Valpartha

What would it be like to be an adventurous woman living for 10 years on a spaceship bound for a distant star? What adventures would be in store for an intrepid female scientist and her male paramour exploring a vast unknown planet, half permanently frozen and dead, the other half warm and teeming with life? What would it be like for space travelers to live in an advanced matriarchal civilization, where Earth's dominant patriarchal values are considered alien, are questioned and suppressed? These are some of the questions raised in Valpartha: One Woman's Quest, an interstellar romance. The first person protagonist, Swedish geologist ASTRID SVENSON, leaves Earth behind forever to explore and record scientific findings on unknown planets for the European Space Agency. She experiences adventure, triumph, terror, mishap, but above all love and romance, as she and her husband, French botanist HENRI BRULE', share their lives and love together exploring two planets and two cultures at opposite ends of the continuum of civilization. Both the highly civilized matriarchal Valparthans and the hunter-gatherer Arkenuans welcome the space travelers onto their planets to share their cultures. On the matriarchal planet of Valpartha, good-will goes only so far in dealing with fundamental cultural differences, and the expectations of their host society. On the wild and unknown planet of Arkenu, friendly natives sometimes rescue their expedition from hostile tribes, though at other times they must fight alone for survival on an alien world.