Christie Harris Sky Man on the Totem Pole? … concerns, among other things, the relation between the Indian and White cultures. In the vein of von Daniken, the question is this: did visitors from other planets furnish the images for the mythology of Earth's denizens? In this novel, might spacemen have provided the Indians of the Northwest with the basic imagery and narrative core of their central legend of Temiaham?…

I am sorry to say that while I am aware of Harris' reputation and respectful of her impulse to do something fresh and new, I do not find this a good book. It is contrived, made up of elements that work against each other. For example, if you write a novel and introduce character in the psychological sense, as Harris does at the outset with the brothers Adinak and Say-ok, you raise expectations which are shortchanged if the characters...