The Book That Broke the World

Celcha is a central protagonist and one of the four point-of-view characters in the novel. She is a member of a species called ganar, which originally lived on a moon of the planet, Attamast. Their biology is influenced by their home planet’s solar cycle and the composition of the atmosphere, which includes a gas called methalayne. Ganar are clever, loyal, technologically gifted, and tough. They are humanoid in appearance but smaller than average humans and covered with soft hair that ranges in color from black to brown and gold.

In Celcha’s timeline, ganar have been forced into servitude to humans and canith, whom they collectively refer to as sabbers, a word that, to them, means alien or other. Celcha was born in a small camp located on the Arthran Plateau, where her work is to excavate a buried ancient city for any of the reusable materials that might be found there, including metals, stone, or plastic. Her slave master is cruel. The claws that naturally grow from the backs of her hands have been cut out, and she still bears the scars of being beaten with a steel rod when she was young, one of the official cruelties that is meted out to force the enslaved ganar into obedience.