University of Hawaiʻi Press
Valley of Spiraling Winds
400 pages | 8 b&w illustrations
Paperback: $19.99
ISBN-13: 9798880700820
REVIEWS OF VALLEY OF SPIRALING WINDS, A SPIRAL JUNGLE NOVEL
"This work by Peter Britos is some of the most interesting extrapolative fiction written in and about Hawaiʻi to date—a truly exceptional, outsized, audacious, brilliant piece of writing, on the imaginative and conceptual scale of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas or William Gibson’s Neuromancer."
—Paul B. Lyons, UHM professor emeritus (1958–2018)
"Buckle up for an enthralling voyage into the world of Hawaiian science fiction. Valley of Spiraling Winds is a hallmark of Kanaka ʻŌiwi storytelling at its finest, a masterful weaving of cultural arts, language, history, and politics, and a welcome addition to the growing corpus of Indigenous speculative fiction."
—kuʻualoha hoʻomanawanui, professor of Hawaiian literature, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
"Valley of Spiraling Winds, like other great novels of recent years, such as Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children or Toni Morrison’s Beloved, evokes the political nuances of disenfranchised people by weaving together elements of ethics, environmental justice, personal and collective memory, and communal values and preservation."
—Kyung Hyun Kim, professor of East Asian Languages and Literatures and of Visual Studies at the University of California, Irvine
"The ambitious reach of Spiral Jungle reminds me of Frank Herbert’s Dune series and, in its capacity to range effortlessly across time periods and genres, David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas. In all of its media manifestations, it exhibits a masterful control of the form... All of its many sections are riveting in themselves, but as a whole the work takes on an epic, operatic dimension, building up a world—and a worldview— rooted in the specificity of the cultures of Hawaiʻi, in particular Native Hawaiian culture, while maintaining a global appeal."
—John Zuern, professor and Department Chair of English at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
—Paul B. Lyons, UHM professor emeritus (1958–2018)
"Buckle up for an enthralling voyage into the world of Hawaiian science fiction. Valley of Spiraling Winds is a hallmark of Kanaka ʻŌiwi storytelling at its finest, a masterful weaving of cultural arts, language, history, and politics, and a welcome addition to the growing corpus of Indigenous speculative fiction."
—kuʻualoha hoʻomanawanui, professor of Hawaiian literature, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
"Valley of Spiraling Winds, like other great novels of recent years, such as Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children or Toni Morrison’s Beloved, evokes the political nuances of disenfranchised people by weaving together elements of ethics, environmental justice, personal and collective memory, and communal values and preservation."
—Kyung Hyun Kim, professor of East Asian Languages and Literatures and of Visual Studies at the University of California, Irvine
"The ambitious reach of Spiral Jungle reminds me of Frank Herbert’s Dune series and, in its capacity to range effortlessly across time periods and genres, David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas. In all of its media manifestations, it exhibits a masterful control of the form... All of its many sections are riveting in themselves, but as a whole the work takes on an epic, operatic dimension, building up a world—and a worldview— rooted in the specificity of the cultures of Hawaiʻi, in particular Native Hawaiian culture, while maintaining a global appeal."
—John Zuern, professor and Department Chair of English at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
VOSW Overview
Pete Britos explores the roots of contemporary Hawaiʻi through the lens of a dystopian future in this edgy, time-hopping novel. From a predicament in the future, the narrative plunges into the past to follow the journey of a Hawaiian-immigrant family through multiple generations spanning the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries.
The journey begins when veteran mnemo-navigator Estrella Kuemanu arrives in Waikīkī, ready to take a deep dive a thousand years into the past. She has the koko, the blood, the genealogical signature to make this dive. If the stories and intel are true, she must find Bishop Valdez and his sister Nalani—they may hold the key to preventing an apocalyptic prophecy from being fulfilled. Estrella has studied the lore, whittled the names into her drivepack; but she knows that’s no guarantee. It’s a mess back there that deep in the past, what with those crazy-ass people so much like her own, driven by passions and curses, dumb luck both good and bad, dreams for the living, dreams of the dead.
Pete Britos brings a courageously fresh, indigenous sensibility to the science-fiction realm with this first novel from his multiplatform Spiral Jungle universe. Deliberately drawing from several storytelling traditions, including the epic poem and narrative practices unique to Hawaiʻi, the author presents this visionary tale with rich and lyrical language. Hyperrealism, sharp socio-political satire, and black humor combine with the poetic, sensual, and mystical to create a spellbinding world of memorable characters.
This groundbreaking novel takes on some of the most pressing cultural, political, and ethical issues of our times with an innovative approach and critical focus. It strips away popular, clichéd representations of the Hawaiian Islands and its peoples and reimagines Hawaiʻi’s history and mythology in profoundly beautiful and relevant ways.
Pete Britos explores the roots of contemporary Hawaiʻi through the lens of a dystopian future in this edgy, time-hopping novel. From a predicament in the future, the narrative plunges into the past to follow the journey of a Hawaiian-immigrant family through multiple generations spanning the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries.
The journey begins when veteran mnemo-navigator Estrella Kuemanu arrives in Waikīkī, ready to take a deep dive a thousand years into the past. She has the koko, the blood, the genealogical signature to make this dive. If the stories and intel are true, she must find Bishop Valdez and his sister Nalani—they may hold the key to preventing an apocalyptic prophecy from being fulfilled. Estrella has studied the lore, whittled the names into her drivepack; but she knows that’s no guarantee. It’s a mess back there that deep in the past, what with those crazy-ass people so much like her own, driven by passions and curses, dumb luck both good and bad, dreams for the living, dreams of the dead.
Pete Britos brings a courageously fresh, indigenous sensibility to the science-fiction realm with this first novel from his multiplatform Spiral Jungle universe. Deliberately drawing from several storytelling traditions, including the epic poem and narrative practices unique to Hawaiʻi, the author presents this visionary tale with rich and lyrical language. Hyperrealism, sharp socio-political satire, and black humor combine with the poetic, sensual, and mystical to create a spellbinding world of memorable characters.
This groundbreaking novel takes on some of the most pressing cultural, political, and ethical issues of our times with an innovative approach and critical focus. It strips away popular, clichéd representations of the Hawaiian Islands and its peoples and reimagines Hawaiʻi’s history and mythology in profoundly beautiful and relevant ways.