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CM . . .
. Volume IX Number 8. . . . December 13, 2002
excerpt: Looking out over the bay, Darrell's fingers itched for her sketchbook and charcoal, but she didn't want to go back where there were people just yet. Hard as it was saying goodbye to her mother, it was harder still being in the company of people whom she had never met. She hated the look that formed in their eyes: puzzlement, then dawning understanding and, inevitably, pity. It made her furious. She didn't need anyone's pity. She kicked a small pebble violently, sending it over the edge of the embankment and down into the water. "Hey!" a voice yelled from below. Darrel was so startled that she jumped backwards. Her feet slipped out from under her and she fell to the ground with a thud. A barnacle painfully scraped her left leg below the hem of her capri pants. A head popped over the edge of the embankment. The boy was snarling, and he held a large stone threateningly in his hand. "What do you think you're doing?" he demanded. "You nearly hit me with that rock!" Seeds of Time, the first YA novel from K. C. Dyer of Lions Bay, BC, is a combination time slip fantasy and mystery/problem novel that is only moderately successful in its latter combination; however, Dyer achieves much more with the book's fantasy component. BC's Darrell Connor, 13, has been sent to an ocean-side art school, Eagle Glen, for the summer while her medical doctor mother is in Europe for a month long symposium. The book's "problem novel" component resides in what happened three years previously when Darrell had been riding on a motorcycle with her estranged father and an accident occurred. Darrell's father died saving her, but the accident still led to Darrell's having her right leg amputated below the knee. Since the accident, Darrell has become somewhat a loner, and her mother hopes that Darrell's summer experience at the art school will be "a chance to make some new friends." The mystery portion of the book revolves around Conrad Kennedy, about 16, who lives with his father on an island near the school. Initially, Darrell just suspects Conrad of illegal crabbing, but later, when she discovers a cache of computer components and compact disc cases on the beach, she modifies her poaching suspicions to include theft and/or smuggling. Only at the book's conclusion do readers discover the real crimes in which Conrad and his father were engaged. The weakness in this plot line resides in the "falseness" of the initial meeting between Darrell and Conrad, an encounter which is used to initiate the continuing enmity between the two. The excerpt above captures the moment wherein Conrad begins his overreaction to Darrell's having kicked the pebble. He proceeds to retaliate by throwing a rock at Darrell's prosthetic leg and referring to her as "a cripple" and "Gimpy." The result is that Conrad comes across as just a two-dimensional bully. Though Dyer does ultimately leave the suggestion that Conrad may be the "victim" of a harsh and demanding father, by that time readers likely won't care. While not exactly Hogwarts, Eagle Glen does have its own magic, and the school's principal, Professor Myrtle Tooth, may possess more powers than she lets on. In her art related history class, Prof. Tooth tells a story about a boy, Luke, who only lived until he was 19 before being struck down by the Black Plague in the 14th century. Later, Darrell discovers a cave on the beach, and while in it, she is transported to Scotland in 1350 where she encounters Luke Iainson who is not surprised by the arrival of "Dara" for it had been foretold him by his aunt who had "the sight." Luke becomes a continuing character during Darrell's sojourns to the past. In this first encounter, Dara/Darrel learns that Luke's village was being ravaged by the bubonic plague, and so, before she is whisked back to the present, she offers some "health" advice which might save Luke's family. The next time Darrell is taken into the past, she is accompanied by two schoolmates, Kate Clancy and Broderick "Brodie" Sun, who happen to be in the cave with her. In this episode, which occurs a year later in the past but only two weeks in "real" time, the trio become involved in a castle intrigue in which Hamish, the Captain of the Guard, attempts to usurp the leadership of Clan MacKenzie in the absence of the clan's true leader. When Darrell exits the past this time, she leaves behind her two friends, and so she must return once more to rescue them. On her return trip, Darrell carries with her a book from the school library's personal health section so that Lady Eleanor, the daughter of the clan chief, will be able to minister to the health needs of her people. Dyer attends well to the demands of the time slip fantasy genre. Her time travel device consists of three symbols painted on the cave wall, and when these are "used up," the portal to this past is closed. Items carried from the present into the past "morph" into their historical equivalents, and so, for example, Darrell's plastic prosthetic leg becomes a wooden peg leg while the book on health is transformed into a roll of parchment. As previously noted, the two worlds work on different time systems. Consequently, Darrell can, for instance, spend more than 24 hours in the past while being "away" only 20 minutes in the present. Though the historical characters evidently speak Scottish Gaelic, the contemporary characters are both able to comprehend it and speak it too. The plot in the past, involving Luke, Lady Eleanor and Hamish, the treacherous and disloyal Captain of the Guard, is much more interesting than the thin storyline around Conrad Kennedy and his smuggling. As well, Dyer has clearly done her historical homework, and the 14th century Scotland she recreates is filled with rich and interesting historical detail. An interesting device is Dyer's inclusion of a "summary" poem which introduces the book. In it, she provides a skeletal outline of the book's plot. Though the poem's meaning may be slightly confusing to those who have not read the book, it makes perfect sense after Seeds of Time has been consumed. The book's title comes from Shakespeare's Macbeth: If you can look
into the seeds of time, Recommended. Dave Jenkinson teaches courses in YA literature at the Faculty of Education, the University of Manitoba.
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