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A review by morgandhu
Archangel by Marguerite Reed
3.0
Marguerite Reed's debut novel, Archangel (the first in a series), starts slowly, but doesn't take long to heat up. The narrator, Vashti Undset, is a complex character who plays many roles in her society - a relatively high-tech colony situated on a still untamed world with dangers ranging from carnivorous megafauna to as-yet unresearched microflora. She is a scientist, a big game hunter and guide, part of the co-ordinating body, an officer in the paramilitary organisation that provides both policing and search and rescue services, a "Natch" without genetic enhancement in a society where most people are at a minimum genetically modified to reduce aggressive behaviours, mother to a vivacious four-year-old and bereaved widow of the colony's beloved, almost deified, savagely murdered founder.
The colony she lives in is called Ubastis, a nominally Muslim society with strong associations to Egyptian and South Asian cultures, but which is in fact a mosaic of peoples and influences. Ubastis is a closed colony, with very limited immigration and strict population control - a decision made in an attempt to keep the colony's impact on the new world minimal, but one which is by charter revisited every ten years. The colony is under great pressure from the other homes of humanity - overpopulated earlier colonies and ecologically devastated Earth - to throw open its doors and accept the maximum number of settlers from other worlds.
As the novel opens, the time is drawing near for another vote on opening up the colony, and Vashti is about to be drawn into a web of plots and mysteries on both sides of the struggle in a way which will force her to confront her own grief and need for vengeance.
A multi-layered story, with some very interesting elements, and a few things that did not quite gel for me. A key part of Vashti's role in the escalating conflict hinges on her interactions with a Beast - a genetically enhanced clone soldier who has been illegally brought to Ubastis. The clone soldiers, we learn, are designed both to imprint on and produce pheromones which are only effective on Natches. This vastly complicates things for Vashti and the Beast, and is at the same tine extraordinarily convenient for certain later plot developments - and seemed a bit too contrived, all things considered.
Despite this, and a few other minor issues, I did enjoy the novel and am curious about where the next book in the series will take the people of Ubastis.
The colony she lives in is called Ubastis, a nominally Muslim society with strong associations to Egyptian and South Asian cultures, but which is in fact a mosaic of peoples and influences. Ubastis is a closed colony, with very limited immigration and strict population control - a decision made in an attempt to keep the colony's impact on the new world minimal, but one which is by charter revisited every ten years. The colony is under great pressure from the other homes of humanity - overpopulated earlier colonies and ecologically devastated Earth - to throw open its doors and accept the maximum number of settlers from other worlds.
As the novel opens, the time is drawing near for another vote on opening up the colony, and Vashti is about to be drawn into a web of plots and mysteries on both sides of the struggle in a way which will force her to confront her own grief and need for vengeance.
A multi-layered story, with some very interesting elements, and a few things that did not quite gel for me. A key part of Vashti's role in the escalating conflict hinges on her interactions with a Beast - a genetically enhanced clone soldier who has been illegally brought to Ubastis. The clone soldiers, we learn, are designed both to imprint on and produce pheromones which are only effective on Natches. This vastly complicates things for Vashti and the Beast, and is at the same tine extraordinarily convenient for certain later plot developments - and seemed a bit too contrived, all things considered.
Despite this, and a few other minor issues, I did enjoy the novel and am curious about where the next book in the series will take the people of Ubastis.