Book Description:
'Before the telly died, haggard looking people, politicians mostly, described how an illegally imported rabbit calicivirus had mutated. It wasn't killing rabbits any more and nor was it affecting cats and dogs, and not the native bat nor the little spotted kiwi. But it had been killing people with a type of hemorrhagic fever that had traveled from the Mackenzie Country up and down the land like the wind, from Bluff to Cape Reinga in about three weeks. And that was the good news...' <P>The world is now no longer as it once was. After the Fever, Sean must leave his home in New Zealand's far north and journey on horseback to the deep south. Future generations depend on his success. But myth has become reality, and many dangers await. <P>'I'm currently confined to a wheelchair (multiple sclerosis) and am writing full time. My ancestry is Polynesian (Samoan), Celtic and Anglo Saxon. I regard myself as a Pacific person, and my thanks to Ngapuhi Nui Tonu and particularly Ngati Hau and Ngati Korora for taking me in and allowing me to feel like I belonged somewhere.' <P>'This debut is quite an achievement ... The reader can't resist accompanying Sean on his journey through a world gone wrong.' Chris Bourke, North and South <P>'...extraordinary debut novel of 51 year old Otago writer Chris Baker ... Huia Publishers usually ublishes works by Maori writers, but there are good reasons for making an exception in Baker's case. It's hard to think of any novel witten in the last five years more steeped in Maori mythology than Kokopu Dreams.' Iain Sharp, Sunday Star Times <P>'Immensely readable ... carried by the strength of its storytelling and its open attempt at bringing a non Maori view of biculturalism into our literature.' Anne Kennedy, New Zealand Listener <P>'Kokopu Dreams is an old story. Just about everyone loves old stories, especially when they are as well told as this one. New Zealand is the setting, and what better place to set a story of legend and magic? Why else would that other Arthurian derived story The Lord of the Rings be filmed here?' John Connor, New Zealand Herald
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