Tau Ceti

Ell Donsaii Series, Book 6

By: Laurence E. Dahners

Narrated by: Laura Bannister

Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's Summary

Tau Ceti is the sixth in a series of near-future scifi/thrillers whose young heroine, Ell Donsaii, has a nerve mutation which has made her a genius and an athletic phenomenon.

In Tau Ceti, she is continuing to find uses for the quantum entangled wormholes that she has discovered. These wormholes aren’t big enough to send people through, yet they are making huge changes in our world.

Ell used one to send a small rocket to the third planet of Tau Ceti where it's sending back images of intelligent but primitive beings that can fly!

While observing and occasionally trying to help a pair of these aliens, Ell continues to deal with the issues resulting from her fame as an athlete, a scientist, and as a beautiful woman. This makes her suspect every relationship.

Having a boyfriend is hard when he may just want you for who everyone else thinks you are.

©2013 Laurence E. Dahners (P)2019 Laurence E. Dahners

Why is the epilogue missing?

Where's the epilogue to the story? That gives important closure to relationship between Shan and Raquel/El.

A unique twist.

This story like all this series is multifaceted as the tale unveils itself. Like the others in the series preceding it this is a stand alone story. Still to best enjoy it you should read the first five.
The aliens depicted are not bug eyed monsters bent on taking over the universe, and that's all I am saying on that.
Kudos again to Laura Bannister's narration spot on especially so in dialects.
So five stars.
Yes I purchased all six Audible books and all of the available in Kindle. without looking that is about sixteen.
As these stories and the others of Dahners works are released on Audible I of course will be purchasing them. To me they are worth and worthy of rereading and listening to multiple times.

Respectfully

Curtis Wright
Somewhere in the hills of Northern California.

Enjoyable story, but...

I continue to enjoy this story at the parts where the main character is still achieving the miraculous scientific advancements!

Unfortunately, while I realize that the author has to put in filler, I really don't like romantic drama that is persistent throughout this book! And this book had more than usual!

Aliens!

I have written reviews of other items in this series with a more generalized critique. In this review, oh gentle reader, (I like to keep my delusions healthy and well fed) I want to talk about how the book deals with gender, with one brief diversion into peeve.

The indeginous sentient species on the 3rd planet of the Tau Ceti system are intersected, or hermaphroditic. To be clear, they possess the reproductive organs for two sex types simultaneously. It is not clear if they are capable of asexual reproduction, but, during coitus they each creature uses all of its reproductive organs in joining with its mate and both are apparently capable of impregnation and gestation. This would, it seems to me, have been a excellent opportunity to explore sexual and romantic partnership without gender roles. Dahners provides gender blended pronouns (although they betray an androcentric perspective in that they are comprised of "feminized" additions to traditional male pronouns; "himr" for instance) and dialogue that could easily have projected no gender clichés. He however chooses not to, and the narrator doubles down on his choice.

From the beginning each of the creatures plays to conventional gender conventions: one is strong, independent, seeks to provide security for the pair and while the other is passive, dependent and seeks security. The narrator provides a male persona for one and a female persona for one. Within this context the two play out the standard "frenemies to lovers" HEA romance.

Dahners does give the "male" character a break in that he is not rude, boorish, and selfish in the way Dahners portrays other men in the story, although he does go to that format for the lover who spurns the "female" character in the opening seconds of the romance and sets up the need for rescue around which the progression to lovers is based. This is not to say that the female-ish character sits at home and eats bon bons: she fishes and hunts, uses weapons and is assertive to others, but adapting one of the worst stereotypes for female influence in having her assume a wily, conniving and scheming role in the pair's reunion with the clan from which they were separated and doing so while achieving a high level of status. in this phase, the male-ish character, clever and inventive in other activities, becomes the dumb lunk, ignorant of social manipulation and achievement.

This missed opportunity is sad, particularly given the Y/A audience to whom is is directed. It would not have been difficult to draw these characters without gender stereotypes; to have them simply be two beings who face a crisis and fall in love while negotiating it. There was no compelling narrative aspect that required the stereotype: aside maybe the desire to have a plot device that tracks Ells developing romance with that of the TeeCees. Given the potential benefit of portraying domestic partnering without gender roles to a young adult audience, I don't see the upside of what he has done.

It could have been predicted however in Dahners' unbelievably egocentric handling of the first meeting of two sentient beings from different solar systems. In the first reference to the indigenous being his characters encounter they refer to the it, a being encountered on its own turf by the interloper from the rocket ship, identifies it as an "alien". I don't think I can concieve of a more arrogant, chauvinistic conceptualization. Honestly, I don't even understand the impulse to identify the residents of the spaces I am invading as aliens. But he does, and his characters do, throughout the series. It makes it pretty clear how much Dahners is locked into convention, even when he seeks to create other worlds, even when he creates his own opportunities to abandon it.

From the perspective of a teacher, I would love to have the opportunity to teach a class on gender, gender roles and gender stereotypes using this book. It is, I think, an excellent example of how a man, even when writing as a woman, is led by his own privilege into revealing the supremacist inside him

Great book

I love this author, always an auto buy for me. I was disappointed that the epilogue was missing from this audio version of the book. It causes a disconnect between this book and the next.

Just my thoughts

love the series my only con isnt the book but the missing Epilogue. I only bring it up because it has the relationship development.

I love the Ell Donsai books

I'm so glad to see each Ell Donsai audiobook. It's so much fun to see what is going to be invented next and to see her family grow.

The narration is good, the only issue is that the Eiplogue that contains Shan's discovery that Raquel is really Ell isn't included.

as great as I'd expect from Dahners

the story and concepts continue to impress. I'm looking forward to the next instalment. thanks