The Twins of Zae is not the worst book I've ever read, but it's close. It reproduces all the faults of the previous book, The Tells of Cutezar. It is nothing but unacknowledged Star Trek fanfiction, with only one original element thrown in: religion. Imagine Star Trek, except instead of Gene Roddenberry's humanist conception of mankind, a deep commitment to religion underscores everything. Instead of a ship's counselor, the USS M. Curie has Chaplain Craig Lea, who is the most popular man on board. Everybody, and I mean everybody, comes to vespers, even the token atheist (who will no doubt come to know Christ in one of the sequels.)
In the previous book, Chaplain Craig Lea talked to the Cutezarians about their god, the Spirit of All Things. The central theme of the book was Craig's discovery that the Spirit of All Things is the same as Jehovah God. The Cutezarians worship the one true god, and have their own revelation from Him. Jo Bower shows that she is indeed a one trick pony: in The Twins of Zae, Craig talks to the Zaetherians and deduces that the Presence they worship is the same as Jehovah God. Seriously? Did I read that whole rotten book just to find that out? IT'S THE SAME THING AS THE PREVIOUS BOOK! Give me something new, Bower.
The Twins of Zae is marked by a lack of internal conflict, just like The Tells of Cutezar. That may surprise you, given that the first half of the book is about social upheaval on Zaetheria. The planet Zaetheria is populated by sets of males twins who rule over the inferior people: the females and the single-born males. Varkma and Vantheria, a set of mixed twins (boy and girl) spur huge changes when they challenge the cultural assumption that male twins are superior. It seems like there would be a huge conflict, given that they are challenging the natural order upon which all Zaetherian society is based. But no. The opposition is perfunctory. Bower would have you believe this struggle is akin to the Civil Rights movement, or to the women's rights movement. But it's not so. The Zaetherians make a few feeble objections, but the whole society quickly embraces the new social order, with everyone--male twins, female twins, mixed twins, and single-borns--having equal rights and privileges.
I have gripes about the writing, too. Jo Bower needs an editor. Her characters never say anything, they always laugh, chuckle, quiz, add, or lament. It's a rookie mistake. You think say and said are boring, so you try to spice things up. What you get is cringe-inducing amateurish prose. An editor can fix those mistakes. An editor can also point out dangling plot elements. For example, Jo Bower introduces a set of robot toys called Sumintras, then drops that plot device completely. Has Bower never heard of Chekhov's Gun? "If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there." Jo Bower introduces the Sumintra toy robots and then never does anything with them.
Finally, let's discuss typesetting. Choosing a good font is important. The Twins of Zae fails, badly. The first half of the book revolves around Chaplain Craig Lea reading a novel about Zaetheria. The novel text is presented in all caps. All caps is hard on the eyes. And the font is bad, too: the letters look too similar. For example, the D and O are almost identical. The result is a book that is a chore to read because you have to struggle to decipher the font.
I'm feeling generous, so The Twins of Zae gets my lowest score ever: 1.
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