As a result of past wars, Earth is almost uninhabitable, so the search is on for another planet. The lesson of conflict has been learnt, and so to avoid it in the future, the remaining Scientific Community hooks up to a machine – RESOLVE3 the dream-eater and memory-eater – which controls dreams, memories and emotions – the foundations of war.Deborah and Daniel leave this community to join others who have opted for a more natural life. But Daniel’s brother, Mordecai, has built another machine, the HYPERTROPHY5, which can get people space-fit for the journeys they must endure to reach a new planet by instantly bulking muscles and thickening bones. The combination of RSV3 and HT5 might ultimately destroy the community by creating unstable gods. But in unplugging from the machines, the danger of conflict re-surfaces. Deborah and Daniel’s choice is a dangerous one, not least in the threat posed by the ‘Others’, beautiful Lion-mutants that will kill. Can peace be maintained without the help of machines?
Kit West grew up in St. Louis, Missouri and was educated at the University of Missouri, Columbia and the University of Colorado at Boulder where she received an M.A. in Literature and Creative Writing. Thereafter she lived for fifteen years in Latin America and upon her return she published three collections of poetry, taught creative writing at the college level and founded and acted as senior editor for the non-profit poetry press, Green Fuse Poetic Arts. Her poetry publications include: Scimitar Dreams, The BoneTrain and Riddle. She lives in San Cristobal de Las Casas, Mexico where she owns and runs the English language bookstore Abuelita Books with her husband Yaakov. Lion Tamer is her first novel.
Cover art by Jonathan Bennetts
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This book was a joy to read! I didn’t want to put it down, but I didn’t want to reach the end either because I didn’t want it to be over. I highly recommend Lion Tamer for young teens all the way through mature adults.
A beautifully written tale of a future we must hope will not come to pass - a future where dreams, emotions, and memories are stolen from humanity by machines, in the effort to prevent further wars. Humans go about their work like automatons. Yet, a few manage to dream despite the RESOLVE3 machine... They escape their meaningless lives in the city, forming a community of people re-discovering what it means to be human. Woven through the novel are the themes of self-discovery, learning about relationship and connection – motifs to which every young teen and adult can relate. Mystery and love guide the characters eventually into learning to accept the inevitable darker side – to embrace responsibility for good and evil alike, to become fully human and fully aware.
This book is compelling without resorting to lurid and explicit scenes of violence and sex. Instead, through the author’s artistry, the reader is brought deeply into the main characters’ tentative exploration of love in all of its dimensions, and into the reality of violence and its foundations. Parents should feel perfectly comfortable with their young teens reading this well-written novel.
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"Lion Tamer is a book of marvels -- at once science fiction, mystery, questing adventure and a multi-faceted love story that crosses ages, families, cultures, and species. More like a symphony than a stew, each character and location of the story complements another as well as playing beautifully individually. In this intriguing book, you’ll find space travel along with tribal culture, prescient young girls juxtaposed with mad scientists. And then there are those magnificent lions. They are the protective, loving, and sometimes mythic presences anchoring the exploration of what it means to be fully human.
Kit West has created a compelling page-turner with a powerful message about love, strength, trust, community, women, and… those lions. I couldn’t put it down."
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