectually satisfying, "Black On Black" is a worthy successor to the "Dune" series and the tradition of literary off-world science fiction. I highly recommend it.

Rescued from slavers, raised among humans, the alien Heyoka must return to his birthworld and regain his place in Hrinnti society. Nebula nominee K. D. Wentworth does a masterful job in giving readers a multi-faceted view of an alien society, its strengths and beauties, warts and foibles. Indeed, Wentworth's particular genius is a wholeness of vision: even the darkest character is shown to have a glimmering of light, whether it is the tenderness in the vicious priest Rakshal's instruction of the cublings or the beauty in the songs of the nihilistic Flek invaders. Such touches, however, never stand in the way of Wentworth's killer plot, full of devious twists and stunning action scenes. Like the young hero of STAR WARS, Heyoka learns that the fate of countless worlds rests on his search for self.