Kirstein, Rosemary - The Outskirter's Secret
Thu, Jun. 9th, 2005 11:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceterSpoilers for The Steerwsoman below.
The adventures of Rowan the Steerswoman and Bel the Outskirter continue their adventure to find out what happened when the Guidestar fell years ago and to find out what the wizard Slado is planning.
In this case, they venture out to the Outskirts in search of the Guidestar's remains. I like the same things about this book that I liked about the last book... mostly that it's a series concerned with the gathering of knowledge. I really like how each book seems to be centered around a mystery of the world-building, and I'm really curious to see how Kirstein will resolve this. My current theory is that all the people on the planet are from Earth or something a really long time ago and that they were dumped there and now don't remember. Well, I guess that is not too hard to figure out.
I continue to like Bel and Rowan's friendship and how it is distinctly non-romantic, mostly because there just aren't all that many female friendships portrayed in sci-fi/fantasy that I can think of. I also like the fact that they aren't set up as complete opposites per the usual scholar/mage/healer and warrior division.
And I just thought of the fact that I guess you can read this series (or at least these two books so far) as a feminist series. Huh. I guess just the way the organization of Steerswomen is coded as female (obviously, despite the occasional Steersman) and the way the wizards read as coded male to me. I can't quite remember -- I know one of the wizards Rowan met in the last book was female, but I seem to have the general impression that on a whole, people tend to refer to wizards as male. Not sure why. And so there are the two gender-coded organizations, with the imbalance of knowledge and power. I guess in some way I can read Rowan's quest to find out more about the world and more about what the wizards are doing as a sort of parallel to the women's attempts to break into typically male-dominated professions. Well, either that or else I am thinking too much while I code at work.
Not much of a review, but I continue to be entranced by this series. Just... quests for knowledge! Coolness.
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rilina's review
The adventures of Rowan the Steerswoman and Bel the Outskirter continue their adventure to find out what happened when the Guidestar fell years ago and to find out what the wizard Slado is planning.
In this case, they venture out to the Outskirts in search of the Guidestar's remains. I like the same things about this book that I liked about the last book... mostly that it's a series concerned with the gathering of knowledge. I really like how each book seems to be centered around a mystery of the world-building, and I'm really curious to see how Kirstein will resolve this. My current theory is that all the people on the planet are from Earth or something a really long time ago and that they were dumped there and now don't remember. Well, I guess that is not too hard to figure out.
I continue to like Bel and Rowan's friendship and how it is distinctly non-romantic, mostly because there just aren't all that many female friendships portrayed in sci-fi/fantasy that I can think of. I also like the fact that they aren't set up as complete opposites per the usual scholar/mage/healer and warrior division.
And I just thought of the fact that I guess you can read this series (or at least these two books so far) as a feminist series. Huh. I guess just the way the organization of Steerswomen is coded as female (obviously, despite the occasional Steersman) and the way the wizards read as coded male to me. I can't quite remember -- I know one of the wizards Rowan met in the last book was female, but I seem to have the general impression that on a whole, people tend to refer to wizards as male. Not sure why. And so there are the two gender-coded organizations, with the imbalance of knowledge and power. I guess in some way I can read Rowan's quest to find out more about the world and more about what the wizards are doing as a sort of parallel to the women's attempts to break into typically male-dominated professions. Well, either that or else I am thinking too much while I code at work.
Not much of a review, but I continue to be entranced by this series. Just... quests for knowledge! Coolness.
Links:
-
rilina's reviewTags: