RogerBW's Blog

The Lost Steersman, Rosemary Kirstein 20 May 2022

2003 fantasy/SF, third of its series. Rowan the Steerswoman comes to the seaside town of Alemeth, searching the Annex for evidence of a wizard who doesn't seem to exist…

I read this book when it came out, and was very disappointed in it for two reasons. First, the double act of Rowan and Bel the barbarian Outskirter that was the core of the first two books is gone here; second, because Rowan's quest is to track down the wizard Slado and stop him from plunging the world into war. That seems like a very urgent thing, but there's essentially no progress on that quest in this book, which I found frustrating. Remembering that as I went into this re-reading, I enjoyed it rather more.

What we do have is attacks by "demons", monstrous headless creatures that spray acid – and the primary thrust of the book, I think, deals with Rowan's attempts to understand them, to move them mentally from "random monster that we kill when it attacks us" to "creature that acts in comprehensible ways".

A secondary plot deals with Janus, the titular lost Steersman, who was Rowan's friend when they trained together but abruptly left the Order and wouldn't say why. Was it, as he claimed, the lingering horror of his experiences? Or is he up to something even now?

It's particularly good to meet more Steerswomen at greater length than we've seen before; Rowan remains Rowan, but her way of doing things isn't the only way, and other Steerswomen handle problems by other means.

The second half of the book drops the social aspects and focuses on Rowan's solitary explorations; it's an odd pacing choice, but again it works as long as one doesn't bring too many expectations from other stories.

Certainly not a place to start the series, but a worthy continuation of it.

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Previous in series: Outskirter's Secret, The | Series: The Steerswoman | Next in series: Language of Power, The

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