The Road To Corlay

*The Road to Corlay* opens at the end of the third millennium and the beginning of the fourth. Mankind had been reduced to a fraction of its population when the polar ice caps melted (the greenhouse effect bore fruit). The technological world was wiped out and became a legend that only a few believed (the magic mirrors - TV; the self-propelled carriages and flying machines - cars and airplanes). But part of the legend is that at every new millennium, mankind gets another chance, and there are rumors of the Forthcoming of the White Bird of Dawning that will conquer the Blackbird of Fear. The Church Militant, however, is bent on keeping the Blackbirds (the Falcons) in power. Hope arrives in the form of a young boy, Tom, who has the power to stir the human mind with his magical music. "It was as though all the promise of life was twinkling inside him like sunshine in a waterdrop..." says a witness. Asked what it is that he does when he plays his pipes, Tom says, "I join myself to them. I build a bridge and walk to them over it. I take their thoughts and give them back my own." He makes people see the White Bird - until he is martyred at York and there is nothing left but a lost testament telling of the mysterious Bride of Time, the Bird of Dawning and the Creed of Kinship. Now segue 1,000 years into the PAST (before the great "Drowning") into a world of cathode ray encephalographs, sine wave frequency, and O.O.B.E.'s (out of body experiences). Seems some British scientists have made contact with Thomas of Norwitch, who is floating in the Somersea (which used to be Somerset) thrown overboard and left for dead because he's a kinsman. The scientist Carver finds himself in Thomas' consciousness. Carver wouldn't be detected at all if not for Jane, the Kinfolk girl with e.s.p. powers who knows he is there and reaches back 1,000 years to contact the Bride of Time in his reality.At first you might get the impression that this is sword and sorcery at worst or fantasy at best until you get to the second book and you know it's true science fiction. I know of few writers who can pull this off - Ursula LeGuin comes to mind. This novel, because of the "Church Militant", has been compared to *A Canticle for Libowitz*, but for sheer lyricism and philosophical depth, it reminds me most of *Engine Summer* by John Crowley. Cowper made this into a trilogy - the kinship novels - all well worth reading, but this first one, with its sense of wonder and delight, is, in my opinion, his [email protected]