2023 SF. Enitan is a scribe and tea cultivator on Koriko, conquered a
few years ago by the Vaalbaran Empire. But when her sibling
disappears, and her highly-placed friend promises to help her in the
search and promptly winds up dead, she volunteers to travel to the
mother world as a hostage…
There's a lot going on here. On one level there's some Hunger
Games, the plucky heroine from the exploited province going off to
Make Things Better. But the Vaalbarans aren't cartoonishly villainous
conquerors; most of them genuinely believe that their rule is the best
thing for Koriko and its people, who are obviously primitives who need
a helping hand to get them ready to become part of Civilisation..
Oh yes, there's a lot of colonialism here, including how the top dogs
can get away with not examining their assumptions even as they live
high on the plunder of conequest. Does a Korikese person show up
injured? Must have been a village fight. They're a violent, passionate
people, if you know what I mean. No no, why would our security guards
have beaten them?
At the same time, Vaalbara and its floating city-palace the Splinter
are decaying and static, and Enitan is the only new thing to have come
into the inbred in some time—so it's perhaps not surprising (if jolly
convenient) that several factions insist on recruiting her to spy for
them. What impressed me more, though, is that in many stories of this
sort the underdog thrown into the court just stands up and says "no,
this is wrong, I won't go along with it" and that makes everything
better. But Enitan can't do that: if she puts a foot too far wrong,
she will be quietly executed and nothing will have been achieved.
There are things that don't entirely work. The real power behind the
throne seems to be a secret from everyone except itself, controlling
others based on rumour and subservient media, and even in a repressive
state I find that a bit of a stretch. The process of hunting down
these conspirators is oddly elided, as most of it's being done by
other people. And Enitan seems to lose consciousness a lot, especially
at the ends of chapters.
But it's solidly enjoyable even so. Particularly recommended if you
liked A Memory Called Empire and particularly Some Desperate
Glory; there's that same readiness to take a hard look at SF tropes
that too often pass unexamined.