The Ghost Sister

Rating:
Summary: Ghost Sister
Review: Humans return to a long-lost colony. But do they bring enlightenment or destruction to the people who have become natives of Monde D'Isle?

I've been working my way through Liz Williams' books and enjoying them; this is my favorite so far. She creates a beautiful and fascinating world, peopled with interesting and well-drawn people. Ideas are particularly strong in her work, and Ghost Sister, with its genetically modified, wild and tormented not-quite-humans, is no exception. I found the stifling ideology that informs the new human mission to be believable, if fanatical, and quite frightening; I spent the last quarter of the book in terror that I was about to read another That Ancient Light. The characters are sympathetic and vivid, particularly the questioning, idealist Elerres.

Williams is a good sentence-level writer, but at times an overly formal, slightly stiff diction creeps into this particular novel, which lessens its emotional immediacy. Elerres' narration seems particularly prone to this. I would have liked the climax to be a bit bigger and more dramatic, and I wanted to see more of the world -- which in itself is an indication of good worldbuilding, since I got the impression there was more to see. Williams doesn't seem to write in series, but more work set among the Mondhaith would be welcome.

Rating:
Summary: An interesting look into cultures.
Review: I can't say that this work by Liz Williams held me riveted, and I have to admit that I occasionally felt it to be a bit stiff and uncomfortable - it was, however, true to the tone of the book overall. The clash between cultures wasn't comfortable, so perhaps, neither was the reading of it.

Rating:
Summary: Forced cultural appropriateness
Review: I certainly hope her other books are better since I bought them on a recommendation from others and the Amazon site. I considered it to be an interesting book with a novel idea that sufferred due to its seemingly forced nature and moderately boring presentation. It reminds me of too many books trying to make a point or present an idea that simply do not draw the reader in, at least not this reader. Many things relating to the culture seem to have been left out and a dreariness, one exceedingly ponderous, weighted it all down.

Rating:
Summary: Forced cultural appropriateness
Review: I certainly hope her other books are better since I bought them on a recommendation from others and the Amazon site. I considered it to be an interesting book with a novel idea that sufferred due to its seemingly forced nature and moderately boring presentation. It reminds me of too many books trying to make a point or present an idea that simply do not draw the reader in, at least not this reader. Many things relating to the culture seem to have been left out and a dreariness, one exceedingly ponderous, weighted it all down.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating moral dilemna
Review: I've read Liz Williams' short stories, and she has never disappointed me, so I was confident in buying this book without even looking at the back cover.

Inside I found views of two well-defined and interesting cultures, from the points of view of insiders and outsiders. Neither culture is quite what its members think, and the interaction between a few individuals shatters their illusions about themselves and their worlds, and forces choices about the future. This book deals as much with confronting one's own culture as confronting another.

I was riveted by the moral questions, and by the way the characters acted and reacted during the upheavals caused by contact.

Rating:
Summary: Intelligent fantasy for thinking people
Review: Liz Williams' first novel fulfils the promise of her short stories. This is an intelligent book which skilfully combines a richly realized fantasy setting with clever science-fiction ideas; the blurring of the boundaries between the magical and the scientific is reminiscent of Ursula Le Guin.

This is a story in which you are invited to immerse yourself completely in the mindset of two very alien cultures - and explore what happens when these cultures collide. It is a thoughtful exploration of the philosophical aspects of cultural miscommunication, in a situation where all concerned are acting for the best.

Williams' trademark sense of place means that the country through which the characters pass is evocative and beautiful; the land itself, to which the characters are so tightly bound, is an important aspect of the book, and Williams' superior descriptions do it great justice.

An excellent first novel, and I am looking forward greatly to her second.

Rating:
Summary: Fortune presents gifts not according to the book
Review: On Monde D'Isle the people are literally connected to the world: they feel the tides change, they sense their fellow beings, and they share the bloodmind which tempts them into their (sometimes darker) animal instincts. Eleres has never been comfortable with this nature, and his sister Mevennen is one of the landblind, those who are not connected as others are. She is considered a ghost, a being not really of the world and worthy only of being destroyed, and Eleres has always protected her from harm, including from his male lover. When Mevennen herself sees other ghosts, she is confused, especially when they tell her they are not actually ghosts, but from another planet and they would like to help heal her. The mysterious visitors have come to investigate why the original colony from their matriarchal society became the animalistic people they are today, and possibly find a way to fix them to be like themselves again. By attempting to help Mevennen, the visitors divide on how best to do it, and ultimately this proves to have more consequences than anyone anticipated. "The Ghost Sister" is highly fascinating and poses many compelling ethical questions about human nature. And while the story does move along at a brisk pace, it bogs down through much of the center of the novel into a tedious anticipation of what the outcome will be. This can be aggravating for readers. Williams does include many asides which elaborate on the native culture and from where the visitors came, all of which may interest readers and does keep one continuing to the end. Overall it's a great book that will give readers much to ponder and will intrigue us to look for another work from the author.

Rating:
Summary: Unique speculative fiction
Review: The founders of the colony on remote Monde D'Isle established the prime directive of harmony with nature. Thus, the life cycles of the descendants tie into the planet's pulse including a feral urge to unleash their animal instincts. The weak are systematically killed.

Somehow Mevennen ai Mordha survived her time out in the wild, but upon returning everyone knew something was wrong with her. Her family wanted to kill Mevennen as befitting the weak as only the strong survives. Only her brother Eleres and the Satahrach Luta kept her alive. However, as the tides have increased in velocity, Mevennen suffers increasing fits. To save his beloved sister Eleres takes her inland to an abandoned tower. Not long afterward off-planet individuals arrive. Mevennen believes she sees a ghost while the visitor insists she is a Gaian anthropologist sent to help the people.

THE GHOST SISTER is an engaging science fiction novel that follows closely a culture that seems like nomads living within the cleansing of Ancient Sparta. The story line moves slowly forward to insure the reader understands the civilization and the key players. Fans of speculative fiction that focuses on characters and lifestyles will enjoy Liz Wlliams's THE GHOST SISTER.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: Unique speculative fiction
Review: The founders of the colony on remote Monde D'Isle established the prime directive of harmony with nature. Thus, the life cycles of the descendants tie into the planet's pulse including a feral urge to unleash their animal instincts. The weak are systematically killed.

Somehow Mevennen ai Mordha survived her time out in the wild, but upon returning everyone knew something was wrong with her. Her family wanted to kill Mevennen as befitting the weak as only the strong survives. Only her brother Eleres and the Satahrach Luta kept her alive. However, as the tides have increased in velocity, Mevennen suffers increasing fits. To save his beloved sister Eleres takes her inland to an abandoned tower. Not long afterward off-planet individuals arrive. Mevennen believes she sees a ghost while the visitor insists she is a Gaian anthropologist sent to help the people.

THE GHOST SISTER is an engaging science fiction novel that follows closely a culture that seems like nomads living within the cleansing of Ancient Sparta. The story line moves slowly forward to insure the reader understands the civilization and the key players. Fans of speculative fiction that focuses on characters and lifestyles will enjoy Liz Wlliams's THE GHOST SISTER.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: Dull exercise in political correctness
Review: This debut novel by British author Williams has gotten high marks in certain circles, but I found it boring, pretentious, and terminally PC in roughly equal measure. It is set in a distant future in which the human race has deserted a no-longer inhabitable Earth and relocated on a planet called Irie St Syre, which has been thoroughly terraformed to the extent that even climate is completely controlled. To top it all off, society is now run--pretty much perfectly, we are led to assume--by a matriarchal "Gaian" religion. (...)P>The world of Monde d'Isle is inhabited by the scattered remnants of a colony that landed ages past from Irie St Syre. The people have been genetically altered in such a way as to be in psychic harmony with their environment, as Williams explains repeatedly, but never satisfactorily. (Williams, I think, intends for this to be thought of as similar to the "dreamtime" of Australian aborigines.) Every 12 years they migrate, and occasionally (especially when hunting) they slip into the "bloodmind," during which they are little more than pack animals. However, some members of the race fail to achieve this connection to nature and its rhythms. There is a rite of passage during childhood in which a child is left to wander the wilderness by itself; when it comes home, if it does, and has not developed its natural harmony correctly, it is "landblind." And in this cruel culture, these burdensome "ghost" children are occasionally killed in the way ancient civilizations used to expose sickly infants.

Mevennen is landblind. The land around her constantly bombards her with a sensory overload that is quite painful to endure. Her brother, Eleres, however, is attached to her and refuses to let her be killed. So he takes her on a trip away from their home on the coast, in the vague hope of reaching Outreven, the legendary first colony, where perhaps Mevennen can be helped, if not healed.

Into the mix comes a spaceship from Irie St Syre, whose crew, led by the idealistic Gaian novice Bel Zhur and the sympathetic captain, are intent upon re-establishing this long lost colony and bringing it around to the sort of utopia it ought to have been. Bel encounters Mevennen and the two begin a cautious bond, while the rest of the crew worries about the shape that the culture has taken on Monde d'Isle, and tries to figure out the purpose of strange ancient machinery they have discovered underneath a ruin.

There's nothing wrong with Williams' premise in its own right; the seeds of an absorbing, clashing-cultures storyline in the leGuin vein are certainly evident. It's just that reading Williams' storytelling is like watching grass grow. There's virtually no forward momentum at all to this story. It all just plods, and plods, and plods. And plods. Moreover, I wasn't able to develop any kind of emotional attachment to any of Williams' characters, even poor, afflicted Mevennen, whose illness should have been heart-wrenching. But it isn't. It's like reading a newspaper article about someone stricken with disease; you're sorry they're sick, but since you don't know them there's no deep anguish that you share. A novel should not read like a newspaper article; you need to feel like you know the characters in order to hurt with them. Williams fails in this.

In place of a gripping plot, Williams' story is a slow-moving exercise in philosophical exposition about the fine line between what is human and what is not, all spiced up with intermittent scenes of gay sex--which demonstrates that, as nice as it is to be inclusive, gratuitous gay sex scenes are as tiresome as gratuitous straight sex scenes. Williams' methodical approach does, I suppose, give you a good grasp of the details of her alien cultures (though I still never got a good idea of how the Monde cultures were governed). I comprehended what was going on. I just didn't care. In her next book, let's hope Williams gives that aspect of her storytelling a bit more attention.