YA-- Somewhere over Tibet, a North American Continental Allied Forces plane crashes, the pilot is killed, and warrant officer Viveka Vanachek is taken prisoner. Her journal, written upon the order of the prison camp commander, reveals captivity inside a ruined lamasery with a maze of underground rooms filled with the monks' ancient supplies. Time seems altered in the camp; no one can pinpoint the exact date and thinking about dates and times results in terrible headaches. And then nuclear explosions destroy the world outside this secluded valley. Elements of science fiction, mythology, adventure, and fantasy fill this work about the fabled land of Shangri-La. The relations between prisoner and guard, and those among the captivesare carefully detailed, preventing the setting from growing stale and relaying the humanity of even the most hard-hearted characters. Team this work with David Brin's The Postman (Bantam, 1986) and Gregory Maguire's I Feel Like the Morning Star (HarperCollins, 1989) for a unit on nuclear holocaust. --Pam Spencer, Thomas Jefferson Sci-Tech, Fairfax County, VA
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.