Rosemary Kirstein’s Steerswoman series is very nearly flawless. From the underlying premises to the sleight of hand plotting, she does science fiction writing at its very best. There’s just one flaw, which I’ll get to later.
Imagine a world where the general population is ignorant of science and technology much higher than the plow. A world where there are “wizards” who can apparently do “magic,” or at least what appears to the folks on that world to be “magic.” And this world also has a small band of “Steerswomen,” who work from first principles – what they can observe and measure – and have invented or reinvented deductive reasoning.
We meet and share the narrative point of view with one of those Steerswomen, Rowan, and over the course of four novels so far, we watch and learn with her as she explores that world and gradually learns that much of what she and her fellows have assumed may in fact be utterly false.
It’s brilliantly written. The reader soon recognizes what the “wizards” and “magic” really are, but get to watch Rowan puzzle it out. In the first novel, The Steerswoman we watch Rowan explore the mystery of blue-black jewels that are scattered across the known parts of her world. We watch her interact and become friends with an Outskirter, a member of one of the tribes that live on the border of the known world. And we watch her in a delicate dance with some of those “wizards,” as they attempt murder, kidnapping and worse when she tries to puzzle out the mystery of the jewels.
In the second novel, The Outskirter’s Secret, we watch Rowan and her Outskirter companion, Bel, as they make an epic journey to the Outskirts, where the world is very strange indeed. Rowan learns more about the staggering power that the wizards wield. And we get to watch as Rowan deduces the nature of that strangeness, and at least part of what it may mean.
The first two novels were re-published as a single volume, The Steerswoman’s Road.
The third novel is The Lost Steersman. We meet some of Rowan’s colleagues, including one of the few men, a “Steersman,” who disappeared under mysterious circumstances before the stories began. The mystery deepens as Rowan and a few friends follow her colleague beyond the Outskirts to a stranger, more dangerous part of the world, utterly alien, and get still more clues to a puzzle we understand only slightly better than she does.
The fourth and most recent novel is The Language of Power, re-unites her with a character from the first novel, and we learn that the “wizards” are a people apart, and learn still more about them. At the end of this novel, Rowan has a big piece of the puzzle that is her world in her hands, literally in her hands. Kirstein describes it precisely. But Kirstein is such a good writer that, like Rowan, we can only grasp the edges of what it may mean.
Other writers have followed this trope. Notably Roger Zelazny in Lord of Light. But none of them have had the sheer courage and skill to tell the story from the point of view of someone who is trying to puzzle it out. Because these novels are not fantasy, they are pure science fiction, and there is no “magic,” although some of the characters make think there is. The only “magic” is in Kirstein’s ability to tell the story so well.
Clarke’s Law is, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” This is Clarke’s law stood on its head. If a people are utterly ignorant of technology, then any technology is indistinguishable from magic.
There is a flaw: Ms. Kirstein can go a long, long time between novels. It was a matter of eleven years, as I recall, between Outskirters and Steersman. On the other hand, it was only six months between Steersman and Language. It has been almost six (!) years since Language was published. There are a projected seven novels in the series, possibly eight, and a prequel. And the first four novels took 20 years.
Brilliantly conceived and executed, this is science fiction at its very best. These are novels of ideas; there’s fighting and danger, tension and fear, but mostly this is watching Rowan solve the puzzle that Kirstein has given her. My very highest recommendation.
Wickersham's Conscience 