Urn Burial (edit title/settings)

OVERVIEW

Urn Burial is a fast-paced science fiction novel with a strong sense of place and interesting characters, not all of them human. It features several exciting action sequences (ray gun battles in the dark and underground) and a couple of genuinely scary bits (humans forced to serve as experimental animals). The book also deals with a number of topics likely to appeal to young adult readers. The most important of these is the possibility that extraterrestrials may have periodically visited the Earth for centuries, leaving behind artifacts like the burial urn that triggers the story's action, and unwittingly generates such figures out of myth as werewolves and devils, not to mention the Book of Revelations.

The novel also features what might be called limited pacifism. Unlike other Quaker science fiction writers such as Joan Slonczewski and Judith Moffett, who appear to argue that it is never proper to take the life of another intelligent being, Westall limits his prohibition against killing to doing so within ones own species. The cat-like Fefethil who guard the Earth from harm by the doglike Wawaka, absolutely prohibit the killing of their own kind, and the single greatest reason why they look down on apes (as they call us) is that we do kill our own species. The Fefethil, however, although we are told that they value all life, will grudgingly kill representatives of other intelligent races when they deem it necessary to their interests or those of Merethon's children, 'the highest race in the universe,' whom they apparently serve. In the distant past, for example, they apparently wiped out virtually an entire intelligent species, the demonic Attock, who are, we are told, almost the personification of all that is evil in the universe.

Although the Fefethil have protected Earth from attack by both the Wawaka and the few remaining Attock, they are hardly our allies. They look down on us apes, both because of our record of self-slaughter and because we have badly polluted our planet. To them we are, at best, semi-intelligent. It is obvious that they would be entirely willing to wipe us out too if our species ever became a threat to other, more civilized life forms.

SETTING

Westall has set Urn Burial in the Pennine chain of northern England, near the Scottish border. The fell country is an isolated land of rain, prehistoric ruins, and heather. The sheep that run loose on the steep hills are still a major source of income, and shepherding is a respected profession. Life remains rather primitive on the fells, but the homes have electricity and running water and the shepherds reach their flocks on motorbikes. Ralph Edwards, the book's seventeen-year-old protagonist, may live a life full of sheep dipping, herding, and hard work, but he has seen the movie Star Wars. Westall does not dwell overlong on the magnificent landscape in which his story takes place, but his deft use of just the right detail—lonely cairns on the felltops, thick hedges along the roads—conveys a strong sense of a world at once familiar and mysterious, at once contemporary and ancient.

Also effective are Urn Burial's more otherworldly settings. The decrepit, but menacing spaceship of the Wawaka, with its ghastly closet-like cages full of human remains and mold add to the horror of Ralph's realization that the aliens regard him as little more than an experimental animal. The enormous underground tomb of the dead Fefethil hero, on the other hand, with its giant statues, star-fretted dome, working space fleet, and preserved remains of the hideous Attock, give Ralph and the reader real insight into the true magnificence and power of the galactic culture the Fefethil represent.

THEMES AND CHARACTERS

As one would expect, considering his views on competence and individualism, Westall presents his teen-aged protagonist as an enormously capable young man who has grown up a very hard worker. His father having died at an early age, Ralph works virtually full time as a shepherd for the lazy and not particularly competent Jack Norton. The boy's days are spent herding sheep, running a highly competent pair of sheepdogs, and taking care of whatever other chores he is left with by the often half-soused Norton. When working on the fells, Ralph carries a container of foul-smelling Stockholm tar with him, which he puts on the various cuts and injuries of the sheep in order to protect his charges from infection and parasites. He does this unpleasant task on a regular basis, not because he has been told to, but because he sees it as necessary. On several occasions Ralph repeats to himself, 'I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep and am known of them.' This Bible verse seems to typify his responsible, mature attitude toward his job. Even when relaxing at the pub after work, Ralph feels more comfortable sitting with the adult shepherds and farmers than he does with the other teen-agers.

Westall has also provided a serviceable cast of supporting characters. Ralph's 'Mam' is a huge, hardworking woman who loves her son fiercely and is just a shade overprotective. Norton, although not actively evil, has a touch of the sadist about him, perhaps because deep down, he is aware that he owes most of his success to Ralph's hard work rather than his own. Ruby Todd, Ralph's girlfriend is a touch outspoken, and has an uncanny talent for wearing the wrong footwear when walking on the fells.

The nonhuman characters, Fefethil and Wawaka, are both suitably alien, although they also lie at the center of Urn Burial's one major weakness. The Fefethil Theloc tells Ralph that any number of planets harbor life, but that parallel evolution is virtually universal. Thus, some variation on apes, cats, dogs, bears, sheep, and so on can be found wherever life exists, with a different species attaining intelligence on each world. Presumably there were lower ape and dog species on the lost planet of the Fefethil and non-sentient apes and cats on the home world of the Wawaka, just as there are dogs and cats on Earth. Other science fiction writers have used catlike or doglike aliens before. The more sophisticated writers, however, are careful to either state that the similarities are accidental or provide some scientific explanation for the existence of such genetic parallels. Ursula K. Le Guin did something like this in The Left Hand of Darkness (1969). As found in Urn Burial, however, without scientific rational, the device feels too much like allegory, an unexpected shift into Madeleine L'Engle country perhaps. Although Westall uses his idea of parallel evolution to buttress several underlying themes, including limited pacifism and a strong environmental stance, the device is not entirely successful.

The necessity for competence, responsibility, and independent thinking are undoubtedly Westall's most important themes. Ralph is a very good shepherd, hard working, never shirking the difficult task at hand. He cares deeply about his sheep, and, when fate puts him in a situation where his actions can determine the future of humanity as a whole, he responds heroically. Although treated with disdain by the Fefethil, he examines their ideas, accepts the validity of some of their criticism of the human race, and sets out to disprove the rest of it. On the other hand, Ralph also recognizes the limits of both his ability and his responsibility. When his actions accidentally lead to the death of the village postman, he accepts his role in that tragedy, but does not torture himself with guilt. When a mind-control device he has discovered in the underground Fefethil tomb tempts him to take over the ancient war fleet and use it against Earth's enemies, he resists the impulse, recognizing that such an action would be wrong.

Although recognizing that the Fefethil are wrong to see human beings as mere apes, Ralph essentially agrees with their attitudes towards human violence and destructiveness. As a Quaker, Westall believes very strongly in the importance of living in balance with the natural world and Urn Burial includes a strong environmental message. Connected with both this environmental theme and Westall's emphasis on physical competence is the author's continuing insistence on the importance of having a healthy mind in a healthy body. The Fefethil, for example, are magnificent physical specimens. They make a number of disdainful comments about the ways in which human beings poison themselves and eventually give Ralph and Ruby virtually superhuman powers simply by curing all their bodily ills. Jack Norton's weight problem, hypochondria, and alcohol-induced poor health are mentioned several times and are clearly seen as signs of moral weakness.