The go-to question for time-traveler stories is usually something like “Oh, why wouldn’t you stop the Titanic from sinking?” or “Wouldn’t you kill Hitler?”
But in SAVING THE DODO, writer Garrett W. Vance takes a different angle: could you save a species from extinction?
Set in Eric Flint’s Ring of Fire universe, birdwatcher Pam Miller—a 20th Century woman catapulted into the 17th—has a narrow window in which she can ostensibly sail from Germany to Mauritius and preserve one of history’s most notorious extinct species. But since there’s sailing involved, it won’t be easy…
The Story
At first the story seems pretty straightforward: sail around the Horn of Africa, land on Mauritius, and find a dodo bird, drop it in a greenhouse. Pam Miller’s adventure is anything but simple: she’s in her forties, a divorced mother of an adult son who doesn’t like her, and she’s had to reinvent herself over the past few years ever since her town of Grantville, West Virginia was catapulted four hundred years back in time. Saving a species from extinction would give her some fulfillment and accomplishment that have been missing from her life.
The story quickly develops into a rather classical adventure novel: Pam figures out the learning curve on the ship she takes to Mauritius, which is manned by Swedish sailors. She makes friends with the men and one of them even brings his wife along. (The names are all extremely German or Swedish, so they’ll hit the eyes of the average English-reader kind of hard, but you’ll get the hang of it before too long.)
The crew deal with normal challenges like having a bad cook aboard ship, getting shipwrecked on an island, encountering pirates, coming up with an escape plan, and more. I enjoyed those elements of it the most.
That said, there was one part around the middle of the book that had me screaming—it’s a classic case of “a man writing a female character the way a man would.” Pam and her friend Dore (a German farmwife) have to seduce a crew of Chinese pirates away from their junk (ship) so that the Swedes can steal it. They do so by stripping to the waist and dancing like drunk sorority girls at an SEC school. Every new description of it is somehow worse than the one that came right before it. I try not to snipe at other authors in reviews but holy crap, haha…Vance, you’re killing me, man. Rough scene.
But again, let me reiterate: this is a good book, and I liked the story.
The Characters
Pam was likeable and competent; I feel like a lot of modern authors try to reinvent the wheel in this area, and Vance wisely chose not to. Instead we get a woman who’s had a bumpy go of things in life, but in the right situation she becomes indispensable and can accomplish great things—though not without challenges.
The support cast of Swedish sailors kind of blended together, though individuals stood out, including the captain, and a love interest for Pam. They’re good at making enough of an impression individually to stand out here and there, and that helps the story along.
The World
These Ring of Fire novels are like, 5% sci-fi and 95% historical fiction that walk you through another era, showcasing the technology, the geopolitics of the world, and the potential impact of future humans on past societies. It’s recognizably our world but presented in a way that teaches the reader something new every few pages.
Politics
None.
Content Warning
A handful of F-bombs and some combat violence. Sexual references, like the above-mentioned scene.
Who is it for?
Fans of Ring of Fire will not be disappointed. Also, if you’ve ever read up about the Kon-Tiki expedition of 1947, this book reminded me a lot of that voyage.
Why buy it
Blending high-seas adventure, wry humor, and the fierce hope of ordinary people changing history, SAVING THE DODO delivers a classic feel-good tale about a modern woman who gets stuck in the past, and tries to do something exceptional for the future.