Ring of Swords

Rating:
Summary: Thought-provoking
Review: A fascinating look at an alien culture, and human responses to it. Of course, to the Hwarhath, *we* are the aliens. This book is incredibly suspenseful as human and alien negotiators try to find a way to coexist without their species exterminating each other.

I found the actions of one of the human characters quite puzzling. He ends up working for the aliens (and more than that), after they... let's say they were as nasty as possible. And he is quite sincere about changing sides. Does this really happen? Plus, he seems to "change" in another way, which is even more fundamental (this sounds cryptic, but I don't want to give spoilers). Don't know if that's possible either. I agree with the reaction of Anna (another character) to the idea of getting together with someone who helped... well, read the book and see.

Also, the human negotiators were represented as part of a small minority who wanted to get off the (severely congested) Earth to "explore strange new worlds". Given that, and the future setting with FTL travel, these people seemed far too xeno- and homophobic.

Not yer average space opera -- well worth reading and thinking about. P.S.: There might be *two* non-human intelligent species here...

Rating:
Summary: A zig zag through an alien culture
Review: I must conclude that editing is a dying art; Eleanor Arnason's "Ring of Swords" is yet another SF novel of recent issue that could have benefited from another rewrite, and some judicious cutting. The length of the story is not supported by its weight, and fails utterly in the last hundred pages. The primary story (humans making first contact with an alien race) is far less vivid than the subplots--a marine world with intelligent squid, an alien who translates "MacBeth" magnificently into another culture. The hero is suitably ambiguous and anguished, the heroine is suitably plucky and determined, but it still doesn't add up to a dynamic read. It's yet another SF story where people sit around talking to one another too much. Even Jane Austen sent her heroine out for a walk now and then.

Rating:
Summary: A little too vague
Review: I'm a 'hard sci-fi' fan but this book still had some qualities that I enjoyed. For instance, the alien culture was well thought-out and had real depth.
However, as a man, I have to admit, all of the male bashing was a little over the top. Grnated, even though the alien men were supposed to be so dangerous that they weren't even allowed around women or children, they were never actually depicted raving like lunatics and in fact were extremely well-behaved. It's possible I completely misintrepreted the author's meaning, for all I know, she wanted to show that the aline men were only perceived as dangerous but weren't really any more than males of any other species.
But when the human female is getting grilled by the alien females about how and why she can live in the proximity of males, I was waiting for her to explain that human men don't often go around killing children or women at random. The human female appeared to have had a decent life without much exposure to male violence. And sometimes, in our culture, women are the source of violence as well.
I just hoped that the discussion wouldn't have been so one-sided.

Rating:
Summary: Thoughtful, provocative anthropological science finction
Review: Ring of Swords is compelling, literate sf. The alien-war plot is well executed and the alien society obviously well planned and detailed -- if a little too close to standard human types. The narrative collapses towards the end, however, when Arnason abandons her previous subtlety and whacks the reader about the head with a two-by-four labeled "Women Good - Men Bad!" that I would expect to see in an Andrea Dworkin diatribe, but not here. It's completely out of left field and hoses the reading experience utterly.

I wouldn't mind picking up other things by Arnason if I were convinced she's left off putting her personal political rants into her books, but Ring of Swords, while intriguing, isn't worth a re-read.

Rating:
Summary: The Hwarath are real, right?
Review: This book became a page turner for me, yes because of the plot, but mostly because of her aliens and her characters. I fell in love with many of the characters in the book. I understood what made them tick. They were real. But the biggest treat was her aliens. First the Psuedosiphorones, a thought provoking sort of jelly fish. But the book isn't about jelly fish. It's about us. Arnason uses her aliens, the Hwarath, as a way of holding up a distorting mirror to our own culture.

But, it is also about the Hwarath, a culture where the women stay home and have babies (oh? Really? Are you sure that's all they do?) and the men are off looking for an enemy. They badly want to find an enemy and when they find humans, yipee!!! Except, humans don't understand the rules of war. I have never read a book where an alien culture is so carefully drawn that you start thinking you are reading something that involved anthropological research, not dry research, but research. Wait a minute, these guys don't exist.

By the time you finish reading Ring of Swords, you will know what the Hwarath consider ethical and honorable, who really calls the shots, what is sexy, what is going on that Hwarath hide from other Hwarath, what they think is exceptable human chow, what their music sounds like (ouch), a touch of their mythology, what they wear when they aren't trying to impress humans and what their theater is like. Especially their theater! I know more about the Hwarath now than I know about Canadians, and I live in Minnesota and have Canadian cousins. And Canadians really do exist.

And by the way, the plot of Ring of Swords is pretty cool too.