The Son of the Shaman: Listening to the World

South Coast (A Shaman's Tale Book 1) by Nathan Lowell

“Honey, everyone here fishes,” his mother said with a smile. “Even your father. It’s just some of us catch different things."

We met the slightly-scary, strangely spooky Sarah Krugg in Half Share, Book 2 of Lowell's Traders Tales From the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper series. In one sense, this is the first volume of Sarah's backstory. More than that, it is the background tale for the whelkies, carved animal figures inlayed with purple-shell hearts, that play such a crucial role in those stories.

The whelkies that Ismael Wang purchases at the flea market (in Quarter Share) on the orbital above St. Cloud speak to him. At various points in the Traders Tales, each whelkie "finds" someone it will help, and Ismael makes it a gift. Shamans on St. Cloud create the whelkies—and by tradition, they are never sold, only given to those they match. The shamans walk the beaches to collect driftwood and purple whelk shells that are carved and combined to form the mystical figurines. And they "listen to the world." 

Otto Krugg is the son of such a shaman. By company rules on St. Cloud, he will be a shaman because he is the son of a shaman, and as such, he is exempt from the requirement to be working for the company by age eighteen, or he will be kicked off-planet. Only Company employees—and shamans—may reside on St. Cloud. But Otto really would rather be a fisherman, like most of his schoolmates. His father Richard, however, insists he must "go into the family business," and learn to listen to the world as he does.

When a business threat derails the fishing community's comfortable way of life, many things will change. Including Otto's future, his parent's, and indeed, that of the entire South Coast of St. Cloud.

There are multiple levels of story here. At its simplest, it is a tale of a community industry under threat, and the clever ways its members find to work together to solve their dilemma. Slightly more nuanced, it is the story of how a father can teach his son to follow in his footsteps when he himself isn't quite sure where he is going. And deeper than that, it shows how the respect of man for his environment can lead beyond mere survival to contentment.

But only if we are listening.