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2004 Announcing 
New Original Sime~Gen Novels 
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
Jean Lorrah

From
Meisha Merlin Publishing Inc. 

Sime~Gen Inc. Presents

ReReadable Books

September 2005

"The Politics of Peace"

By

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

 

 

 To send books for review in this column email Jacqueline Lichtenberg, jl@simegen.com for snailing instructions or send an attached RTF file.  
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The Burning Land by Victoria Strauss, Eos, pb Dec, 2004
(online special: a comment from Victoria on this review)

Darkover by Marion Zimmer Bradley – long series being reprinted.

Dune by Frank Herbert, another long series also on DVD

Wicked by Gregory Maguire, Regan Books, 1995

The House of the Rose, Book I, Glass Souls by Michaela August, Awe-Struck E-books, May 2005, $4.75 download, 148,000 words.

 

Last month we searched for a connection between "love" and "peace," two concepts as abstract as "I."

We noted the self-other, 1st House/ 7th House dichotomy as the core of relationships, inherently squared by the 4th House/ 10th House dichotomy, home/ career. This conflict is discernable within an individual, but it is also possible to cast charts for nations and describe the course of their history (Mundane Astrology.)

A "nation" coalesces around a group mind, and that group mind has a psychology, values, communication style, anxieties (3rd House/ 9th House dichotomy), a homeland, a posterity and creativity, a function in the world, alliances, etc around the Houses just as an individual person has.

The adage, "As Above, So Below" applies. So in our search for the components of "peace" and "love" and the connection between them, we must look outside the individual at the group minds he/she joins and generates.

Last month we came to the element "domination" as somehow linked to "peace" and maybe to "love." Now "domination" as an element in "peace" leads us into the dicey realm of politics.

In 1994, this column examined government in depth. Reread those columns at simegen.com/reviews/ . But there remains the question of whether politics is necessary to form governments or if politics is just one of the things people do to prevent peace.

What we need "politics" for, and what we incessantly use it for, might not be the same thing. Over the last few years, a number of writers have been gnawing on this issue, painting on huge canvasses, holding up a mirror to our world so we can look at ourselves from a new perspective.

Victoria Strauss has tackled the twin issues of "domination" and "control" in her fascinating novel, The Burning Land.

Here politics and religion gain a strangling grip on two kinds of psychically talented people, leashing the psychic talents of "Shaping" and "Dreaming" to do the bidding of the governing religion.

In The Burning Land, Strauss shows us how legends and myths can be used by level headed, reasoning people as source data, bringing them to absolute certainty in their conclusions. Yet equally bright and talented people can still draw different conclusions from the same data.

Can a society and/or the individuals in a repressive society achieve "peace" internally and with neighbors if individuals in that society have the power to "shape" or make things out of thin air? What kind of economy could form in a society where some individuals just wave their hands and food, clothing, shelter, and wealth appear?

Would such individuals become the honor-bound slaves of that economy? Or would they break out of that honor-system and seize a position of dominance in order to bring "peace" to their world? In the Darkover novels, Marion Zimmer Bradley examines this problem from various points of view over enough centuries that everything you can think of happens.

Strauss focuses attention on how differing belief systems, different values, undermine peace, create strife, and lure humans with power into taking actions that affect the entire society, not just themselves and their families.

The Burning Land is an introduction to a world on the brink of accepting a new messiah, and seems to me to be the Fantasy version of Frank Herbert’s splendid series Dune. It’s about how the group mind affects the individual’s values and "faith" – and it’s about how the individual is honor bound to pass personal judgment on the values of his/her group mind. This book leads you to question your own belief systems, which I consider a healthy endeavor.

This is a long book – 560 pages in pb, $7.99 – with a vast scope. So I find myself able to forgive a few of the flaws that make the plot seem "contrived." The question that bugs me most is "Why aren’t the shapers taught to make the drug that they become addicted to in order to reduce their shaping ability?" The ostensible reason is that they can’t make living things, but they can make food when they lead groups across the sacred desert called The Burning Land where their god is sleeping deep under the surface.

The whole plot would have fallen apart if the hero could have made that drug for himself, and even without tutelage and custom, he should have thought of trying.

A more minor problem I had would not have altered the plot at all. The hero shaper, Gyalo, could have avoided the great sin of "shaping" water if he’d called for rescue by using the sanctioned ability to make colored light shine upwards. But the rescuers would have led him into sin anyway, so that isn’t a major contrivance, just an oversight.

Ignore those two issues, and this book is a perfectly constructed, non-stop great read! And I haven’t even mentioned the Dreamers yet – read the book. Please!

Wicked is an older fantasy, 1995, based on an even older one, The Wicked Witch of the West. But OZ is a classic part of the dialogue among authors. Who doesn’t know the Wizard of Oz and Dorothy? That’s a myth of our time!

But Dorothy learned Oz from a child’s perspective, a lost child. At one time, the Witches and the Wizard were also children, and became the characters Dorothy met because of their personalities and upbringing, because of the politics of power and peace. The Wizard and the Witches were people of Power in their worlds, as the Shapers and Dreamers are in the Burning Land, and the Comyn on Darkover.

Wicked seems to me a very "dark" work where most of the Oz books only contain shocking and terrifying things in a "light" setting. I lost track of Maguire’s story when the point of view shifted, which was often and without reason, but I always read on. It’s an optional read, worth thinking about in the context of the Oz "myth" juxtaposed to this year’s column topic, the "Hero Myth" (http://www.herowithin.com/HeroTranceCampaign.html  ).

But here’s another book that is not optional. It is a monumental contribution to our world. I don’t know why this isn’t a mass market paperback promoted like Harry Potter.

This is The House of the Rose, Book I: Glass Souls by Michaela August. It is a huge book, one of those very thick historical fantasy novels, but instead of costing nearly $8, it’s only $4.75 to download. That’s the power of the e-book market.

Michaela August is a Forever Knight fan, as I am, and developed her first skills on FORKNI-L where standards are terrifically high which has produced other pros. She is the author of that California wine industry historical novel I raved about in the May 2004 column, Sweeter Than Wine. Her fabulous craftsmanship is nearly invisible to the reader, delivering a smooth, wholly enveloping read. In Glass Souls, she presents an innovative, and totally absorbing concept of vampires among us.

The concept is complex and deep, easily able to support a long series of long novels, and Michaela unfolds that concept gradually and methodically throughout Glass Souls. This novel is set in the Middle East starting in 1209, and has several point of view characters, two of which are Crusaders in Egypt.

The House of the Rose is a House of international traders who move goods from the far flung corners of the known world and make a good profit at it. The House of the Rose is protected by Djinn who reincarnate again and again from the dawn of time. The protectors of the House search out their fellow Djinn and other members of the House reborn scattered, then awaken in them their past life memories, bringing them back into the House to become Djinn and Lords of the House. These Djinn have many powers, and survive on blood.

Glass Souls is the story of such a search for lost souls, two of which are Crusaders, one of whom becomes a Knight Templar. Amid the rich, deep, complex karmic relationships, religious convictions, family obligations, royalty, and eternity, August tells a story of individuals with huge Powers who keep a low profile, fly below the radar of politics and find peace within their own family.

Amidst the Crusader’s attacks, rape, and pillage, the House of the Rose takes destruction in stride and rebuilds, continuing to search for and retrieve their own. Some, however, are not willing to become nearly immortal Djinn again. This book spans 40 years and ends on a satisfying note, promising a connection between family love and political peace.

To send books for review in this column email Jacqueline Lichtenberg, jl@simegen.com for snailing instructions or send an attached RTF file.  

SPOILER -- comment from Victoria Strauss on this review below -- SPOILER

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I wanted to address one thing you pinpointed as a problem--why Gyalo couldn't just conjure himself more manita, when he found himself without it in the Burning Land. There are three reasons. First, he can only shape things whose patterns he knows--and given the restrictions of Shaper training, which limits trainees' learning to just the patterns they use in ritual, he wouldn't know the patterns of the manita plant. Second, the drug he takes is the result of a complex production process, which includes cooking, drying, and grinding--not something he'd be able to do out in the desert. (I do explain both these points in the book, but it's possible that I didn't connect them forcefully enough with Gyalo's dilemma in the Burning Land--also, some of the detail of manita-making was a casualty of editorial commands to make the book shorter.) Third, and possibly most important, to use his shaping to make manita to re-tether himself would be as much a violation of his vow as shaping water to save his life and the others'.

Anyway, I just wanted you to know that while your point is well-taken, 
it is something I considered and (I thought) addressed.

Thanks again! 

Victoria Strauss 

And Victoria says there's a feature on her website about the background she has created for this series.  Yes, another one coming soon!  

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