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imyril's review
5.0
Earth has mastered FTL travel, and diplomats and xeno-teams are being sent all over the galaxy to establish relations with our neighbours. Lynne Christie - relatively inexperienced, but with 2 primitive planets under her belt already - is sent to Orthe / Carrick V after the previous envoy died in part, she realises, because she is expendable. Close to androgynous, subtle and close enough to human for boundaries to slip, the Ortheans have a deep-seated fear of high technology based on legends of past holocaust under the Golden Witchbreed, but their ruler recognises the opportunities offered by trade with Earth. Sent out to the provinces to convince the tribes that Earth isn't to be feared, Christie soon realises how very little she truly understands about Orthe - and how much danger she is actually in.
I *really* enjoyed this. It's well-written, with charismatic characters and fabulous world-building - we discover Orthe alongside Christie, and there's enough detail stashed away here for the world to feel convincing and larger than we see (and for this to be tantalising - I want to know what's on the far side of the world, and how the barbarian tribes of the Barrens work, and whether the deserts south of Kel Harantish really are empty).
With an anti-tech population in the Southland, where the main action takes place, this has a strong flavour of fantasy about it - there's no magic, but a mythic past and a violent, Byzantine present with no technology never quite feels like pure SF either. I didn't feel this was a problem, although I would have liked more insight into Earth - the clues seeded in the text hint at entirely predictable problems (population explosion; climate change; resource exhaustion) being replaced by an interesting new one - not being able to cope with the rate of (territorial) expansion and change fuelled by FTL travel. There's a whole other set of novels embedded in that context that were never written that I find I'd also love to read.
Highly recommended.
Full review.
I *really* enjoyed this. It's well-written, with charismatic characters and fabulous world-building - we discover Orthe alongside Christie, and there's enough detail stashed away here for the world to feel convincing and larger than we see (and for this to be tantalising - I want to know what's on the far side of the world, and how the barbarian tribes of the Barrens work, and whether the deserts south of Kel Harantish really are empty).
With an anti-tech population in the Southland, where the main action takes place, this has a strong flavour of fantasy about it - there's no magic, but a mythic past and a violent, Byzantine present with no technology never quite feels like pure SF either. I didn't feel this was a problem, although I would have liked more insight into Earth - the clues seeded in the text hint at entirely predictable problems (population explosion; climate change; resource exhaustion) being replaced by an interesting new one - not being able to cope with the rate of (territorial) expansion and change fuelled by FTL travel. There's a whole other set of novels embedded in that context that were never written that I find I'd also love to read.
Highly recommended.
Full review.
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