The Steerswoman series
Sep. 27th, 2021 07:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sunnyskywalkerHow have I not recommended this already? The Steerswoman series by Rosemary Kirstein is great. Sadly, it is not yet finished, but it sounds like the next two books are coming in the near-ish future. Something to look forward to!
Rowan is a steerswoman, which is kind of like what would happen if you look everyone who said, "I want to be a traveling scientist/cartographer/anthropologist/reference librarian when I grow up!" and had them form a guild. The steerswomen (and a few steersmen) travel the Inner Lands, adding to their maps and learning whatever they can. And they share their knowledge: if you ask a steerswoman a question, she must answer you, and truthfully. The flip side is that if a steerswoman asks you a question, you must answer to the best of your ability--because if you refuse or lie, you'll be placed under the steerswomen's ban, and no steerswoman will answer even the most inconsequential question for you ever again. Steerswomen don't get on with the wizards, who refuse to share their knowledge.
When the story opens, Rowan is investigating reports of very strange jewels found in very odd places--like embedded in trees. It seems like great luck when she meets Bel, a barbarian warrior-poet from the Outskirts, who has a whole belt made of the things and knows where they were found. Except the local wizard doesn't want anyone investigating these "jewels," which Rowan and Bel discover when he sends dragons to attack them. The two women have to escape the wizards, alert the Archives, stop a wizardly power-grab, and travel deep into the Outskirts and even to the Demon Lands beyond to find out what the wizards are hiding about those jewels--and how they're connected to the secret of a fallen Guidestar.
Sounds like fantasy, right? But the series is science fiction. Unlike I think every other book I've read where a seemingly-fantasy setting is revealed as science fictional, this isn't treated like a shocking twist or a joke at the expense of the silly characters who think sciencey things are magic. Like Rowan, we're investigating the world. We happen to know a bit more than she does, so we catch on more quickly that these Guidestars which are always at the same spots in the night sky sound an awful lot like geostationary satellites, or that certain spells sound like black powder. But the characters aren't treated as stupid for not understanding this. They actually do pretty well trying to piece together the scraps of information they have. And the Routine Bioform Clearance "spell" isn't a joke; it's terrifying, no matter what it's called or how you explain it. Far from laughing at the characters, we're hoping they figure out enough in time to survive, and trying to work out what they're likely to be facing next.
The relationships are also really well done. By the time they're in the Outskirts and Rowan is thinking about sticking her hand into that strange bush to learn more about it, Bel knows her new friend well enough to tell her not to stick her hand into that bush because it has acidic sap before Rowan even moves. It's adorable. Their friendship with a young apprentice wizard is complicated no matter how much they like him personally, because, well, wizard. And he has a complicated relationship with his teacher and the other wizards, and is running into definite conflicts between competing loyalties and his own conscience. And everything's woven together so well--for instance, there's a bit where a gathering reciting their genealogies both tells us more about the world and is really moving due to how it affects someone present.
Also, there are just so many cool bits! One of the steerswomen's symbols of office is a ring shaped like a Mobius loop. The increasingly strange lifeforms as you leave the Inner Lands are fascinating (albeit deadly). You find yourself going, "Oh, I guess Face People's custom of cannibalism is logical," which I bet is not something you get to say a lot. The secret of surviving a wizard's deadly lightning spell is both mundane and really neat. "Little snails" will never not sound ominous now. The demons...you just have to read and see what that's all about. I really wish I could visit the Archives and read some of those logbooks.
And Bel is uniting her people and ensuring their survival via epic poetry, which is awesome.
The series has four books so far:
The first two books have also been collected into one volume, The Steerswoman's Road.
Rowan is a steerswoman, which is kind of like what would happen if you look everyone who said, "I want to be a traveling scientist/cartographer/anthropologist/reference librarian when I grow up!" and had them form a guild. The steerswomen (and a few steersmen) travel the Inner Lands, adding to their maps and learning whatever they can. And they share their knowledge: if you ask a steerswoman a question, she must answer you, and truthfully. The flip side is that if a steerswoman asks you a question, you must answer to the best of your ability--because if you refuse or lie, you'll be placed under the steerswomen's ban, and no steerswoman will answer even the most inconsequential question for you ever again. Steerswomen don't get on with the wizards, who refuse to share their knowledge.
When the story opens, Rowan is investigating reports of very strange jewels found in very odd places--like embedded in trees. It seems like great luck when she meets Bel, a barbarian warrior-poet from the Outskirts, who has a whole belt made of the things and knows where they were found. Except the local wizard doesn't want anyone investigating these "jewels," which Rowan and Bel discover when he sends dragons to attack them. The two women have to escape the wizards, alert the Archives, stop a wizardly power-grab, and travel deep into the Outskirts and even to the Demon Lands beyond to find out what the wizards are hiding about those jewels--and how they're connected to the secret of a fallen Guidestar.
Sounds like fantasy, right? But the series is science fiction. Unlike I think every other book I've read where a seemingly-fantasy setting is revealed as science fictional, this isn't treated like a shocking twist or a joke at the expense of the silly characters who think sciencey things are magic. Like Rowan, we're investigating the world. We happen to know a bit more than she does, so we catch on more quickly that these Guidestars which are always at the same spots in the night sky sound an awful lot like geostationary satellites, or that certain spells sound like black powder. But the characters aren't treated as stupid for not understanding this. They actually do pretty well trying to piece together the scraps of information they have. And the Routine Bioform Clearance "spell" isn't a joke; it's terrifying, no matter what it's called or how you explain it. Far from laughing at the characters, we're hoping they figure out enough in time to survive, and trying to work out what they're likely to be facing next.
The relationships are also really well done. By the time they're in the Outskirts and Rowan is thinking about sticking her hand into that strange bush to learn more about it, Bel knows her new friend well enough to tell her not to stick her hand into that bush because it has acidic sap before Rowan even moves. It's adorable. Their friendship with a young apprentice wizard is complicated no matter how much they like him personally, because, well, wizard. And he has a complicated relationship with his teacher and the other wizards, and is running into definite conflicts between competing loyalties and his own conscience. And everything's woven together so well--for instance, there's a bit where a gathering reciting their genealogies both tells us more about the world and is really moving due to how it affects someone present.
Also, there are just so many cool bits! One of the steerswomen's symbols of office is a ring shaped like a Mobius loop. The increasingly strange lifeforms as you leave the Inner Lands are fascinating (albeit deadly). You find yourself going, "Oh, I guess Face People's custom of cannibalism is logical," which I bet is not something you get to say a lot. The secret of surviving a wizard's deadly lightning spell is both mundane and really neat. "Little snails" will never not sound ominous now. The demons...you just have to read and see what that's all about. I really wish I could visit the Archives and read some of those logbooks.
And Bel is uniting her people and ensuring their survival via epic poetry, which is awesome.
The series has four books so far:
- The Steerswoman
- The Outskirter's Secret
- The Lost Steersman
- The Language of Power
The first two books have also been collected into one volume, The Steerswoman's Road.
