3 out of 4 stars
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Do you remember studying history in school? Maybe you were bored, maybe you were engaged, but either way you had to learn the dates and explore the events that brought your society to where it is today. Perhaps you were told that people who don't know their history are doomed to repeat it. P'Ko, Su'Zi and Tn'Ya have never had that experience. They are the young protagonists in Dadr'Ba, the dystopian science fiction novel by Tetsu'Go'Ru Tsu'Te. On the starship Dadr'Ba, history has been erased, and the Forward Only Policy rules society. The Central Authority, the totalitarian government ruling Dadr'Ba, forbids people to ask questions regarding the past. Only the present and the future are valued, and people who insist on delving into Dadr'Ba's history are threatened with mandatory "retirement", sometimes never heard from again.
The people aboard Dadr'Ba are traveling thousands of years through space toward O'm, a planet that will serve as a new Eden for them. Exactly how and why P'Ko, Su'Zi, Tn'Ya and their families came to be aboard the ship is unknown. The divinely chosen Central Authority has not only outlawed history, but they have also outlawed philosophy, questioning the government and complaining about the caste system society in which they live. Important rules they live by are "CA is good" and "Bad is anything against the CA".
The CA's most important rule is that the sole purpose of all activity is moving the ship forward, closer to O'm. All other activity is wasteful, and on Dadr'Ba waste is punishable by "retirement". Even with the threat of being retired, there is a growing resistance movement whose members come from all levels of Dadr'Ba society. How the journey progresses, and how the resistance movement proceeds will write history for Dadr'Ba's future generations.
Dadr'Ba is a great sci-fi novel. Mr. Tsu'Te develops the plot slowly and uses deep character development to move it forward. Like all great science fiction, this story's social commentary is spot on and thought-provoking; there isn't an aspect of society Mr. Tsu'Te does not address. Issues of gender/sexuality, class, race, religion, family life and government are touched on in the book.
People who like quietly intense science fiction will enjoy Dadr'Ba. It builds slowly, and has some plot twists and unexpected elements that maintain tension throughout the book. Readers looking for action/adventure science fiction will not enjoy this novel, as they will not find that here.
This book requires further editing, as there are several grammatical errors included. For example, the author writes "core tenants" instead of "core tenets", "altering" instead of "alerting"; and "A families loss..." instead of "A family's loss...". In addition, the repeated misuse of punctuation required re-reading segments of the text for clarification. This slowed down progress through the book, which is significant, as Dadr'Ba is about 300 pages long.
I rate this book 3 out of 4 stars. The attention to character development and the astute social commentary made this an engaging read. With better editing, it would have received a higher rating. Kudos to Mr. Tsu'Te on writing a great novel.
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Dadr'Ba
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