The Marshlanders: Volume One Of The Marshlanders Trilogy,Used

Review ? Older postsJanuary 31, 2011 Birmingham Author Annis Pratt Makes Way to'Marshlanders' by Megan Shaffer The Marshlanders, published in May 2010 by iUniverse, marks Pratt'sfirst foray into fiction. More than ten years in the making, The Marshlanders is the first published volume of TheInfinite Games Seriesand a true labor of love. Based on harmonious, selfsustaining communities at odds with their dystopian counterparts, Pratt believes her fiction is an opportunity to share rather than preach about ethical and environmental responsibility. Product Description The Marshlanders is about the conflict between selfsustaining communities and their enemies, who are determined to drain their wetlands for agricultural development. Clare and William are adopted by marsh dwellers and coastal farmers after William's father, a pharmacist, has been murdered and Clare has barely escaped with her life from a public shaming of her mother. Their communities are threatened by a cabal of merchants, ministers, and apothecaries. The merchants are buying up their common land, the ministers insist they renounce their love of the earth and of their own bodies, and the apothecaries, greedy to corner the market in herbs, persecute their traditional healers. The Marshlanders are joyously sensual, seek harmony with their watery landscape, and are creatively practical, always looking for new ideas about farming, irrigation, navigating, foraging, and weaving. Their enemies are sexually violent and seek to dominate nature. They pursue technology out of greed and govern by male domination and military force. This novel has a fast paced plot and is a compelling read. From the Author When I was teaching Native American Literature at the University of Wisconsin, my Native American Students, irritated that so many authors used materials from their spiritual traditions, asked me if I, as an AngloAmerican, didn't have any 'nice pagan ancestors in England' I could draw upon for my writing.That was the beginning of a great adventure. My ancestors originally reached America from East Anglia, where, I discovered on two research visits, selfsustaining fen dwellers had battled against the Bishops of Ely, Merchant Adventurers (they were actually called that) and other greedy developers determined to drain their lands for agricultural development. So fiercely did the Fen Tigers defend their territory that it took 300 years for the draining to be completed.My Marshland setting and communities, though an invented world, thus have an historical base, and I keep it very realistic and nonfantastical. When I published The Marshlanders I intended it as the first volume in a trilogy, but as the writing went on the second volume,Fly Out of the Darkness extended into two further volumes The Road to Beaver Mill and The Battle for the Black Fen, making it a series of four.My resultingInfinite Games series of environmental fictionis named for a concept from James P. Carse's Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility. Our world, he writes, 'is imperiled by finite outcomes that is, by the victory of some players and the defeat of others.' Instead, 'The rules of an infinite game are changed to prevent anyone from winning the game and to bring as many persons as possible into the play.' From the Inside Flap front cover'I was flat out caught up in The Marshlanders. Its concept, style, and story drew me right in.' Anethea Veenman, Amsterdam.'A really good read An exciting novel, I couldn't put it down.'Griffin Ward Smith, Denver. From the Back Cover The Marshlanders is about the conflict between selfsustaining communities and their enemies, who are determined to drain their wetlands for agricultural development. Clare and William are adopted by marsh dwellers and coastal farmers after William's father, a pharmacist, has been murdered and Clare has barely escaped with her life from a public