Pulls no punches.
The follow-up to The Book of the Unnamed Midwife (2014), set in a broken U.S. decades after a pandemic has killed most of the population.
In the town of Nowhere, women essentially have two life paths: They can try to bear a child (an enterprise which frequently kills both mother and baby) or train as Midwives and help other women. But Etta has rejected both possibilities: Instead, she is a raider, traveling outside the town to battle slavers and rescue girls and young women from their clutches. But what no one in Nowhere knows is that Etta does more than simply dress as a man when she leaves town: She actually takes on a male persona, calling himself Eddy. Unable to face the restrictions of being Etta, desperate to realize himself more fully as Eddy and find someone who will love his true self, Eddy makes various journeys away from home on his self-imposed rescue missions, interacting with several societies that each has a different way of dealing with the realities that biological men significantly outnumber biological women and children are a rarity. Eventually, although he tries desperately to avoid it, Eddy will be forced to revisit the one place he really doesn’t want to go: Estiel (the former St. Louis), the city controlled by the vicious warlord known as the Lion and the place of a devastating past trauma. Eddy is a fascinatingly complex character, shifting back and forth between female and male identities. His personal journey toward self-realization is made more difficult by the rigidity of his viewpoints about gender, love, and what values cannot be compromised, even for survival in a fairly brutal landscape. That inflexibility, plus his rape as a teenager and his strong preference for biological women, makes it impossible for him to accept the love of Flora, a transwoman and former sex slave, even though she accepts and understands him more than anyone else. Sadly, that rejection helps to hasten the plot’s devastating climax and is a realistic portrayal of how one’s own struggles don’t necessarily instill an immediate empathy for others’ situations.
Pulls no punches.Pub Date: Feb. 21, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5039-4182-3
Page Count: 314
Publisher: 47North
Review Posted Online: April 16, 2019
In the ancient tumbledown stronghold of Ynefel, the last of the Sihhe wizards, Mauryl, contends with his age-old enemy and former apprentice, the shadow-being Hasufin. Expending the last of his powers, Mauryl magically summons a youth, Tristen, at first mindless but in whom memories soon awaken. At last Mauryl departs for the gray world where the shadows live, having given Tristen a book he can't yet read. Obeying Mauryl's last instructions, Tristen follows the road to Henas'amef, where Prince Cefwyn resides while studying conditions near the border with Elwyn. At first nobody trusts Tristen, but gradually he becomes able to use his Sihhe powers against the invidious shadows controlled by Hasufin. The local lord, Heryn, proves himself an adept traitor by decoying Cefwyn's father, the king, into a trap where he's killed by rebels. Cefwyn is ready to blame Elwyn — Heryn had help from there — but Tristen meets the Elwyn Regent, a kindly old man who, in dying, contributes his Sihhe magic to bolster the defenses against Hasufin; and Cefwyn is immediately smitten by the Regent's daughter, Ninevrise. Nevertheless, there are still traitors to be unmasked and dangers to be braved before Tristen can risk a final showdown with the dreadful Hasufin. A verbose and pedestrian exploration of histories, intrigues, and politics that's neither intense nor absorbing enough to sustain a narrative of this absurdly inflated length: self-indulgent bloat from a talented author (Tripont, 1994, etc.).
Pub Date: May 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-06-109295-9
Page Count: 592
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
Travel by spacewarp allowed humans to spread through the galaxy but also tore holes in the fabric of spacetime; as a result, warp travel was abandoned, leaving the far-flung colonies isolated. The Draconian system is run now by large commercial organizations, or ``bods,'' dominated by the Slavers Bod. Young assassin Magen was commissioned to kill Jewish zealot and reformer Adam Hirsch; but in the process of worming her way close to Hirsch, she not only rediscovered her Jewish roots but fell in love with Adam and married him. So after Adam is snatched by the Slavers, Magen contrives single-handedly to harass and attack the Slavers Bod in an attempt to force them to yield Adam up. Indeed, in freeing many slaves and attempting to take care of them, Magen accidentally hits upon a method of deprogramming them, a feat hitherto considered impossible. Injured after one such daring raid, she's sheltered by rich heiress Amelia Strados. Chev Carson, an assassin dispatched to deal with Amelia, ends up in her bed instead. Together, Magen, Amelia, and Chev, aided by powerful psychic Veil, think up a plan to force the Slavers to reveal Adam's whereabouts. After various adventures, they learn that Adam is being held on Abaddon, a planet so badly affected by spacewarps that it resembles a black hole—and one from which there is no escape. A swift-moving, imaginative debut, not too seriously damaged by its mad patchwork of themes, erratic plot, and unconvincing windup.
Pub Date: May 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-312-85903-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
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