Catalyst: A Novel of Alien Contact

A dreamlike little story about Kaslin, who ends up in a cave where he awakens a group of hibernating alient, and is transformed by them.
The novel is very sensuous in the sense that there is a lot of texture and taste to the descriptions, yet it is very barren in other ways - fx the sociopathis

behaviour of many of the characters, and the privation of others.
Kaslin and his parents have just arrived to the planet Chuudoku, where they've had to move due to his fathers stupidity. Kaslin has become the target of a much wealthier and stronger bully at school. One day when he tries to escape her, he hides in a cave. There he discovers a strange material which can be manipulated by sound, change texture and shape, and is edible. He accidently awakens an alien who then proceeds to examine him thoroughly. As more people are introduced to the cave - amongst them the bully, Histly - it becomes obviously that the aliens are granting different people different abilities, and that their abilities far exceeds humans. The relationship between Kaslin and Histly develops rapidly as Kaslins new abilities become apparant and Histly buys him from his father.
It is a thorough odd little story, where the events make a strange kind of sense in the context of the story, but afterwards they seem disconnected and inexplicable - much like a dream. The dreamlike quality is partly due to the difficulty of understanding a society where there is so little respect for the individual, and so little consequence of a persons actions, as long as they are powerful and rich enough.
Very wellwritten novel with a very slight plot, and characters without much depth.

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LibraryThing member robinamelia

Hoffman moves from fantasy to science fiction with this novel set on an alien planet in some future time of human planetary colonization. The main character is a young boy: his age is not made explicit, which causes some problems. The tone is at times middle reader, and then bizarre sexual

encounters begin to happen which makes it clear why this book was shelved in the adult science fiction section of my library. The conclusion felt very unfinished as if this is really meant to be the start of a series.

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LibraryThing member AltheaAnn

A very short book.
This book reminded me in many ways of many kids/YA books I've read about young people making first contact with an alien species. (Andre Norton's, for example). A young teenager on a colony world, fleeing a bully, stumbles into a cave and finds an alien "city." Issues with the

bully get resolved, the adults get called in, and positive aspects should come out of this for all.
The radical elements here are that the colony world in question is really a criminal world, bootlegging illegal drugs (an issue that is brought up but never really discussed), and that there are a couple of sexually explicit scenes (which have caused other reviewers to go so far as to call the book "soft-core porn.") It's not. The scenes aren't even that explicit, and aren't inappropriate, age-wise, for young teens, either. It's just that there's a definite disconnect between the content, and the style of the language in which the book is written. There's a very ‘juvenile' feel to the writing – especially when ‘alien' words are stuff like "bink bink boo bootah." So more mature content, when it arrives, feels very jarring.
Interesting, but not Nina Kiriki's Hoffman's best (or most original) work.

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LibraryThing member fred_mouse

Quite creeped out by this one, not sure if I was supposed to be. Alien first contact with dubious consent sexual relations, grievous bullying with everyone in power looking the other way, and slavery masquerading as 'work contracts'. While I normally recommend everything Hoffman to everyone, this

is the exception to the rule.

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LibraryThing member cindywho

This is one of the oddest, kinkiest YA SF books I've read in a while. In her other fantasy novels, Hoffman has often touched upon the theme of people with too much power over others and how they abuse that power. Teenaged Kaslin has been at the whim of his parents, a bully, and now the aliens he

found in a cave on the human-colonized planet where he lives. His relationship with the bully becomes disturbingly romantic (though it mirrors the plight of many female characters in romance novels) and the aliens get pretty freaky too. It's a short book, I finished it on a lazy afternoon.

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