From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Ukiah Oregon
Ukiah Oregon
Ukiah Oregon is the hero of an eponymous series of sci- Prime was killed by the surviving Ontongard, Hex,
ence fiction/adventure novels written by Wen Spencer. but not before he had artificially inseminated Kicking
As of 2005, the Ukiah Oregon series consists of four nov- Deer, a woman of the Umatilla tribe, who gave birth to a
els: boy named Magic Boy (described in flashback in Tainted
1. Alien Taste (2001) Winner of the Compton Crook Trail).
Award Before his death Prime also infected a wolf, Coyote,
2. Tainted Trail (2002) with his blood, converting Coyote into his "Get," with
3. Bitter Waters (2003) all his memories and effective immortality via the same
4. Dog Warrior (October 2004) "blood mice" method that Ukiah has. Over the interven-
The four novels form a near-continuous series of adven- ing centuries Coyote has in turn created a number of Gets
tures located, with flashbacks, between June and Septem- of his own, and they in their turn have also created Gets.
ber 2004. Prime’s Gets number about 100 at the time of the stories,
Ukiah Oregon is described in the first novel, Alien and form a group of motorcycle gangs collectively known
Taste, as a Pittsburgh-based private investigator of prob- as "The Pack." Hex, meanwhile, has created large num-
able Native American ancestry, apparently aged about 21 bers of Ontongard Gets, and the two groups have fought
years old. He has a photographic memory, but he has no a discreet war ever since their creation.
specific memory of the time before he was trapped about
eight years earlier as a feral child near the town of Uki-
ah, Oregon, from which he takes his name, having been
Characters
raised by a pack of wolves. He has a remarkable ability Ukiah Oregon is the main character of the series, a
to track people and sense the details of a subject’s DNA, Pittsburgh-based private investigator. He was raised by
which he attributes to his lupine upbringing. His lack wolves near the town of Ukiah, Oregon (where he gets
of human contact in his childhood has deprived him of his name) until Mom Jo caught him in a humane trap and
much of the knowledge of how to behave socially, as well took him home to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In Alien Taste
as pop culture references. he discovers that he is a half-alien "breeder" discovered
During the course of the first novel it becomes ap- to help the Ontongard invade Earth. In Tainted Trail he
parent that Ukiah is, in fact, not human—or at least not learns that he was a part of the original breeder named
completely human. When he is severely injured his blood Magic Boy, who was murdered and dismembered in 1933.
forms into independently operating animals: larger clots Max Bennett is Ukiah’s partner. A millionaire, Max
form "blood mice," smaller clots might form insects or became an investigator specializing in finding missing
other animals of appropriate size. This is a defense mech- persons after his wife disappeared (he later learned that
anism that allows cells to live independently if the main she had drowned in a lake after a car accident). Ukiah’s
body is injured. These animals contain some of his mem- moms called him in to investigate Ukiah’s origins after
ories, and they will subsequently try to rejoin him to be they had a daughter of their own and became convinced
reabsorbed by his body; failure to reabsorb such a "blood that Ukiah’s parents must still be looking for him. During
animal" results in the loss of that memory. Ukiah can this case, Max discovered Ukiah’s abnormal tracking
even be killed, but as long as his body is not destroyed skills and hired him on part time, until a run-in with a se-
(e.g. by burning) he will recover given sufficient time. rial killer nearly killed Ukiah. Max then made him a part-
It is revealed that several centuries ago the invasion ner. Max has romantic feelings for Sam Killington. His
force of a hive mind species called the Ontongard arrived first appearance is in Alien Taste.
in the Solar System with the intention of converting all Indigo Zheng is an FBI agent and Ukiah’s girlfriend.
life on Earth into a copy of itself, via a form of viral infec- Her first appearance is in Alien Taste, where she is called
tion. in to investigate the FBI agent kidnappings. Of Hawaiian,
One of the Ontongard, Prime, was a mutation who Chinese and Russian ancestry, she is often described by
was somehow independent of the hive mind. He rebelled Ukiah as serene. The Pack call her his "Lady of Steel,"
against the Ontongard, sabotaging the invasion mission after she personally burned out several Ontongard nests
and ultimately leaving most of the personnel stranded in when she thought that Ukiah had been killed.
suspended hibernation in the starship on the surface of Prime was one of the alien Ontongard, but because of
Mars. a mutation, he was not part of the hive mind. He rebelled
against the other Ontongard and sabotaged their inva-
1
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Ukiah Oregon
sion of Earth, replacing Hex’s genetic code with his own half-alien blood. They also have a biological daughter,
in the breeder program and destroying the scout ship be- Callie.
Callie
fore it could return and activate the invasion ship. Hex Kraynak,
Raymond Kraynak a homicide detective and a friend
discovered his duplicity and they fought, though blood of Max’s from the Gulf War, is the detective that called
loss of both have left them with fractured memories of them in on the Janet Haze case (Alien Taste). He is also
the encounter. Before dying, Prime managed to infect a one of the few people who knows Ukiah’s secret. He hires
wolf, Coyote, with his blood, turning him into a Get. Max and Ukiah to find his niece when she disappears in
Coyote,
Coyote as Prime’s Get, continued the war against the Oregon, and is caught by the Ontongard while looking for
Ontongard, eventually taking human shape. He fought her. Ukiah and the Pack manage to save him after finding
alone for many years, though no one is quite sure how the Ontongard scout ship and reversing the process. His
long, since he never attained a firm grasp of the concept first appearance is in Alien Taste.
of time. Though he had planned to never make any Gets, Alicia Kraynak disappears in Oregon, while on a grad-
he eventually realized the necessity. uate project (and spending her free time looking for Uki-
Rennie Shaw was Coyote’s first Get, and is the leader ah’s family). Kidnapped by the Ontongard, she’s turned
of the Pack as a whole, and the Dog Warriors in partic- in their attempt to refill their ranks after Ukiah, Indigo
ular. He was a soldier in the Civil War, and Coyote dis- and the Pack clean them out of Pittsburgh. Ukiah and
covered him trapped under a horse and dying. Rennie al- the Pack manage to save her after they find the scout
lowed Coyote to make him a Get so that he could return ship, but don’t reverse the process soon enough to get rid
to his family, but when he received the Pack’s collective of Hex’s memories. Later in the series, she visits a hyp-
memories, he gave up his personal life to fight the Onton- notist and, under hypnosis, reveals some of Hex’s plans
gard and never saw his family again. His first appearance for Earth’s conquest. She also had feelings for Ukiah, re-
is in Alien Taste. vealed during her kidnapping. Her first appearance is in
Hex is the Ontongard on Earth; while the Ontongard Tainted Trail.
are a collective hive mind, communication between parts Magic Boy was the original breeder created by Prime.
is limited by distance. Because of this, Hex is unable to He is passed down through the Kicking Deer family, help-
communicate with Ontongard off of Earth, and unable to ing to raise their children, but he is not permitted to mar-
communicate with other parts of himself in distant cities ry because he never received a spirit animal, and could
except via human technology such as the telephone. not be considered a man until he did. In 1933, Magic Boy
Hex’s goal is to take over Earth, but he has been locked in was discovered by the Ontongard and murdered and dis-
a war with the Pack for decades. membered, but they were discovered before they had
Kittaning is Ukiah’s "son," though he was actually the chance to burn him or capture any of his parts. By
formed by one of Ukiah’s blood mice. Hex had captured the time his family was able to get the police, his body
the mouse before Ukiah could reabsorb it, and tortured it parts had reformed into animals and scattered. The po-
to force it to grow into a human shape. While Kittaning lice declared that no body meant no crime, and refused
had started out as part of Ukiah, he has lost most of his to investigate, presumably because Magic Boy was Native
memories and gained a personality of his own. His first American.
appearance is in Alien Taste. He is kidnapped and takes on Jesse Kicking Deer is an old man by the time Ukiah
the form of a puppy in Bitter Waters. meets him. He offered a reward for information on the
Samual Anne Killington ("My parents were twisted," Umatilla Wolf Boy (Ukiah), but Max discounted the story
she says in explanation of the name) is a Pendleton, because Ukiah wasn’t old enough (or so he thought).
Oregon-based private investigator whom Ukiah and Max While in the same area of Oregon where Ukiah was dis-
meet while investigating the disappearance of Alicia covered to find Alicia Kraynak, Max encouraged Ukiah
Kraynak. She offers to help them track the girl, and she to follow up on the information, and Ukiah learns about
and Max develop feelings for each other. She moved to himself from Jesse and his family.
Pendleton with her ex-husband and agrees to move to Deer,
Zoey Kicking Deer Ukiah’s young (and distant)
Pittsburgh and accept a job with Max’s private investiga- cousin, is the first to believe he is Magic Boy. A candy-
tion firm on a trial basis. When she arrives in Pittsburgh, striper at the local hospital, she recovers his blood so that
she’s angry to find out that Max is a multi-millionaire the doctors won’t find out how different he is. She is kid-
but didn’t see fit to mention it. Her first appearance is in napped by the Ontongard at the same time as Kraynak,
Tainted Trail. and turned, but Ukiah and the Pack save her using the
Mom Jo and Mom Lara are Ukiah’s adoptive lesbian scout ship. She has no memories of her time as Onton-
mothers. Mom Jo found him in a humane trap when she gard. Her first appearance is in Tainted Trail.
was studying wolves in Oregon for a master’s degree and Jared Kicking Deer is the sheriff of Pendleton and
the two brought him home to Pittsburgh. Mom Lara had Zoe’s older brother. He doesn’t believe Ukiah at first, and
brain cancer, but was cured when she got some of Ukiah’s is hostile toward him, but eventually comes to accept him
as Magic Boy. He is kidnapped by the Pack and turned in-
2
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Ukiah Oregon
to a Get after it is revealed that he knows about the On- Steele, whose story is told in Dog Warrior in an interesting
tongard. He helped Ukiah recover Zoe and the Kraynaks examination of how "nature vs. nurture" makes him dif-
and reverse the Ontongard infection. He chooses to stay ferent from his "brother" Ukiah. Atticus has difficulty
part of the Pack after Ukiah offers to reverse his infection trusting Ukiah at first, because of the nature of their first
as well. His first appearance is in Tainted Trail. meeting, and his "testing" by the Pack. Atticus is also
Cassidy Kicking Deer is Ukiah’s distant cousin and the plagued by guilt; he and Ukiah may have been together
owner of a hardware store. She is the second Kicking at first, but Atticus left Ukiah behind in the woods to find
Deer to believe that he’s Magic Boy, after she compares a a family.
photo of Ukiah to a photograph of Magic Boy the family Hikaru Takahashi is Atticus’s partner and lover. He
donated to a museum. Her first appearance is in Tainted and Atticus met in college. ’Ru accepts Ukiah long before
Trail. Atticus does, but only after "testing" him. His first ap-
Atticus Steele is Ukiah’s "brother." Atticus is a DEA pearance is in Dog Warrior.
agent investigating a drug-dealing motorcycle gang that Kyle Johnson is the third member of Atticus’s team.
has connections to the Pack when he meets Ukiah for the He is the tech wizard and back-up of the group. He devel-
first time. When Magic Boy was killed, his body parts be- ops a crush on Indigo, and is greatly disappointed to find
came animals and scattered, leaving behind Ukiah and out that she is dating Ukiah. His first appearance is in Dog
Little Slow Magic. Yet another part became Atticus Warrior.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ukiah_Oregon&oldid=449148843"
Categories:
• Series of books
• Fictional characters from Oregon
This page was last modified on 8 September 2011 at 15:14. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-
ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of use for details. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of
the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.Contact us
Privacy policy About Wikipedia Disclaimers
3