cover image The Kin

The Kin

Peter Dickinson. Putnam Publishing Group, $24.99 (640pp) ISBN 978-0-399-24022-5

Favorite fiction returns in volumes designed to attract new readers. Master storyteller Peter Dickinson's tale of The Kin, set in Africa 200,000 years ago, reexamines themes he explored in A Bone from a Dry Sea. One impressive volume gathers the four tales originally published separately in the U.S. (Suth's Story; Noli's Story; Ko's Story; and Mana's Story). The quartet relates the epic adventures of a small band of children who struggle to survive after their families have been killed. Dickinson intersperses within their narrative a smattering of ""Oldtales,"" the pourquoi myths of their tribe, the Kin. PW said in a starred review of Noli's Story, ""The real adventure here is the exhilarating mix of ideas the novel so nimbly sets forth.""