The Lost Steersman

Rating:
Summary: The Lost Steersman
Review:
In this intrigue filled sequel to the Steerswoman Rosemary Kirstein returns us to the alien world of Rowan, Steerswoman. After leaving Bel, Rowan finds herself in the small seaside village of Alemeth on her way to discover the evil wizard Slado, who in the past has used magic to destroy the outskirts and all who live upon it. The local steerswoman Mira has recently died and left the Annex a total disgrace, months worth of work must be done in order to find any information on the wizard.

Hidden within the town is another more surprising thing than Mira's disgraceful state of affairs, the lost steersman Janus. Janus resigned his post after being shipwrecked and refused to answer why thus bringing himself under the ban. Now Rowan must try to unravel the mystery that is Janus, overcome the suspicious villagers notions of what a steerswoman is and somehow discover how to find a man, Slado to be precise, when he is nowhere to be found.

The steerswomen and men make a delightful use of logic and observation, Sherlock Holmes would be proud. Their endless search for knowledge is leading them on a path which I believe mirrors our own somewhat. What is magic after all? Is there such a thing? Or is it merely something we don't yet know the science of. The Steerswoman and the Lost Steersman are a fantastic set of books not quite fantasy and not quite sci-fi and quite refreshing for being a little of both.



Rating:
Summary: Not what I was hoping for
Review: ... which doesn't mean I hated it. I was ecstatic to see that the sequel to The Outskirter's Secret had finally come out after all these years. And I still love Rowan and the world she lives in. But the path she goes down in this story does not lead where she thought it would, and where I have been waiting all these years to go. This kind of feels like a "middle book"; the discoveries Rowan makes are sure to complicate things in the future, but she is really no closer to resolving the conflict with the wizards that was left hanging at the end of the second volume.

Rating:
Summary: Pure Reading Delight
Review: As a writer, I find I have trouble even finishing someone else's book because, too often, I'm thinking how it could have been better. This is one book that made me settle back and enjoy. It's been a long time since I read something so delightful! Yes, from a series standpoint, it goes in a different direction, but what a fun trip! Kirstein's level of invention is extraordinary, and she constantly finds new ways to explore this world. If you've been looking for a sense of wonder, here it is.

I am intrigued by the tension she sets up between the reader (who knows all about science fiction concepts) and Rowan ( who is discovering the truth about her world). Some of the things so mysterious to Rowan seem fairly obvious to me, but part of the fun is wondering how and when she will come to understand them.

Characters are vivid and intriguing as ever, and this book includes some moments when I laughed out loud. Also, one of the best alien first-contact scenarios I've ever read.

Rating:
Summary: Pure Reading Delight
Review: As a writer, I find I have trouble even finishing someone else's book because, too often, I'm thinking how it could have been better. This is one book that made me settle back and enjoy. It's been a long time since I read something so delightful! Yes, from a series standpoint, it goes in a different direction, but what a fun trip! Kirstein's level of invention is extraordinary, and she constantly finds new ways to explore this world. If you've been looking for a sense of wonder, here it is.

I am intrigued by the tension she sets up between the reader (who knows all about science fiction concepts) and Rowan ( who is discovering the truth about her world). Some of the things so mysterious to Rowan seem fairly obvious to me, but part of the fun is wondering how and when she will come to understand them.

Characters are vivid and intriguing as ever, and this book includes some moments when I laughed out loud. Also, one of the best alien first-contact scenarios I've ever read.

Rating:
Summary: More Than One Way to Be Lost
Review: Finally, the third book in the Steerswomen series! It has been almost 11 years since "The Outskirters Secret," the last book in this remarkable series. It was probably worth the wait, at least if we don't have to wait ten years for the next volume.

At the risk of spoilers, imagine a world that's nearly uninhabitable by man, filled with plants and animals inimical to earthkind. Now imagine a program for the terraforming of that world, a program that will take centuries if not millennia, involving first infrared bombardment by satellite and the burning of the borderlands, then sowing a genetically engineered plant that serves as a transition to earth life, and then a succession of increasingly earth-like plants.

After hundreds or thousands of years, in the areas treated first, the land is pretty much indistinguishable from earth; at the borders, life is strange and harsh. Most of the planet is apparently unchanged. Different peoples and cultures inhabit the various zones as the millennia-long terraforming proceeds.

To make things stranger still, those with knowledge have made themselves sorcerers and wizards, wielding technology when and how it suits them, quarreling among themselves and extirpating ordinary people who try to recover science and technology. As a result, most residents in this world are technologically ignorant, unknowingly held in that state by the technocractic wizards. Most humans think technology is magic, in a neat reversal of Clark's Law. Everyone but the wizards is completely unaware this is an alien world.

The sorcerers tolerate a band of Socratean scholars, the Steerswomen, who have re-developed principles of logic and serve as explorers, historians and cartographers. They mingle with the people of this world, operating by two rules: they will answer any question you ask, provided that you answer the questions they ask you. If you refuse to answer a Steerswoman's question, they shun you. It works pretty well... Sometimes a steerswoman - and some steerswomen are men - quits the order. They are said to be "lost."

But the wizards have their schemes, and as Rowan the Steerswoman struggles to understand them with the help of Bel, an outskirter, a member of one of the tribes on the fringe of the terraforming, the importance of understanding those schemes is increasingly urgent. Because one of the wizards is willing to use one of the terraforming tools in the satellite system to burn terraformed lands, and it is a terrifying weapon. The same wizard has caused one of the satellites to crash, at what jeopardy to the terraforming product we don't yet know.

It is fascinating to watch Rowan struggle to understand the issues and her situation, to see her begin to grasp that the world she knows is not the world on which earthkind evolved. With her, we are ignorant as to the wizards' motives, but we can understand better than her the risks their actions are creating.

The first two novels led to the conclusion that one of the wizards had set out to sabotage the terraforming process and, incidentally, to kill Rowan and Bel. This new novel tells of Rowan's efforts to find that mysterious wizard, and centers on the life that is native to this world. What if there is an intelligent alien species inhabiting this world? What if the terraforming process is destroying that alien intelligence? And Kirstein's aliens are truly alien; you will not mistake them, in the words of Alex Panshin, for someone from New Jersey. And all the while, there is the lost steersman of the title, who may be lost in more ways than one.

This is an excellent story. Wonderful, vivid characters are set in a plausible, complex world, with characters who struggle to understand the things that they encounter. Complex, unpredictable plots. Some reviewers have described these stories as fantasy; they are not. They are science fiction, and exceptionally well-conceived science fiction. These novels are genuinely new approaches to ideas. Highly recommended.

But please, Ms. Kirstein, can we have the next story a little sooner?

Rating:
Summary: More Than One Way to Be Lost
Review: Finally, the third book in the Steerswomen series! It has been almost 11 years since "The Outskirters Secret," the last book in this remarkable series. It was probably worth the wait, at least if we don't have to wait ten years for the next volume.

At the risk of spoilers, imagine a world that's nearly uninhabitable by man, filled with plants and animals inimical to earthkind. Now imagine a program for the terraforming of that world, a program that will take centuries if not millennia, involving first infrared bombardment by satellite and the burning of the borderlands, then sowing a genetically engineered plant that serves as a transition to earth life, and then a succession of increasingly earth-like plants.

After hundreds or thousands of years, in the areas treated first, the land is pretty much indistinguishable from earth; at the borders, life is strange and harsh. Most of the planet is apparently unchanged. Different peoples and cultures inhabit the various zones as the millennia-long terraforming proceeds.

To make things stranger still, those with knowledge have made themselves sorcerers and wizards, wielding technology when and how it suits them, quarreling among themselves and extirpating ordinary people who try to recover science and technology. As a result, most residents in this world are technologically ignorant, unknowingly held in that state by the technocractic wizards. Most humans think technology is magic, in a neat reversal of Clark's Law. Everyone but the wizards is completely unaware this is an alien world.

The sorcerers tolerate a band of Socratean scholars, the Steerswomen, who have re-developed principles of logic and serve as explorers, historians and cartographers. They mingle with the people of this world, operating by two rules: they will answer any question you ask, provided that you answer the questions they ask you. If you refuse to answer a Steerswoman's question, they shun you. It works pretty well... Sometimes a steerswoman - and some steerswomen are men - quits the order. They are said to be "lost."

But the wizards have their schemes, and as Rowan the Steerswoman struggles to understand them with the help of Bel, an outskirter, a member of one of the tribes on the fringe of the terraforming, the importance of understanding those schemes is increasingly urgent. Because one of the wizards is willing to use one of the terraforming tools in the satellite system to burn terraformed lands, and it is a terrifying weapon. The same wizard has caused one of the satellites to crash, at what jeopardy to the terraforming product we don't yet know.

It is fascinating to watch Rowan struggle to understand the issues and her situation, to see her begin to grasp that the world she knows is not the world on which earthkind evolved. With her, we are ignorant as to the wizards' motives, but we can understand better than her the risks their actions are creating.

The first two novels led to the conclusion that one of the wizards had set out to sabotage the terraforming process and, incidentally, to kill Rowan and Bel. This new novel tells of Rowan's efforts to find that mysterious wizard, and centers on the life that is native to this world. What if there is an intelligent alien species inhabiting this world? What if the terraforming process is destroying that alien intelligence? And Kirstein's aliens are truly alien; you will not mistake them, in the words of Alex Panshin, for someone from New Jersey. And all the while, there is the lost steersman of the title, who may be lost in more ways than one.

This is an excellent story. Wonderful, vivid characters are set in a plausible, complex world, with characters who struggle to understand the things that they encounter. Complex, unpredictable plots. Some reviewers have described these stories as fantasy; they are not. They are science fiction, and exceptionally well-conceived science fiction. These novels are genuinely new approaches to ideas. Highly recommended.

But please, Ms. Kirstein, can we have the next story a little sooner?

Rating:
Summary: Great book!
Review: I discovered the Steerwoman books only recently with the publication of this one; this is a great set of books and I certainly hope it won't be too long before the next one. Yes, this isn't the final book and doesn't take Rowan in the direction we expected, but the story does continue!

This is not genre work at all but rather a great set of novels witha great plot, a fascinating backdrop, and real human characters. I highly recommend it!

Rating:
Summary: Great book!
Review: I discovered the Steerwoman books only recently with the publication of this one; this is a great set of books and I certainly hope it won't be too long before the next one. Yes, this isn't the final book and doesn't take Rowan in the direction we expected, but the story does continue!

This is not genre work at all but rather a great set of novels witha great plot, a fascinating backdrop, and real human characters. I highly recommend it!

Rating:
Summary: Great Book!
Review: Kirstein sets up more mystery than gets solved, but it is ever so worthwhile to get there! Great characters, excellent world, and the deepening of various mysteries just makes everything more fascinating.

And the alien contact part is a wow all of its own.

Can hardly wait for the next book!

Rating:
Summary: Great Book!
Review: Kirstein sets up more mystery than gets solved, but it is ever so worthwhile to get there! Great characters, excellent world, and the deepening of various mysteries just makes everything more fascinating.

And the alien contact part is a wow all of its own.

Can hardly wait for the next book!