Review
WL Rating
This book was originally titled Waves of Warning, but it is now named Ka’ Unua after the fictional big wave reef that serves as the central theme of the novel. When I picked this book up at the Surfing Museum in Huntington Beach, I wasn’t quite sure what I was buying. The book looks like it was printed by a friend as a way to pay back the author for multiple boat trips into the Ranch--the text has zero design and has a typo every 40 or so pages. Even so, I enjoyed Henning’s book. Ka’ Unua is a tale of several characters all touched in some way by surfing. The book moves the reader through interesting passages describing the life of a white surfer who becomes a wayfarer for a remote Polynesian culture (sounds absurd, but it works well enough). Other characters include greedy surf apparel executives (shocking), an egocentric big wave rider (believable), angry Hawaiians (again, believable) and a disenfranchised surf guide. To appreciate the underlying message of surfing’s corruption, you’ll need to suspend belief and be willing to accept the ridiculous (there are submarine/sailboats that surf monster waves around the globe). Despite the absurdity of certain themes, Ka’ Unua is still a book worth reading. (October 2008)
Ka’ Unua - Glenn Henning
