This was a rare miss for me in the science fiction category. It started out with a very interesting character – a young woman raised in a religious order devoted to bringing about succor for soldiers in war. The form of that service ranged from spiritual to carnal, and the women of that order are completely mute.
To read a book with a main character that is mute is a rare experience, and for the most part I liked how the story is told from her view. Also, the idea of two societies at war – one with technology and the other with religion as their basis – was a great foundation to an interesting world.
Unfortunately the world is only fleshed out enough to move the story along, and in the end it felt too simple. There are plenty of deep issues here – blindly following religion, love and trust, family ties, slavery and racism. But all of these are dumbed down and treated superficially. I couldn’t buy the changes in the characters as they dealt with these issues, and most of these characters were so one-dimensional that I felt like the author was taking shortcuts.
One character in the book is introduced almost entirely through memories of other characters and also through a strange device – a recording made in the past and replayed in the present. The way it was handled in the book was odd and felt unnatural – and so in the end it seemed like it was crowbarred in an effort to hold together the story.
OK, I’ll stop here – I could go on, but I think you get the point. Apparently there are two more books in this trilogy, but I don’t think I’ll be continuing the series.
Next I’m reading a cookbook – Food52 Genius Recipes by Kristen Miglore.
