The Transall Saga
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| The Transall Saga | |
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| Author | Gary Paulsen |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Subject(s) | Survival, Post Apocalypse |
| Genre(s) | Novel, Science Fiction |
| Publisher | Random House |
| Publication date | 1998 |
| Media type | Hardcover and Paperback |
The Transall Saga is a novel by Gary Paulsen. It is a survival story like most of his other books, but with a science-fiction, post-apocalyptic, setting published in 1998.
The story begins as Mark, a survival enthusiast and a young boy is hiking through a mountainous area called the Magruder Missile Range and sees a mysterious blue beam of light. He approaches it and falls in after being bitten by a rattlesnake. When he wakes up, he finds no bite marks, and is in a field of red grass. He has little time to reflect upon what strange events have been happening to him, as he is soon approached by a strange buffalo-like animal who chases him into a tree and tears up his belongings.
Mark has nothing except the clothes on his back and some survival tools, so he uses his innate survival skills as an attempt to live in the jungle all by himself. He gets food by eating a coconut-like fruit, and he makes a shelter of leaves and branches into a deck. In this jungle, he encounters a very tame monkey-like creature, whom he names Willie, and Willie becomes a sort of pet. Mark believes that the world he landed in is an alien world with many similarities to Earth. While exploring the forest, he finds an arrowhead and tracks which he follows to find some creatures like humans but shorter and with webbed feet and yellow skin. After observing these people for a while, he follows them, and finds their camp.
Finding their tribal and primitive ways too warlike, he soon chooses to leave. The next morning, he is taken prisoner by a more advanced, metal-weapon wielding race. On the path to slavery in their village in the mountains, he saves the life of his new friend, Leeta. He has been in the "Tsook" village for over six months now, he can now speak their language as he would a native tongue. While he is there he encounters a girl whose name is Megaan and ends up liking. He escapes slavery only to return and warn the village about an impending attack from their enemies. By so doing he wins his freedom and official entry into their tribe. After these events, and many more, including meeting the mysterious, masked leader of these people (The Merkon), he comes to discover that this world is the dark future of the planet Earth. One such incident that led him to that conclusion was when a village boy dug up a shard of a Coca-Cola bottle.
The Merkon, who is actually an escaped convict from years before Mark's time, tells him of what he has learned of the future of Earth. Apparently in the near future of Mark's time, a strange new highly contagious disease appears and wipes out most of the human race. Earlier in the story Mark has a discussion with an old man which tells a similar account of the fate of the past world. Once most everyone is dead, groups of civilians acquire nuclear missiles and a nuclear holocaust ensues. Mankind has started over. After severely wounding the Merkon (who tells him that the mysterious blue light strikes at random) Mark returns to the village of the Tsook he has come to regard as home. He asks Megaan, a girl from the village he has feelings for, to marry him. Before they can be wed however the Merkon's son leads an army after Mark. Mark flees the village to protect them and leads the Merkon's son to the jungle, away from his new home. Once in jungle Mark systematically kills the army (of 40 or so men) but forgets about a scouting party that was sent ahead of the army. They attack him, nearly kill him, and then the blue light strikes and Mark falls back into the past. After he returns to his own time, Mark becomes a doctor, working tirelessly to cure the disease that would wipe out humanity. Some of his colleagues report hearing him mutter: "This is for you, Megaan."
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