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  • Testament of Leaves by Carolyn Ives Gilman book cover
  • Testament of Leaves by Carolyn Ives Gilman book cover
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Testament of Leaves

by Carolyn Ives Gilman

A murder investigation shaped by language and secrecy

$19.98 USD
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AlbakiReads Editorial

A murder investigation shaped by language and secrecy

On a remote planet, the death of a linguist draws investigator Shameesh Kulkarni into a community where every group has reason to withhold information. His few collaborators are an unusual trio: a digital replica of the victim, an octopod who knew her, and Shameesh himself. The investigation reaches beyond the killing to the ruins of an ancient city and the language the linguist was studying, while the planet’s landscape holds secrets its inhabitants are determined to keep. The premise brings alien contact together with questions of communication, archaeological discovery, and the limits of uncovering a truth that cannot be spoken openly.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Science-fiction readers interested in alien worlds and contact across species.
  • Readers who enjoy mysteries involving murder, archaeological clues, and withheld information.
  • Readers interested in stories about language and communication across human, digital, and nonhuman minds.

Themes

Language and communicationSecrecy and truthAlien contactArchaeological discovery

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

​​In the isolated thickets of a faraway planet, a linguist lies dead. Inscrutinator Shameesh Kulkarni must find out why. But no one wants to talk: not the prospectors searching for mineral wealth, not the archaeologists trying to piece together a ruined city, not the local schoolteacher, and certainly not the indigenous people whose language the dead woman was researching.

 

Only two beings are interested in helping Shameesh solve the murder: a digital replica of the victim herself, and the inquisitive octopod who befriended her. Three brains are better than one, even if one is a bot and another is an invertebrate, because there is more than one mystery here to solve.

 

Here, the landscape itself hides layers of centuries-old secrets-secrets that the inhabitants must protect at all costs. Shameesh's job is to reveal the truth-on a planet where the truth cannot be spoken.

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