Balant, Happiness, You Human, Death Dreams & Reasons for Living, The unMaking of Heaven Series by Sam Smith
Balant, Happiness, You Human, Death Dreams & Reasons for Living, The unMaking of Heaven #1
Balant: A Beginning
Sam Smith
The greatest Sci-fi sagas ask is there anyone out there and how do they live and exist. In towards the unMaking of Heaven, Sam Smith takes us to one of these places, where humans are not necessarily the dominant species and first steps of life are emerging from wherever it desires. Balant: A Beginning is book one in a series of five. Each book is intricately linked and delves deeper into what is known as the Supreme Civilisation, until the ultimate drawing together in the finale. Balant, has Dag Olvess, Malamud Bey and Pi Pandy marooned on the very edge of the known universe. Narrator is the priggish Pi Pandy. En route from his mother's substation to university in another galaxy, the ship he was travelling upon encountered a storm of cosmic proportions. The ship about to implode, he escaped in the ship's shuttle with two other young men, Malamud Bey and Dag Olvess. They end up on the planet, Balant, where they adapt to cave life. Finding an abandoned robot they repair the shuttle, investigate the planet, discover that they share it with some primitive savages and a marine intelligence, called Nautili, who are also capable of intergalactic travel. They protect the savages from the Nautili. The savages, and Pi, are then kidnapped by slave traders. Pi escapes with the slave traders ship, collects his friends and rescues the slaves. Thus the plot. Pi is also given to pondering on the meanings of civilisation, particularly on the rule of law. But, generally, it's an updated Boys' Own adventure.
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Balant, Happiness, You Human, Death Dreams & Reasons for Living, The unMaking of Heaven #2
Happiness: A Planet
Sam Smith
towards the unMaking of Heaven, Happiness: A Planet, is the second novel in a series of five. All five novels can be read and understood independently of the others. Where the first book (with mystery, intrigue, kidnapping and escape) was about 3 young men being marooned on the planet Balant, this installment (Happiness) is about a planet that finds its moon has gone missing. This story is told in the third person from the viewpoint of its many different characters - a young girl called Belid Keal, a bureaucratic Head of Department called Munred Danporr, the young policeman Drin Ligure, plus several others, and of course the two principal characters - Awen Mendawer, a photographer, and the heroinne, the astrophysicist Tulla Yorke. At the same time that the moon disappeared all radio communication to and from that planet was blocked. Within Space only farmers and cranks live on planets. An unseen force destroys any craft that tries to leave the planet, except the one Space police ship. During the investigation into the missing moon, and its consequences, the principal one of which is the building of a road though mountainous terrain for the convenience of Nautili, there are 2 love affairs and many considerations upon the nature of government and society.
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Balant, Happiness, You Human, Death Dreams & Reasons for Living, The unMaking of Heaven #4
Not Now: Death, Dreams & Reasons for Living
Sam Smith
towards the unMaking of Heaven, Not Now: Death, Dreams & Reasons for Living, is an sf exploration of desire, dreams and self-deceit. Okinwe Orbinson is recruited from his artificial city world - part of a moribund space civilisation - his mission is to save a rumoured hybrid-human race, Talkers, from self-extinction. Talkers are telepathic, and individual suicides among the Talkers are becoming epidemic. Left on one of their planets Okinwe is witness to 3 suicides in quick succession. Suspicious of all around him, doubting himself, not knowing if his thoughts are his own, he becomes friends with a Talker woman, worries for her safety and falls in love with her daughter. Their love affair is not easy. Nor is the solution to the suicides. It happens through a casual touch, through pregnancies, via the children and through paintings...
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