Skip to main content

story identification - Trilogy about a planet ruled by women called “Bahronas”, another planet where catlike creatures listened to singing scarves


I read this set of stories in the 80's. What I recall is this:


A planet where the ruling caste was made up of humanoid women. These women would, as almost pubescent girls, go out into the wilderness with only a spear and attempt to kill an animal in a life or death struggle. When it happened, they would burst open a DNA packet in themselves that caused them to rapidly mature, their skin to become bronze colored, and give them some kinds of other "powers", I think over fire. They were called "Bahronas", I think. The population of this planet was primitive, but they were in contact with an advanced humanoid species, I think of actual homo-sapiens, who were there observing and advising them. The advanced species wasn't allowed to intervene, just advise and watch.


The main character was a castaway boy, crash landed on their planet and stranded. He became friendly with the ruling family of Bahronas and entered their confidence. We find out through the course of the story that he's been genetically engineered and is not a normal boy. At some point, the advanced species notices him and explains that he is a clone of a famous explorer and a spy, and they explain that they won't do anything in front of him.



The central part of the story is something of a blur, but, the final part of the story is told in a dramatically different style and shifts to a planet populated by catlike creatures who live in boughs of silk scarves, some of which sing. THey are recording devices which play back the songs. On this planet, there is another silk scarf, a white one, which doesn't play a song at all. The cat creatures are greatly disturbed by it when they hear it's message, which they don't understand. The narrator then goes on to say that it's a spoken word recording, made by the explorer which the boy was a clone of, explaining that he is captured and held hostage on the planet which makes the scarves, and forced to help make them (I think.)



Answer



The Daughters of the Sunstone trilogy by Sydney J Van Scyoc. A review of the first book (Darkchild) summarizes the setting, and mentions the barohnas:



The planet Brakrath was settled accidentally during EarthExodus, by a starship strayed far off course; it's barely able to support human life, so its involuntary settlers had to adapt. Brakrath has harsh winters, and left to itself most of its solar energy is spread too thin to support much in the way of crops. Most of the people live in the mountain valleys; only their culture and that of the redmane guardians (women who follow the herds of horselike, intelligent redmanes native to the planet, with whom they can communicate) is shown in this book, although humans have spread to other areas of Brakrath and have different societies, shown later in the series. The valleyfolk, who have mutated slightly from the human 'norm' over centuries, are able to hibernate through the worst of the winters, but they'd still be hard put to it to survive if it weren't for another series of mutations among the redmane guardians' daughters, which produced the barohnas.



And a Google Book search reveals a mention of singing scarves.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

harry potter - Did Dolores Umbridge Have Any Association with Voldemort (or Death Eaters) before His Return?

I noticed that Dolores Umbridge was born during the first Wizarding War, so it's very likely she wasn't a Death Eater then (but she is pretty evil -- who knows?). After that Voldemort was not around in a way that could affect many people, and most wouldn't know he was planning to rise again. During that time, and up through Voldemort's return (in Goblet of Fire ), did Umbridge have any connection with the Death Eaters or with Voldemort? Was she doing what she did on her own, or was it because of an association with Voldemort or his allies? Answer Dolores Umbridge was definitely not a good person. However, as Sirius points out, "the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters". Remember that he also says that he doesn't believe Umbridge to be a Death Eater, but that she's evil enough (or something like that). I think there are two strong reasons to believe that: Umbridge was proud to do everything according to the law, except when she trie...

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.

aliens - Interstellar Zoo story

I vaguely remember this story from my childhood: it was about an interstellar zoo that came to Earth with lots of bizarre and unusual species, and humans would file through and gape at all the crazy looking creatures from other planets. The twist came at the end when the perspective shifted to the other side of the bars and we discovered that the "creatures" were traveling through space on a kind of safari. They thought they were the visitors and we were the animals. Neither side knew that the other side thought they were the zoo creatures. Answer Got it. Zoo, by Edward D. Hoch. Published in 1958. Link to Publication History Link to PDF

tolkiens legendarium - Did Gandalf wear his Ring of Power throughout the trilogy?

After Gandalf discovered that Sauron was back and sent Frodo on his quest to Rivendell, did he continue to wear Narya (one of the Three Rings)? It seems like a huge risk to continue to wear it after the Nazgûl (Ringwraiths) started to try and reclaim the One Ring; if they managed to get the ring to Sauron, couldn't he be corrupted by his power? Whatever powers Narya bestows upon him couldn't possibly be worth the huge risk, could it? Answer When Sauron forged the one ring and put it on his finger, the other ring bearers were immediately aware of him and his intentions and removed their own rings. There is no reason why they couldn't merely do so again. As soon as Sauron set the One Ring upon his finger they were aware of him; and they knew him, and preceived that he would be master of them, and of all they wrought. Then in anger and fear they took off their rings. "Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age," Silmarillion