It seems that Bren Cameron is destined to find himself in the saddle, on a fearsome mecheita, in the company of the Dowager, grandmother to the ruler of the aetevi, Tabini. (It always seems to me that riding these animals must be rather like riding a huge, mean draught horse.) Bren & co have returned from a two year space mission, only to find the aetevi home world in chaos. The government is overthrown and Tabini and his consort are missing. Cajierei, Tabini's son, had also been on the space voyage, so their guards must protect an elderly woman, a boy of eight years, and a foreign human, who all owe their loyalty and man'chi to Tabini. They land the space shuttle on the human-occupied continent and it is Bren's brother, Toby, who ferries them across the strait to aetevi territory.
As usual, Bren is thinking and overthinking the situation. He is extraordinarily prone to blaming himself for circumstances well beyond his control. But plenty of time on a mecheita gives a body time to work through things, when one isn't absolutely exhausted or dodging gunfire. Bren still hasn't learned that he can't control what other beings will do (including his brother), but by book's end he has limited himself to deciding only his own actions.
Cajieri has become a very mature eight-year-old, and has developed his own network of man'chi as soon as he hit the aetevi continent. Another of Bren's worries dealt with—so much time spent with humans hasn't crippled the youngster's aetevi instincts.
Cherryh explores the struggle to modernize a very conservative civilization, with kerfuffle being inevitable. But change is also relentlessly approaching. Aetevi and humans are going to have to deal with the kyo, the third alien species, whom the Dowager and Bren negotiated with in the last book. And the kyo have suggested that there is yet another alien species out there to be contacted and make peaceful treaties with. Not to mention the relations between at least two aetevi factions and three or more human groups. Politics is Cherryh's forte, along with constructing believable and truly alien societies. I am looking forward to the next book, Pretender, this fall.
Book Number 457 of my Science Fiction and Fantasy Reading Project
No comments:
Post a Comment