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Jamari and the Manhood Rites and Jamari Shaman

by R. Roderick Rowe

In 2115, Jamari enters the challenges of the Manhood Rites for the Elk Creek Tribe of southern Oregon. After a series of tests and challenges, he is accepted into the young men's hall in the tribal seat of Milltown.

In a post-apocalyptic world, Jamari must learn how to face the challenges of his times. He joins his mentor Shane and some new-found friends as he enters into tribal management lessons including forestry, crop management, militia leader, and the Night Studies. The night studies will teach him eros and how to please others in mankind's most valued trait: sexual studies. With a full day of classes, adventures, and expeditions, he also has the eros lessons at night. What's a poor boy to do when he's so busy?

Jamari discovers an innate talent as a shaman and this changes everything he expected from his world. He's taken under the wing of the famed Peter Shaman, once the Second Knight Shaman of the entire tribe and joins an expedition to the Oregon coast to render salt. Along the way, he discovers new peoples, new lands, new cultures and expectations. Then, after a successful negotiation with a coast tribe, disaster strikes and Jamari must set aside his boyhood and embrace his shaman powers.

Published:
Cover Artists:
R. Roderick Rowe

Genres:
Fantasy, Fantasy - LGBTQ+, Fantasy - Magical Realism, Sci Fi, Sci Fi - Dystopian & Post-Apocalyptic, Sci Fi - Science Fantasy

Tags:
author - american, format - book, format - kindle, format - novel, format - novel <100K, format - paperback, format - series, identity - demisexual, identity - gay, identity - polyamorous, potential trigger - death, what - topic - natural disaster, when - period - near future, where - general - forest, where - general - mountains, who - occupation - student

Tropes: Dystopian Governments, Fellowship, Found Family, Post-Apocalyptic, Reluctant Hero, Training, Wise Mentor
Languages Available: English
Series Type: Same Universe / Various Characters
Tropes: Dystopian Governments, Fellowship, Found Family, Post-Apocalyptic, Reluctant Hero, Training, Wise Mentor
Languages Available: English
Series Type: Same Universe / Various Characters
Excerpt:
Reviews:Mark "Phoenix" Peterson on Amazon wrote:

5 out of 5 stars
A genuinely, unique masterpiece. Although the cover may mislead some readers, it is not strictly about male sensuality at all—it's about adulthood. It is for 'real' adults who have matured beyond superficiality and subjects which are considered to be taboo. It touches many topics which need to be open for discussion.
I believe anyone who takes this journey will be captivated regardless of lifestyle or religious concepts. I fell in love with the characters immediately. Jamari is almost a complete contrast to most young men of this generation and perhaps many before. In a sense, I find it to be somewhat prophetic; it is 'unbelievably believable.' 🙂
There are so many valuable lessons readers can absorb from it. Rowe's writing style is so descriptive that you're actually sucked into this post-apocalyptic world—able to see, smell, taste, hear, and feel everything.
Furthermore, I strongly suggest this book for any parent who has issues about the sexual orientation of their child(ren). I also recommend Paradigm Lost for preteens and teenagers—it's nothing like the lukewarm fiction of Judy Blume... R. Roderick Rowe gives it to you straight from the heart like an arrow in the wind.

Ida Umphers on Amazon wrote:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absorbing series begins
Reviewed in the United States on June 5, 2023
Format: Kindle
This story reminded me a bit of the way I felt on first reading some of Ursula K. LeGuin's stories, like The Left Hand of Darkness that made me stop short when I was younger and wonder what would happen in such a society where cultural norms have been turned around. The same sense of discovery was there for me in this book as I read on wanting to find out more about what trials Jamari would go through, how he would react to them and what he'd be like on the other side. The integration of unforgettable events from our recent past as they look back from 2115 was well thought out. I can't wait to see how Jamari's life progresses in the next two book.s


About the Author

Full Member, Science Fiction/Fantasy Writer's Association.

Member, Northwest Independent Writers Association.

Author Member, Liminal Fiction, A gathering of Speculative Fiction Authors and Readers.

Rowe had a career in a small district energy plant in Eugene, Oregon before downsizing to the coastal town of Winchester Bay, Oregon where he owned a 51 foot commercial fishing boat called the Ceres. He left the coast after the COVID years due to economic reality. He then worked at a big box home store in Portland, Oregon and now is a full-time author. Retired. That's the word. Retired.

He was a nuclear power plant operator serving aboard the USS Norfolk, SSN 714, in the U. S. Navy.

Rowe says of himself:

I’m writing all of the time. I may not be sitting at the computer with a document open, but I’m thinking about my characters and their issues, and how to resolve their problems all of the time. I started ‘thinking’ about "Paradigm Lost, Jamari and the Manhood Rites, Part I" FIVE years before I ever wrote down a single word. I talked about it with friends and partners. In my life, I relate things that happen to me as a gay man to what those events would feel like to the characters in my novel. When I finally sat down to put it all ‘on paper’, I had the bulk of it completed in three months and then spent the next 4 months polishing, cutting, pasting, etc.

As I have completed several novels, the next one is growing in importance with each passing day that I spend on promotions and the ‘business’ side of this endeavor. The characters are beginning to haunt my dreams at night. “Where are you?” they want to know. “When are we coming out again? When do we get to start the next adventure?” A couple seem to sense that things aren’t going to go well for them. They seem to be offering other options . . .

I have had a difficult time in applying my work to any specific genre. It contains elements of Magical Realism, Post Apocalypse (Dystopian), Science Fiction, Survivalist, Fantasy, Spiritual, LGBTQ and even a bit of Naturalist. What I really set out to do was to allow readers to see culture in a new way; to see sex in a new way, perhaps even to develop their own understanding of the beauty of that very human endeavor. The secondary goal was to make homosexuality normal. In order to accomplish these two goals I had to build a society that had discarded our current taboos and strictures. I had to destroy the culture I was raised up in and then create an entirely new culture from scratch.

How long have I known I was going to write? I thought I would want to write as far back as 7th grade. I enjoyed reading so much that I actually got reprimanded for reading in class at times. I suspect if I had been reading the text assigned it would have been okay, but, I was addicted to fiction early and upgraded to Science Fiction early in High School. I wrote many short stories and poems in H.S. I won several writing contests and was given a scholarship to college based on my writing. The most important thing I ever heard about writing though was that I needed to live a little bit before I would have anything interesting to say. In retrospect, I always could say something accurately and with flair, but, I did need to live a little in order to develop my story-line and know how to present it so it gets the attention it deserves.