Lumbanico, the Cubic Planet (original title: Lumbánico, el Planeta Cúbico) is a science fiction children book written by Spanish writer Cristina Alemparte in 1986.
The setting is Lumbanico, a strange planet divided by massive mountain ranges and seas in six great valleys. Lumbanicians are divided into four clans, and each clan spends three months in each valley before moving to the next. Since the mountain ranges -called Aristas- are unclimbable and the seas are unnavigable, there is only one way to travel from valley to valley: the powerful Eastern Winds which blow every three months. Every time the windy season begins, all Lumbanicians put on flying gear called wind suits and let the winds carry them over the mountains.
A long time ago, Lumbanicians dwelt mainly in the mild-weathered Green and Blue Valleys and travelled freely through the Aristas thanks to mountain passes and tunnels. Unfortunately, seven hundred years ago, overpopulation and uncontrolled use of a polluting energy source created a gigantic mass of toxic dust called the Black Cloud which started descending upon the surface. The Lumbanicians hid in the Aristas' inner valleys to flee from the Black Cloud, returning several months later to find their civilization destroyed. In order to not repeat past mistakes, the survivors agreed to use clean power sources from that point on, eventually splitting into four travelling clans. Through the centuries, the location of the old passes became forgotten due to the Lumbanicians' unwillingness to remember their shameful past; nobody knows what the Aristas are like, since all ancient records all records were lost or destroyed, and the mountain valleys are covered by clouds during the windy season.
Seven hundred years after the Great Shame, Pirela, her little sister Mela and their friend Ustrum are enjoying their last vacation days in Blue Valley before the coming of the Eastern Winds. One day, Pirela reveals a plan she has been cooking up for a while: instead of joining their families when their clan gathers to fly out of the Valley, they will sneak out of town, find the lost tunnel through the Great Mountains and cross the Arista. Ustrum and Mela believe Pirela is out of her mind, but she manages to persuade them, and the trio begin making travel preparations.
After many adventures, Pirela and her friends manage to reach to the Arista, discovering it is inhabited. Unfortunately, Aristans have been afraid of Outsiders since the times of the Black Cloud, fearing that they will ruin their country's environment in the same way as destroyed the Valleys' if they are allowed to go and come through the Arista as they please. Even so, the Aristans are nature-loving, hospitable folks who will happy to take care of any Outsider who falls in their valley...but they would be happier if they never left.
It can be read in the original idiom here
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Tropes:
- Actually Pretty Funny: When Risperim finds out that the kids exploited his own biases and prejudices to fool him completely, he...starts laughing, admits the children are very clever, and calls himself "an old fool".
- After the End: is set seven hundred years after the Great Shame, when the ancient Lumbanician civilization was destroyed by the Black Cloud, a massive toxic cloud created by rampant overuse of contaminant fuels, which descended upon the planet's inhabited valleys and wiped out many animal and plant species, as well as most of the planet's forests. Lumbanicians have always shunned polluting sources of energy since then, but large areas of Lumbanico remain deforested after so many centuries.
- Aliens Speaking English: The setting is a planet whose inhabitants have never met another alien civilization, let alone heard of a planet called "Earth". And yet, all Lumbanicians speak Spanish. It is never spelled out whether their language really sounds like Spanish, or it has been translated by the readers' benefit. It does not help that Lumio, the ancestor of Lumbanico's current lingua franca, is remarkably similar to Latin.
- Alliterative Name: The name of Fimo's father is Vemo Bigil.
- And Man Grew Proud: Lumbanico's ancient civilization was destroyed due to Lumbanicians burning polluting fuels without control to indulge their materialism and accumulate more wealth without regard for consequences. Eventually, said consequences materialized in the Black Cloud which destroyed their cities and their environment. Seven hundred hundreds later, their descendants call that event "the Great Shame" and cannot understand how their ancestors could possibly be so stupid and arrogant.
- Arboreal Abode: Aralia is initially mistaken for a fairy because her house is a hollowed-out oak in the middle of a forest. The door is a curtain in one side of the trunk, and the one room is furnished with one table, three footstools, one bed and one cupboard. Around her oak, she grows beds of hydrangeas, marguerites, dahlias and roses.
- Bat Scare: As exploring a tunnel, the protagonist trio suddenly feel something loud and massive falling on their heads and throw themselves on the ground, believing the ceiling is collapsing. Ustrum looks up and realizes they have disturbed a colony of bats. He tried to reassure his partners that they are safe, but to his annoyance they are still scared of the bats.
- Better with Non-Human Company: Risperim, the grumpy old guardian of the mountains, lives alone. He loves nature, owns several dogs and enjoys taking care of his garden and growing his own vegetables. However, he finds people annoying, scowling that they talk too much and think too little.
- Bizarre Seasons: In the Blue, Yellow, White and Green Valleys where one single and endless station reigns (respectively: Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring, respectively). The smaller inner valleys located deep in the interior ranges, though, have the normal four seasons, surprising the main characters when they travel through the mountains.
- Blatant Lies: The main characters are summoned before the Great Guardian to explain why Pirela had one chunk of Astrolita, a mineral which could only be found in the Arista's lost capital city, Astrópolis. Unwilling to reveal that they found the forgotten mountain tunnels leading into the hidden valley, Pirela hurriedly tells it is a gift from her grandmother. Pirreno Zyr -another Guardian- immediately shouts that Pirela previously stated she found it somewhere. Pirela angrily retorts she found it in her grandmother's jewel case, which she saw no reason to mention. When Zyr questions why an Outsider would keep chunks of an Aristan mineral, Ustrum suggests their ancestors picked some stones when they passed through the city on their journey back home. Later, Pirreno Zyr and other Guardians find their story ridiculous, and the Great Guardian agrees that it is full of holes. The Outsiders who were going back home after spending months hiding in the mountains knew they were going to find their Valleys devastated. Surely, they were feeling too depressed to gather mineral samples. And if someone had picked one stone and their family had treasured it for seven hundred years, they would not have given it to a thirteen-year-old child as it was a new toy.
- Botanical Abomination: Downplayed with Churinela Purpurata, a vegetal specimen artificially engineered by Vinca. It is not malicious -as far as it is known-, but it is unbearable to human eyes. Pirela and Mela feel dizzy and get sick when they see one, to the point they ate very little later when they met her friends for lunch, refusing to talk about what they witnessed.
- Cataclysm Backstory: The history, society and ecology of Lumbanico is shaped by the Black Cloud, a cataclysm which destroyed the planet's environment seven hundred years ago.
- Cave Behind the Falls: The main characters find the subterranean tunnel leading from the Blue Valley into the Arista's vales behind the cascade of the river Okes.
- Chekhov's Skill: In the first chapter, Mela's love of poetry is mentioned in passing and treated as a funny but inconsequential quirk. Three chapters later, the three protagonists are hiking around the Great Mountains as looking for an ancient forgotten pass which people used to cross the mountains many centuries ago. Mela decides reading aloud an ancient poem about the Great Mountains, written by a poet who travelled through them when people still knew and used the passes. Pirela then realizes that poem contains a subtle but vital hint to find the entrance to the underground tunnel.
- Common Tongue: Everyone in the entire world speak the same common idiom whose parent language, Lumio, was spoken across Lumbanico seven hundred years ago.
- Crystal Dragon Jesus: Few details are known about Lumbanico's main religion, other than it is a monotheistic creed whose practitioners call their god simply "God", and their prayers are similar to Christian ones. Meanwhile, the inhabitants of the isolated inner mountain valleys believe in the Great Spirit who created plants, animals and humanity.
- End of an Age: Pirela, Ustrum and Mela find the forgotten tunnels connecting the Arista's hidden mountain valleys to the outside world, putting an end to seven hundred years of separation between Aristans and Outsiders. Risperim is not looking forward to outsiders travelling through the Arista freely, but when Fimo points out that both peoples cannot remain isolated forever, the old Guardian of the Mountains states resignedly he has no choice but get used to the fact.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": When the kids meet the Guardian of the Mountains, Mela asks him if he has a name. The guardian answers of course he has one, although he has almost forgotten it, since he lives alone, and everybody call him just "guardian". Later, he reveals his name is Risperim.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The story's setting is Lumbanico, a cube-shaped planet.
- Extinct in the Future: Many animal species of animals (like horses) and plants (like strawberry trees, or cork and holm oaks) became extinct in Lumbanico due to an environmental disaster known as the Black Cloud seven centuries ago.
- Forest of Perpetual Autumn: The Yellow Valley is in a permanent autumn and frequently shrouded in golden-hued mists due to the planet's strange climate.
- Framing Device: The final chapter is framed as Pirela writing a report of the final part of her and her friends' journey for their group's council of leaders.
- Free-Range Children: Pirela (14 years old), her friend Ustrum and her little sister Mela are allowed to wander around Blue Valley with little to no supervision, thanks to which they can plan a dangerous journey through the Great Mountains without their parents being the wiser.
- Friend to All Children: Risperim refuses to take shelter in the protagonists' tent because he wants nothing to do with Outsider technology, but when Mela -who is about ten years old- tells him to come inside before grabbing him and dragging him into the tent, he lets himself be led around without a fuss. That is the group's first clue that stubborn, grumpy old Guardian of the Mountains has a soft spot for children.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: When the main characters are summoned to a council of the Great Guardians, and Pirela angrily and openly suggests Pirreno Zyr to mind his business, his partners try to stifle their laughs. Since the other Guardians find Pirreno a very annoying jerkass, they enjoy seeing him being told off by a fourteen-year-old girl.
- From Cataclysm to Myth: Seven hundred years before the beginning of the story, the Lumbanicians burned enough fossil fuel to create a massive Black Cloud which descended upon the planet's surface. The Lumbanicians fled to the mountain ranges to escape from the Cloud and remained in the Aristas several months before daring to return, finding their cities and environment destroyed. In the current era, nobody remembers the location of the passages and tunnels to travel through the mountains, nobody knows what the Lumbanicians found in the Aristas' inner vales (some legends even speak of a light-fearing race of giants), and most of History books are missing important information about the Great Shame.
- Ghost City: As exploring the Arista's mountains, the protagonist trio find a beautiful city constructed of blue stone...and completely quiet and abandoned, all signs suggesting that its inhabitants fled abruptly many centuries ago. Later, the kids learn the city used to be known as Astrópolis, "the Fallen Star", and used to be the Arista's capital city. However, the Astropolitans fled the city when a group of refugees of the outer lands travelled through the area. Shortly after, the mountain passes were blocked by an earthquake, and the Aristans were unable to return or find again their city. Seven hundred years later, many people believed Astrópolis to be only a legend.
- Gilded Cage: Pirela and her friends are led to Croca, the Arista's capital city, where they are housed in a beautiful, cozy house, surrounded by beautiful gardens...and they are strongly encouraged to remain there. Later, they are allowed to walk around Croca freely, visiting the city's beautiful parks and impressive libraries. However, they realize that they are being subtly watched, and the Great Guardian distrusts them and wants to keep them in his reach. Thus, they will need to find a way to escape from Croca.
- The Glomp: When the main characters reunite with their families after spending three months travelling, Mela glomps her mother and doesn't let her go until she is tucked up in her bed.
- Here We Go Again!: The story starts with Pirela talking Ustrum and Mela into looking for the forgotten tunnels leading through the Arista range and explore the Enchanted Valley...and ends up with Pirela saying both kids she wants to explore the remainder Aristas and discover whether their inner vales are inhabited. Ustrum angrily replies he is done with travelling and adventuring, but Pirela is completely certain that she will talk them into it once again.
- Hidden Elf Village: The picturesque Enchanted Valley is an enclosed region surrounded by unassailable mountains called Aristas. The Aristans have remained isolated from the wider world since the passes and tunnels vanished from memory seven centuries ago, becoming forgotten by the rest of the planet. And that is how they like it.
- Human Aliens: Lumbanicians look exactly like Earth humans, except for the Aristans who are blue-skinned (but otherwise completely humanoid).
- Hypno Pendulum: The Great Guardian uses a tear-shaped piece of astrolita (a glowing blue mineral) on a string to hypnotize Vinca into revealing where her friends have gone to.
- "Just So" Story:
- Aralia knows and likes telling many old legends about the origins of the people, the cities and the culture of the Arista. What is the origin of the narelina (a strange, double-piped, V-shaped flute)? A blue bird, the last of its kind, taught a shepherd how to make a narelina so humans remembered its singing. Why are Aristans blue-skinned instead of pink-skinned like other Lumbanicians? Because the Creator wanted humans inhabit the Arista again after the original inhabitants killed each other into extinction, and their water-blue skin was a sign for animals and plants that the new humans will respect nature.
- According to a legend told by Risperim, the old Guardian, Astrópolis' name means "Star City" because its buildings are made from the core of a blue star who so loved the Aristans that she descended from the sky to live with them.
- Language Drift: Subverted. Many hundred years ago, all Lumbanicians spoke a language called Lumio. The language itself changed but it did not splint into different idioms; and its successor language is also spoken by all Lumbanicians, even though the people who populate the Aristas have lived without contact with the outside world for seven centuries.
- A Long Time Ago, in a Galaxy Far, Far Away...: The story takes place in a strangely shaped planet in a completely different galaxy whose inhabitants have never even heard the names "Earth" or "Milky Way".
- Multicultural Alien Planet: Lumbanico is populated by at least two ethnic groups: the Outsiders, pink-skinned people who live in the great Valleys, are divided into four clans and are ruled by councils of leaders; and the blue-skinned Aristans who live in the mountain ranges' inner vales (called "Aristas"), are ruled by the Guardians of the Arista and are more nature-loving, technology-fearing and traditionalist than the Outsiders.
- Numbered Homeworld: Parodied when Risperim tells a legend about a nameless tiny star who longed for its own name. When the star drifted near an inhabited world and let a team of astronomers see it and name it, the star became massively disappointed and disheartened upon seeing its new "name": Astro 3 966/V. N.-tip.gt. The star would rather to have no name whatsoever rather than going by that "soulless" moniker.
- The Place: The story is named after the cube-shaped planet where the whole action happens.
- Planetary Romance: The setting is a bizarrely-shaped alien planet, located very far away from Earth, with their own different cultures and societies, each featuring their own calendars and set of beliefs, and a complex history that stretches back several centuries.
- Platonic Life-Partners: Pirela and Ustrum are so close that Pirela can talk him into a crazy, risky adventure, but they are strictly childhood friends, and that is how they like it.
- Rule of Seven: Aralia remains trapped in the Arista during seven years until she discovers one hidden way out of the secret vale.
- Rule of Three: The main characters are three kids called Pirela, her sister Mela and their friend Ustrum.
- Single Language Planet: Everyone on Lumbanico speak the same language, even though the different clans and enclaves have lived isolated from each other for seven hundred years.
- Take Our Word for It: When Vinca, the daughter of the chief-gardener of the City of Croca, shows Pirela and Mela her Churinela Purpurata, a new botanical specimen bred by herself, they are left breathless and speechless. Vinca's gardening achievement is not given a description because human eyes are not ready for such a vision.
- Tears of Joy: Aralia's parents cry in happiness when they are reunited with their daughter, who was missing for seven years.
- Thumbtack on the Chair: When the Great Guardian tells Vinca to sit down so he can ask her some questions, the little girl suspiciously passes her hand over the seat of the chair. The Guardian assures the chair is safe to sit down; he has heard she likes putting thorns on her house's couches, but he is not such a prankster. Vinca protests it is just one innocent game: she puts spikes on all couches but one. The one who sits down on the spike-free couch wins the game.
- Totally Not a Werewolf: When the trio see Aralia getting out of an oak tree and walking among the flower beds surrounding her house-tree, Mela mistakes her for a fairy.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: The Guardians of the Arista are the protectors of the Hidden Valley. They don't mind looking after outsider kids who wander into the valley, but they will not allow them to leave either. When Mela asks why the Guardians are so bad, Aralia insists that they are not bad: they want to defend the Arista's culture and environment, and because the outsiders destroyed their own civilization together with their environment in the past, the Guardians fear that they will do the same thing to the Arista if they find the way to the Valley.
- Will Not Tell a Lie: When Ustrum doubts Vinca's sincerity, the little girl indignantly declares she never lies, which is because she is often punished by her father. Ustrum asks why her father would punish her for not lying, and Vinca replies she always confesses when she has misbehaved.
- World Shapes: Lumbanico is shaped like a cube, with each "side" being bordered by seas and huge mountain ranges called "Aristas" (Spanish for "cube edges").
