“What up dogs?”
That’s what I say to you all today. It’s also what I would not say to the Kharva (AKA: “The Growlers”), the fercious bipedal dogmen of the planet Yxakh. They would almost certainly not respond favorably to such a greeting. Their cultural sensibilities are something of a mix between Aztec, Comanche, and Assyrian. They’ve got a taste for blood and their bite is worse than their bark. Honor is their chief virtue; mercy is a slur.
What else is
’s The Last Ancestor about? Think of the premise of the Handmaid’s Tale, but the exact opposite. Imagine the inevitable future where the UN, Communist China, and a United Caliphate team up to exterminate the last Christians of Earth. Most of the refugees are killed in a hurried spaceship exodus. The small remainder escapes in a classic out-of-the-fire-and-into-the-frying-pan scenario. 25,000 settlers arrive in a river valley South of Kharvala: the Volcano Citadel of deadly dogmen. Tensions between the refugees and the canine locals run hot. You might frame their scenario as a dire mix between Plymouth Rock, The Indian Wars, and the Babylonian Exile.We meet our protagonist, Garret, twenty years after the settlers have landed. His father was killed in a skirmish with the Kharva years ago. Despite this, he manages to befriend a Growler, (man’s best friend?) named Ghryxa, and the adventure kicks off.
This book is a love letter to Edgard Rice Burroughs and perhaps the Heavy Metal movies. It’s set in a beautiful and savage world filled with well-rendered antagonistic monsters. The flame-lit diamond and onyx city of Kharvalla is a sight for your mind’s eye to behold. The scope is tight and the action is nonstop. The Kharvali language is very fun. Spend some mental calories on it - you’ll find that it clicks quite well with the way you’d imagine a martial race of highly intelligent dogmen might speak.
The Last Ancestor is an unapologetic, overt work of Christian apology, which I found farily unique for this day and age. Faith is the spine of the characters and at the core of their dilemma. Tolkien once gave his pal CS Lewis grief for saying that Aslan was too on the nose. CS Lewis disagreed. I broke up their fistfight and told them, “This is no way for Oxford Gentlemen to act! Surely we can find some middle earth here.”
What I’m saying here is this: many years ago, I was in the Boy Scouts. This particular Boy Scout Troop was composed of me, a Catholic, and a half dozen Mormon friends. Those Mormons are by and large really nice people. In fact, my 5x great grandfather was a Mormon convert with 3 wives. His name? Duncan Mydickenem!
Anyway, these Mormons might have converted me too if it weren’t for the summer road trip we took. In the carpool en route to our faraway destination, one of the dads popped in a book on tape: “Tennis Shoes Among the Nephites.” The plot? Mormon kids go back in time to the Ancient American kingdom of Israelites. I was 13 and it was the cringiest bullshit I’d ever heard. It was a hat on a hat: Book of Mormon fanfic within the Book of Mormon, which is fanfic.
By contrast, “The Last Ancestor” is not fanfic. It’s pulp in the best way. It’s action-packed and earnest. The author knows his way around a Rosary, and also seems to be a great student of myth, history and his fantasy author forebears. Conan the Crusader? Sign me up.
By the way, there’s 2 more books in the series. I’ll get to them. I read slow, think fast, and write with 6 fingers like a ninja turtle.
Quick plug and thanks to the
, and The Lord Weird Slough Feg.
Your style is very lively!