1985 SF, first of a trilogy. Space pilot Silence Leigh is stuck on a
world in which women are literally second-class citizens, marooned by
the death of her grandfather and legal entanglements over his will.
And there's a starship in the balance…
This is more a picaresque than anything else. A stranger offers
to speak for Silence (she has no standing to speak for herself), and
has a slightly odd business proposition for her. But if it'll let her
fly, it's at least worth a look… then things go awry, and there are
captures and escapes and mystical experiences.
But it's the pilotage that's one of the most important things here.
Starships are lifted by keels of the Philosopher's Metal as it's
caused to resonate in or out of tune with planetary or other
influences; and for interstallar flight, they move into purgatory,
some part of the way to heaven. And one navigates by something like a
vision quest, following a series of images, which are jealously
guarded in pilots' personal books. It's both gloriously fun and
appropriately perilous.
The other main plank of the book is the three-way relationship in
which Silence finds herself, at first a marriage of convenience, but
gradually growing into friendship. There's very much a feeling of us
against the world, because even the allies aren't anything like good
guys. And what's going on with the rumours of a route to lost Earth?
It's quite bitty and spends more time showing us various bits of the
world than developing the characters – but there's a decent amount of
that too. An enjoyable start to the trilogy.
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