Rewind

Aliens land in New Mexico. Mais oui, where else would Visitors land? After six years, these Visitors, The Holn, leave, but before they go, they bestow a wonderful gift upon several humans. The Holn are able to "rewind" the human life span and return 17 adults to their youth. These adults are restored in size and physiology to their pre-teens with their adult memories intact. Naturally, no one believes they were once adults. The FBI takes them into custody. Congress delegates a committee to determine their status/fate. The scientists study them, test them, probe them....

The Holn's wonderful gift has turned into a terrible curse, because children have neither rights, nor respect in our society. This condition extends to adults who look like children. Therefore, the Feds remand the rewound adults into the custody of their next of kin. This is agreeable for those who are good terms with their family. This is a bad situation for people like Aaron, who is in the middle of a messy divorce. His Ex gets everything, including the proceeds from Aaron's sale to a pharmaceutical company, as raw material for a youth serum. Yes, the divorce is final!

Amid the violence, fear and hatred, the reader embarks on a fast-paced, but well-planned tour of our culture. Our best and worst behavior is on display. The observations range from the mudane act of returning a video tape to New Age "prophecies". No one and no group is safe from the author's critical eye -- especially the Fundimentalists. Believing the rewound adults to be Satan-spawn, the Fundies launch an extermination program that the Daleks would envy.

The ending is a wee bit too optimistic; dare I say, child-like? And I am left with the vision of Gary Larson's "Wildlife Preserves" cartoon.

I enjoyed this book, and apparently, so did many other readers. This book won the 1997 Barnes and Noble "Explorations Award for Science Fiction," which is given for the best first book. I attended the award ceremony at the Albuquerque Barnes and Noble bookstore. Terry England was presented with a mounted, iron meteorite and a dinner-for-two certificate in his home town of Santa Fe, NM.

A reading and Q & A period followed the ceremony. At that time, Terry mentioned that he had no plans for a sequel. He "wouldn't do it for a million dollars!" Okay, I thought, how about for straight eight? No, some things are not to be.

Terry is working on his next book: The Artificial Man.