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Jul. 3rd, 2012 12:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsSo far, Rosemary Kirstein's Steerswoman books are some of the most amazingly refreshing fantasy/sci-fi novels I've ever read.
Steerswomen, in this book, are basically an Order of Traveling Research Fellows based in what looks like a vaguely medieval-ish society. They bop around, poking at things that interest them and until they've found out as much as they can before going back to home base to record their discoveries; they formulate hypotheses, and ask questions, and they answer them for themselves and for other people. If anybody else refuses to answer a Steerswoman's question, they don't get any more questions answered themselves.
There are also wizards. Steerswomen don't really like wizards, because wizards are notoriously secretive and keep all their methods very hush-hush, and Steerswomen are all "down with hegemony of knowledge! Everyone should have the chance to know all the things!" The feeling is presumably mutual.
Our heroine Rowan's particular research project is some weird blue stones. In the first book, The Steerswoman, she picks up a warrior woman named Bel who comes from a different culture and who happens to have a belt made out of those blue stones. Bel decides that if she's going to be wandering around Rowan's country she might as well do it with Rowan, and they have some clashes of cultural values and work through it because they like each other well enough to be willing to keep an open mind about stuff, and in general start to become awesome lady friends. Also it turns out wizards are trying to kill Rowan because her research is dangerous to them, so that's where the plot comes in. But mostly: realistic research methodology! Respectful cultural negotiation! Thoughtful worldbuilding! Ladyfriends!
And this was great in and of itself, but then I got to the second book, The Outskirter's Secret, which is TWICE AS GOOD. This is the one where in order to pursue her research about the weird blue stones, Rowan has to go with Bel back to her nomadic grasslands culture -- which is not in any way a monolith, which I love, especially when Bel gets really judgy about people who Don't Do Things The Way Bel Does Things -- and spends a lot of time earnestly asking people questions and experiencing culture shock and attempting to come up with theories about the grasslands ecosystem, and Bel meanwhile has been putting pieces together based on Rowan's research and has come up with a plan of her own, and then the stakes suddenly get a lot higher and the book decides to stab you in the heart a few times, because if you came for the research and the ladyfriendship you might as well stay for the impossible moral choices and impending doom I guess.
There are two more books in the series I think, and I'm incredibly excited to read them. It's just -- man, I wish I got to read books all the time where the central focus was a.) the friendship between two women and b.) people acting with intelligent, thoughtful respect towards each other, and their responsibilities, and the world around them. EVERYONE IN THESE BOOKS BEHAVES LIKE ADULTS. Why is this so rare?
Steerswomen, in this book, are basically an Order of Traveling Research Fellows based in what looks like a vaguely medieval-ish society. They bop around, poking at things that interest them and until they've found out as much as they can before going back to home base to record their discoveries; they formulate hypotheses, and ask questions, and they answer them for themselves and for other people. If anybody else refuses to answer a Steerswoman's question, they don't get any more questions answered themselves.
There are also wizards. Steerswomen don't really like wizards, because wizards are notoriously secretive and keep all their methods very hush-hush, and Steerswomen are all "down with hegemony of knowledge! Everyone should have the chance to know all the things!" The feeling is presumably mutual.
Our heroine Rowan's particular research project is some weird blue stones. In the first book, The Steerswoman, she picks up a warrior woman named Bel who comes from a different culture and who happens to have a belt made out of those blue stones. Bel decides that if she's going to be wandering around Rowan's country she might as well do it with Rowan, and they have some clashes of cultural values and work through it because they like each other well enough to be willing to keep an open mind about stuff, and in general start to become awesome lady friends. Also it turns out wizards are trying to kill Rowan because her research is dangerous to them, so that's where the plot comes in. But mostly: realistic research methodology! Respectful cultural negotiation! Thoughtful worldbuilding! Ladyfriends!
And this was great in and of itself, but then I got to the second book, The Outskirter's Secret, which is TWICE AS GOOD. This is the one where in order to pursue her research about the weird blue stones, Rowan has to go with Bel back to her nomadic grasslands culture -- which is not in any way a monolith, which I love, especially when Bel gets really judgy about people who Don't Do Things The Way Bel Does Things -- and spends a lot of time earnestly asking people questions and experiencing culture shock and attempting to come up with theories about the grasslands ecosystem, and Bel meanwhile has been putting pieces together based on Rowan's research and has come up with a plan of her own, and then the stakes suddenly get a lot higher and the book decides to stab you in the heart a few times, because if you came for the research and the ladyfriendship you might as well stay for the impossible moral choices and impending doom I guess.
There are two more books in the series I think, and I'm incredibly excited to read them. It's just -- man, I wish I got to read books all the time where the central focus was a.) the friendship between two women and b.) people acting with intelligent, thoughtful respect towards each other, and their responsibilities, and the world around them. EVERYONE IN THESE BOOKS BEHAVES LIKE ADULTS. Why is this so rare?
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Date: 2012-07-03 05:39 pm (UTC)Yes, two more, but it's not done yet--Kirstein is still working on them but she is not a fast writer (day job, etc.). They are both totally awesome and IMO better than _The Outskirter's Secret_.
Booklog links--when you read the fourth there's spoilery discussion that will probably interest you.
http://www.steelypips.org/weblog/books/sf_and_fantasy/steerswoman/
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Date: 2012-07-03 05:49 pm (UTC)Ooh, awesome! I will go over there to check it out when I have read the next two, which hopefully will be soon.
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Date: 2012-07-04 01:55 am (UTC)Can I has borrowings?
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Date: 2012-07-04 05:06 am (UTC)Why do I not have a library card here?
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Date: 2012-07-05 03:14 pm (UTC)To the LIBRARY with me!
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Date: 2012-09-04 04:29 am (UTC)This is some of the best worldbuilding I've ever happily swum through, on top of all the ways the writing is superb, I mean, damn. I am having the time of my life being Rowan about Rowan's own conclusions about what's happening the world. If you know what I mean?? Thank you so much for recommending these.
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Date: 2012-09-04 12:53 pm (UTC)SPOILERS BELOW
Date: 2012-09-04 04:01 pm (UTC)OH MY GODDDDDDDD
THIS MORNING I WOKE UP TO A RESERVOIR DOGS GIFSET
AND REALIZED I WAS COMPARING IT TO A POSTAPOCALYPTIC SCIFI/FANTASY NOVEL ABOUT MUTUAL RESPONSIBILITY AND MODES OF INTELLECTUAL CURIOSITY AND ITS GUTPUNCH
UNFAVORABLY
I
BUT
I
RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF ALL THE FORGIVENESS. RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE HUGGING IT OUT.
uggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh it's so good and the clues are all there in the way she tells the story, like, the way you're distracted by the progress of the romance and how it's just ever so slightly truncated so you take the emotional time to decide whether or not you're down with it, and you put all the little weirdnesses in his character down to the idea that she's writing a Love Interest, and in the meantime she's telegraphing HE'S A WIZARD'S MAN!!! in huge capital letters. Okay maybe that was just me. but wow. I would love to speculate about what his behavior means about the setting but you know too much now, you cannot confirm or deny! You monster.
ROUTINE BIOFORM MAINTENANCE
And I love what an adult everyone is about it and how that in no way makes anything better at all.
Re: SPOILERS BELOW
Date: 2012-09-04 08:59 pm (UTC)AND THEN
and it's not like there's anything to be DONE about it, because everyone did act like an adult and they did the ONLY THING THEY COULD DO.
And haha, yes! You're like "well, she's writing this character with Endearing Quirks, he's a bit of an outsider so you feel like you're on his side, makes sense," and then EVERYTHING SHE HAS DONE is in fact designed specifically to make you feel like Rowan realizing that the clues were perfectly clear and were saying THE OPPOSITE of what you thought.
And the clues are all there for the rest of it too, and you think, "ah, Rowan, if only you knew about terraforming," feeling all smug and superior because you have it figured out, and then it STILL punches you in the gut.
Re: SPOILERS BELOW
Date: 2012-09-04 09:28 pm (UTC)*I'm actually fairly sure, tangentially, that I read a book with this exact world-setup--razorsharp grass in multiple colors or varieties, and there's the normal kind and then the creepy alien kind and the intermediary, terraforming kind. But I can't tell if this is a real memory, or a conflation of Grass by Sheri S. Tepper and Lusitania from the Ender books.
Re: SPOILERS BELOW
Date: 2012-09-06 02:29 am (UTC)HURRY UP AND READ THE LOST STEERSMAN BASICALLY