A Paradigm of Earth [Hardcover]

After an interview and studying her résumé filled with work involving handicapped children, the Canadian government hires Morgan to raise an alien infant Blue. Now one must understand that alien does not mean an immigrant from another country for in Blue's case alien denotes another world. Even more shocking is that Morgan's band of misfits are used to mistreatment and even taunting from an ultra-conservative nation. People find it difficult to accept the androgynous off-world creature. Morgan learns more than her blank slate ET as Blue begins to fill her soul with caring and nurturing even as the government and her other guests see Blue much differently.

A PARADIGM OF EARTH is an exciting character study of the human condition through the interaction of an extraterrestrial being. The story line is incredibly insightful especially when those who have suffered abuse turn abusive. The evolution of Morgan from a vacuous person into a tender and affectionate individual mirrors the development of Blue, which in turn augments the deep look inside the souls of the earthling and her alien guest. Candas Jane Dorsey is quite a talent as she provides science fiction readers with a strong tale, but those fans that need testosterone running amuck need to skip this relationship tale.

Harriet Klausner

In a way, this was also a test of Dorsey's splendid narrative art as it weaves through a compelling near-future novel, in which an unformed alien and some very unconventional humans are brought together to learn Life 100 in an unexpected context. Well over halfway through (page 264, to be exact) "Blue," a winsome, androgynous extra-terrestrial, declares to the psychically battered Morgan Shelby that she is a chosen human "paradigm" among the dysfunctionals living together in a rambling old house near Edmonton, Alberta. By then, I need not have bothered with a dictionary at all.

While dodging the convoluted systems of Canadian government bureaucracy, untangling layers of conflicted and deceptive sexual liaisons among the odd assortment of people living in her house and coping with the mysterious violence that unexpectedly intrudes on everyday living, Morgan finds herself entrusted with chief caregiver duties for one of a dozen blue-skinned beings suddenly deposited around the world by an alien race. Their plan is to leave these completely unprepared creatures (they're not even toilet-trained!) to be filled with information as a means to learn more about humanity. But from that point on, A PARADIGM OF EARTH powerfully transcends the usual alien/E.T. tale to probe the very core of mature sentient relationships, to visit pain, growth and fear with an empathic intensity few writers achieve so convincingly.

Dorsey takes a bold and risky approach (one that pays off awesomely) by placing all of her characters on the margins of so-called "normal" life. Not only does she create a flamboyant cast of social dropouts and sexually ambiguous eccentrics to fill Morgan's inherited (and expensive-to-run) old house, but even super conditioned by-the-book government officials turn out to have surprising inner lives and emotional attachments that gradually weave meaning into the puzzle.

Tenderness, discovery, betrayal, loss, understanding and affirmation are all part of this potent chemistry of life, from which Blue --- an officially-classified government "secret" living among them --- must learn about Earthlings, while knowing nothing at all about his/her own alien race. The resulting tale is really about one completely displaced entity bonding with another; for Morgan, although rooted in humanity, feels similarly displaced in a universe robbed of meaning and purpose by a series of unhealed losses. Through a gentle interaction of psychic dreaming, a rarified mingling of souls, Blue innately comprehends her despair even while learning to name it.

From the poignant and searching texture of its opening pages, to a surprising but equally poignant leave-taking, A PARADIGM OF EARTH moves richly into the realm of spiritual meaning by way of the complex maze of feelings we call grief --- and comes out the other side into a new and challenging light.

Dorsey, unarguably one of the finest science-fiction writers Canada has ever produced, builds everyday language into an eloquent symphonic fabric of theme and resolution that kept me irresistibly moving from chapter to chapter. Paradigm? The word was perfect; a gentle but uncompromising affirmation that only the wounded can truly understand the art of healing, only the incomplete knows what it means to be whole. Highly recommended.

--- Reviewed by Pauline Finch