Double Dragon Publishing has recently released SF Canada member Nathan Elberg’s first novel. Quantum Cannibals is genre-bending, character-driven literary fiction that weaves multiple intersecting narratives that span time, from Bronze Age Mesopotamia to a Post-Modern city-state. It’s the epic story of three incarnations of two people- alternately son and mother, husband and wife, father and daughter, savage and scholar, who simply want to return to the home they were brutally evicted from. Quantum Cannibals brings together authentic cultures from Melanesia, Siberia, Europe, the Americas, and more.
Osnat and her husband have been exiled to a frozen wasteland along with the rest of the Eber people. Facing cold and starvation, they encounter a small band of savages who brutally assault, rather than help them. Back in the natives’ village, a transgender shaman adopts Osnat after dismembering her husband. Previously an eminent quantum biologist, Osnat knows she is stuck with the savages. Amid her grief, fear, and hatred she realizes she has only one choice: to survive, become one of the natives in order to save the remaining few of her people. But Osnat refuses to abandon her quest to bring the Eber people home, nor her thirst for vengeance. Terrified by her own behavior she goes to war, armed with bone knives and improvised nuclear weapons. As she makes a new home for her family and people, she discovers that paradise is the place she previously thought of as hell.
Saima, a northern savage, has been brought across the barrier from the cold, primitive Edge of the World to serve as a handyman in the high-tech but effete Modern Age. At first, life here seems pleasant: plentiful food, warm houses, and casual sex. However, he isn’t here to fix machines, but on a mission to take back from this world what its ancestors stole when they sent the Eber people away.
In the bucolic Early Bronze Age, Taiku, the regional chieftain prepares for an epic confrontation. Rumors have been building of the inexorable approach of an army led by a bloodthirsty conqueror with a pious agenda. Taiku turns to Asenath, the wise and beautiful local leader of the Ebers, as he tries to unite the disparate, squabbling tribes of the region.
Kirkus Reviews describes the novel as “…an intricate web of characters and events. The author pulls it all together, however, in admirable fashion through solid characterization; the sweeping mix of science, mythology, history; and precise, yet metaphor-filled writing… Those willing to decipher it all will be greatly rewarded.”
For more information about Quantum Cannibals or to order, visit www.quantumcannibals.com
A book launch will take place on Sunday January 20, 2019, at 5:30 pm at Beth Zion Congregation, 1 Place Sidney Shoham Place, Cote Saint-Luc, QC H4W 0B9. Register online at https://bethzion.shulcloud.com/event/tubshvat5779 or through the office at 514-489-8411 or bethzion@bethzion.com.
Little Blue Marble is published and edited by SF Canada member Katrina Archer, a software engineer, author, and editor.
