Lord, Karen - The Best of All Possible Worlds
Thu, Feb. 21st, 2013 04:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceterWhen the Sadiri homeworld is destroyed by their enemies, the bulk of the remaining Sadiri population move to Cygnus Beta, a planet known for harboring many different societies and groups of people, often refugees. The Sadiri want to rebuild their people and culture by finding women with suitable genetic traits to marry, and a small expedition is formed to scout out various populations and places on Cygnus Beta. The book isn't so much a story of rebuilding the Sadiri people, more a set of stories about what the expedition encounters.
First, I love the narrative voice of the book. The narrator, Grace Delarua, is a fairly ordinary citizen of Cygnus Beta; she's a government worker who enjoys fieldwork and has a talent for languages who is called on board due to her existing professional relationship with Dllenahkh, a Sadiri councillor. She's snarky and not particularly serious, and I especially liked learning about her personal and family life outside of the expedition. The relationships among all the members of the expedition are also interesting, from Delarua and Dllenahkh's growing closeness to the way team roles grow and shift when a bunch of people are stuck together for a while.
That said, I thought the narrative itself lacked some drive. I was fine with this through most of the book, since the characters and the worldbuilding made for interesting incidences, but I wanted some more closure for the ending. I vaguely think the romance between Delarua and Dllenahkh ties in with the Sadiri's attempts to figure out how to continue their race, but it would have been nice to have a much more substantial connection. That, and I am still not sure what the Sadiri end up deciding.
The romance itself seems well done: I really like how they move from professional respect to friendship to romance. It didn't really hit me, but as previously mentioned, I am in a weird non-romance mood of late.
Given that the narrative is all about finding women for reproduction (the vast majority of the refugees are male), I really wanted Lord to go more into that, particularly what happens with LGBTQ+ Sadiri. It's especially interesting because one member of the team is asexual and nongendered, which one of the Sadiri reacts a bit to, but there's not much further exploration. I do like how Lord portrays the various tensions pulling at the Sadiri: when you are the last of your people and culture, it makes complete sense to want to rebuild, especially if your homeworld has been destroyed. On the other hand, as Delarua notes, people on Cygnus Beta come from all sorts of cultures (planets? races? I am not sure) and usually ended up there due to some sort of negative circumstances, and the Sadiri's reluctance to mingle looks a lot like arrogance to them, especially since the Sadiri had a fair amount of influence and power before their world was destroyed.
Also, niggle that I have with a lot of SF books: Delarua refers often to "old Terran" cultural artifacts like Indiana Jones or other bits of pop culture, and I always wonder why it usually ends up being pop culture relevant to us now and not as much pop culture from various other planets.
First, I love the narrative voice of the book. The narrator, Grace Delarua, is a fairly ordinary citizen of Cygnus Beta; she's a government worker who enjoys fieldwork and has a talent for languages who is called on board due to her existing professional relationship with Dllenahkh, a Sadiri councillor. She's snarky and not particularly serious, and I especially liked learning about her personal and family life outside of the expedition. The relationships among all the members of the expedition are also interesting, from Delarua and Dllenahkh's growing closeness to the way team roles grow and shift when a bunch of people are stuck together for a while.
That said, I thought the narrative itself lacked some drive. I was fine with this through most of the book, since the characters and the worldbuilding made for interesting incidences, but I wanted some more closure for the ending. I vaguely think the romance between Delarua and Dllenahkh ties in with the Sadiri's attempts to figure out how to continue their race, but it would have been nice to have a much more substantial connection. That, and I am still not sure what the Sadiri end up deciding.
The romance itself seems well done: I really like how they move from professional respect to friendship to romance. It didn't really hit me, but as previously mentioned, I am in a weird non-romance mood of late.
Given that the narrative is all about finding women for reproduction (the vast majority of the refugees are male), I really wanted Lord to go more into that, particularly what happens with LGBTQ+ Sadiri. It's especially interesting because one member of the team is asexual and nongendered, which one of the Sadiri reacts a bit to, but there's not much further exploration. I do like how Lord portrays the various tensions pulling at the Sadiri: when you are the last of your people and culture, it makes complete sense to want to rebuild, especially if your homeworld has been destroyed. On the other hand, as Delarua notes, people on Cygnus Beta come from all sorts of cultures (planets? races? I am not sure) and usually ended up there due to some sort of negative circumstances, and the Sadiri's reluctance to mingle looks a lot like arrogance to them, especially since the Sadiri had a fair amount of influence and power before their world was destroyed.
Also, niggle that I have with a lot of SF books: Delarua refers often to "old Terran" cultural artifacts like Indiana Jones or other bits of pop culture, and I always wonder why it usually ends up being pop culture relevant to us now and not as much pop culture from various other planets.
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