May 2016 Discussion: The Steerswoman (spoilers)
 

The time has come to discuss the May 2016 MobileRead Book Club selection, The Steerswoman by Rosemary Kirstein. What did you think?

Author Introduction
 

Hi, everyone. As the nominator of this book, and as the person who suggested we invite the author, Rosemary Kirstein, to join us, I thought I'd provide just a very brief introduction to Ms. Kirstein. She'll be checking in periodically, and I sincerely hope having her here will facilitate a good discussion, not stifle it. (And she's assured me that she wants to hear honest thoughts and NOT inhibit the discussion.)

Rosemary Kirstein was born, raised, worked, and lives on the East Coast of the US. She's been, variously, a musician, songwriter, folk singer, computer programmer, IT professional, and writer. Her first published book was The Steerswoman, published in 1989, followed by The Outskirter's Secret(1992), The Lost Steersman (2003), and The Language of Power (2003). There are two additional books planned and in progress in the series.

I personally first discovered The Steerswoman in 1989 or early 1990, and read the others pretty much as soon as I could get my hands on them. I proposed the book for this month's Science Fiction category because I firmly believe this is SF, not Fantasy, and because I hoped it would be both approachable and thought/discussion provoking.

If you like to read reviews of the books we're discussing, I suggest Jo Walton's review.

And now, I retire for a bit to let the first round of discussion begin.

A very good selection for our Science Fiction month. Yes, it is SF not fantasy. I already had this on my TBR list because of positive recommendations of other MR members. When I realized the original publication date, I wondered how I had missed it before. Reading it now though, is probably better for me because I would have been very frustrated waiting for sequels.

R. Kirstein’s characters Rowan and Bel are great story tellers as is their creator. You are immediately drawn into the story and the action but if you are like me you will also find yourself pausing to consider all those pesky things like ethics, truth and lying, ends vs. means, freedom of information, power, etc. I found myself highlighting a lot.

I’ve been trying to avoid the media election circus but must admit that’s what came to mind when I highlighted the following:
Enjoyed The Steerswoman enough that I went ahead and read the other three installments. Thanks Charlie.

I can't help but suspect that some allegorical political content sailed over my head. I didn't see anything I would regard as overtly political, but there was this:

In some sense, I'm with Tom here. I pretty much ignored any political overtones, because I was caught up on the science. For me, the highlight of the entire book was Rowan's working out how the Guidestars are falling but never reach the ground. The scientific method laid out in logical detail.

Other high points include the overall world building - the very concept of having a whole group of people whose job it is to walk around and learn while teaching. (Yes, there are other examples in history, but none with quite this flavour that I'm aware of.)

Also, the relationship between Bel and Rowan, and the development of both characters. As some here know, I'm strongly drawn to books that are character driven, and especially when there are strong female characters who are more than just "super-amazons". In The Steerswoman, we have two very different women protagonists who are both multi-faceted. (Both characters continue to grow in later books in the series, but I'm trying to avoid going into anything there.)

Finally, the one thing I really, really didn't like. I thought the scene with Bel extracting information was unnecessary, inappropriate, and detracted from both the story and the character. And I'd actually like to ask Rosemary to justify it, or explain why she thought it was necessary.

I didn't intend to imply that the book was overtly political. Just that I found myself thinking about things like what my query responses would be like if Google was run by a steerswoman.

Very good, Mims. I didn't take it as you saying it was overtly political, but found your observations of that forcing me to cock my head and look at it differently. EXACTLY why I'm glad to be discussing it here, and why we have a Book Club. :)

I found the book political in terms of the issue of who has the right to control knowledge, even knowledge that could cause harm. There are some interesting mysteries presented, like what these "stones" are. I have not read further books so my thoughts are that they are something from our current world. Obviously electricity has been "discovered" by the wizards, and they probably possess other scientific knowledge as well.
In terms of ethics, it is the ethics of Rowan that I question. She is investigating the stone-origin mystery and has some prior bias against wizards. But why does she feel it necessary (or ethical) to kill so many people? Perhaps we will hear some backstory about wizards in future books, but so far, it is only Rowan and friends that have killed. (Assuming the dragon attack was an accident). The necessity of the mass slaughter of the wizards' servants needs to be explained. Is this war justified?

Especially after the conversation Rowan had with the guards in which it was revealed the guards were villagers who were pretty much the victims of circumstances.

About that scene
 

I’m glad you brought that up, Charlie (it was inevitable that someone would bring it up, actually). The fact is, when I now look back on that scene, I find it disturbing, too. Torture is dreadful, appalling, wrong – and it’s one of the horrors of our modern world.

So, why did the “good guys” use it in my book?

There are a couple of things to consider when asking that question.

The first is: the date.

The Steerswoman was originally published in 1989. That means that I was writing it in 1987-1988. Think back on what the world was like at that time (if you can, that is: some of you might not have been born yet).

We’re very aware of the moral issue of torture, these days. It was the wars in the Middle East, and the events at Abu Ghraib, and the interrogations at Guantanamo that really brought it to the attention of the general public in the US.

But this was before that. Before Abu Ghraib; before 9/11; before the War on Terror. Before Desert Storm. Al-Qaeda did not exist (until August 1988, that is; that’s when Bin Laden formed it). And Guantanamo -- we had some sort of military base there, right?

Sure, we knew torture existed, but it was far away from us (Central America, at that time, perhaps; and Viet Nam historically). But it had no immediacy, no real-world resonance, for the average American.

It was something that showed up in spy novels, or adventure stories. The bad guy catches the good guy, twirls his mustache, gloats, and torture ensues.

In other words: a literary trope. A cliché. And in 1987 that was the entire extent of my understanding of torture. Disconnected from any real-world events.

So, the second thing to consider is: tropes.

One of the things I did in The Steerswoman was to take as many SF and Fantasy clichés as I could -- and flip them, turn them around, work them from the other side.

14-year-old kid with a talent for magic? Got one of them – but he’s not what he seems.

Wizards? Sure. But look closely...

Secret society with knowledge carefully hoarded and shared with no one? Meet the opposite of that: the Steerswomen.

So... what’s the opposite of the classic scene where the villain tortures the hero for information?

Right. There you go.

Actually, there are two ways to turn that around. In one turnaround, the villain wouldn’t have to torture the hero, because the hero immediately spills the beans. And I used that one, with Shammer and Dhree questioning Rowan.

And in the other turnaround... The good guys torture a bad guy for information.

And that’s how that entered the book. Because at that point in my life, in 1987, it was just a literary trope.

Except... I did have trouble writing it. Because (like all of us here) I have a good imagination. So I could not actually do it. I just didn’t have the stomach for it.

I approached that scene so many times, walking up to it, backing away, trying to get it written, failing -- until it finally became obvious to me: I just could not make Rowan torture anyone.

Solution: I had Bel do it. Bel is a violent person from a violent society. It made much more sense that she would do it.

And I had it take place entirely off-stage. We do not see anyone get tortured. We see the lead-up, we hear it in the background, and Rowan cleans up the mess afterward. At no point do we witness any torture.

And yet, we do find that scene disturbing – because in the real world, torture is a horrible thing. And we are smart, and we have good imaginations, and we have simple human sympathy.

Even when the humans involved are entirely imaginary.

So many people?
 

Actually, I think if you look closely, you'll see that Rowan didn't personally kill anyone. She did slice a couple of people...

Also: Why are you assuming the dragons were an accident?

Also: Was the mass slaughter of the wizards' servants justified? No, it was not. But I don't know why you're blaming Rowan for that... it was Willam. Rowan didn't have a real understanding of what Will's magic could do -- and she had no warning that he was going to destroy the entire fortress just to save her.

Keep an eye on Will's moral stance. He's a 14-year-old kid.

I'm only 40% through at this point, so I won't join the discussion as yet. I should be finished in the next few days.

For me, the central premise sounds intriguing but IMHO it's poorly developed.
I had problems taking the ban of steerwomen seriously, since I kept thinking "barring magic, how would it be enforced? We have steerwomen wandering in the field for years, how would they know if a particular person has been banned? If I'm banned by a steerwoman, and the ban may take years to go into effect from her comrades (if at all), it kinda undermines its threat. An what the other steerwomen receive? Names? Drawings of faces? For well known persons it's easy, but for regular town dwellers sounds tricky.
An besides, the fact that I personally may not receive information is moot, because a group that has as a mission the dissemination of knowledge for hundreds of years will inevitably make common knowledge all that they know. I think it would have been best if refusing to answer to a steerwoman was a social gaffe or something similar.
Also, I think that the escape from the wizard stronghold is full of plot holes, including but not limited to the damage that a black powder explosion causes.
I also find hard to believe that the wizards can maintain absolute secrecy after hundreds of years of employing peasants, and ultimately can't see the reason or benefit of maintaining such wide technological gap. There are so many things that are hinted at, but not justified enough in the story to allow me to 'live' in this world, I simply could not connect with it.

OK, fair enough. Actually, though, the scene bothered me even when I read it the first time. Which was in 1989. Less then than now, certainly. And certainly there's no way Rowan could have done it. It's simply not consistent with any other part of her character.

On the other hand, I wasn't particularly bothered by the blowing up of the Wizard's Keep. William is a 14 year old boy, and I know what I was like at 14 (which was a very long time ago indeed.) One is reminded of one of my all time favourite quotes from Jamie on Mythbusters - "Jamie want big boom!" However, I was not then, nor am I now, an expert on the explosive power of black powder, so can't comment on the technical accuracy. (And honestly, I don't think it is at all critical to the story, so I don't want the discussion to focus on that.)

Grey Ram, I think that part of the issue here is that the book is a series, and I'm not spelling out all the details of how everything works in the first volume. Some things will be developed more fully further down the line, in subsequent books, and my plan is to use the opportunities that arise in the natural course of the overall plot to explore or reveal the justifications behind the world-building background and social setup. In fact, the core of the actual story is Rowan herself learning these things.

As the saying goes: your mileage may vary. If you can't engage without more explication up front, well, possibly I'm just not the author for you.

Luckily, there are hundreds of other authors out there, some of whom are really great!

Thanks for giving my book your attention.

An interesting point that's easy for me to forget as I am re-reading the series for at least the third time, and probably the fourth. We learn about the universe as Rowan learns. That's part of what makes her discovery of orbital dynamics so interesting. The use of trigonometry and successive approximations to calculate something we all take for granted is part of that gradual discovery process. (Though one wonders why the old weight at the end of a spinning string analogy might not have come along first.)

FWIW, Grey Ram, I strongly suspect that you'd enjoy the second book more. Much is discovered, but there's also more of a self-contained feel to it. And it contains one of my favourite three word phrases. ("RBC" for those who've read it without doing a spoiler for those who haven't.)

I really enjoyed the book. Don't get to read too many lead women characters. However I also found it a little weird that wizards could keep the knowledge hidden for so long especially when the steerswomen were always there to search and provide the knowledge freely. Probably the next few books will provide some answers:)

The second book
 

Actually, I'm reading the second book right now; yeah, more information about the world and a better read. I think the problem is that here at the book club we are only talking about the first one, and it doesn't fare very well when read standalone.

Oh the world
 

Just to be clear, I don't want everything spelled out and I certainly can wait until Rowan figures things out instead of knowing them beforehand. Actually I like this approach, and I think it's one of the merits of the plot.

What I would like to know is more of what Rowan already knows, not the *why* (which I will find out in due time), simply the *what*, like:

. This is an interesting world, if the map at the beginning is the known world, well it seems kinda small, and they already know it is round. So for example why can't they go west of the wolf river? Would it be that inconvenient to mention what physical barriers have limited the exploration of the world?.

. There is a mention of a Duke, but otherwise, I have no idea of he social structure. Is it governed by Dukes? some other civil authority? Is it anarchy for the most part? I know it's not the wizards that govern because it is said of The Crags that "its politics depend on the wizard's decisions".

. What is the place of the wizards in the society?, I mean, they keeep to themselves and so on, but what do they do when they are not at war? Do they build things (for whom)? extract natural resources? torture the peasants for their amusement? spend the whole time in their keeps studying? :blink:

. Same goes for the steerswomen; I don't think that their whole interaction with the people is to answer trivial questions or the day's news. I see that they are very well respected, althought not exactly revered, but I don't see the source of that respect in their actions.

... and I could go on. Basically, I'm dropped along Rowan and I'm supposed to follow her and understand what she's doing, but I'm an alien from another world! that would still be fine if I were allowed to investigate this world and find about how it is. But I can't, I'm stuck at Rowan's side and the only information I have is what she receives, not even what she already knows unless she comunicates it to someone else.

I would say that you gave up too soon :) . Why not recommend the second book, which I am reading now? :book2:

As you can see, I don't consider this book unworthy of my time, or otherwise I would not have taken the time to read it and comment; as a matter of fact I find it interesting but at the same time I'm somewhat disappointed by what wasn't there. And one last thing, I still cringe at all that passed from the time Rowan, Will and Bel met the soldiers up to the explosion of the keep (torture? speaking in tongues to maintain secrecy, really?) and I should have liked the book a whole lot better if things have gone differently then. :thumbsup:

I appreciate the time you took for responding, it's the first time I talk to an author
:thanks:

I have only read the first book, and the explanation given was the wizard who normally keeps the dragons in check was sleeping, or on a bender, or whatever. I'm highly suspecting that there is more going on there, but have no further info at the present time. That's why some background for the reasons behind Rowan's bias against the wizards would be good to have.

I just assumed all the secrecy, the mysticism, and the hoading of knowledge for personal gain (for which the Wizards were known) ran counter to the "knowledge and truth for all" philosophy practiced by the Steerswomen. Rowan was biased against magic, in my opinion. Which seemed only natural given her position/role.

Those durn wizards
 

Treadlightly: What DiapDealer said.

That's it, basically, with references to it showing up throughout the book. Especially in Chapter Nine, at the Archives. There also is a quick little hint in that chapter that at some point in the past some wizard had acted directly against the Steerswomen (that event to be further explored in later books).

And Chapter Nine is also where Hugo concludes that the dragon attack was no accident.

I never thought the dragon attack could be an accident. Just too convenient, especially after the attack on the road.

Note that he doesn't have only explosive in his armoury. At the ship clearing he refers to an explosive that's set off by impact - using one explosive to set off this other explosive.

You will find out about the physical barriers to exploration shortly.
The political system is, I think, as it appears - feudal-ish.
Rowan doesn't know what the Wizards do, that's one of the problems the Steerswomen have with Wizards!
I think Steerswomen are basically walking libraries. But I agree that the reason for the deep respect is not made clear.

As for not finding out everything at once - as with most SF (& fantasy), part of the fun is finding out what the situation is without having a massive 'as everyone knows' infodump at the start!

I first read them as The Steerswoman's Road which had the first two books in one volume.

Agreed. There's some rather advanced technology being described (and slowly revealed to the reader) by characters who don't have enough perspective to differentiate it from magic (from satellites to printed circuit boards, and solar panels and such). I think it's a mistake to assume that Willam's "magic" was limited to something as primitive as black powder. I get the distinct impression that his seemingly inherent chemical knowledge (albeit, perhaps, limited to things explosive in nature) is not at all basic.

A question for those who've read all four books (so far) in this series: I typically don't like to start a series until it's finished (or at least reached a very solid and satisfying stopping point). If I read the next three books, am I going to reach such a satisfying jump-off point? Or will I be left completely in the lurch waiting for books as yet unpublished? I'm a very patient waiter, but I just like to know before-hand. ;)

Thanks DD. I also would like to know that before I start rest of the series.

I really enjoyed this (other than the torture and death of the whole keep parts already mentioned) and will be continuing the series at some point.

I did find myself wondering how many of the obvious clues wouldn't have been obvious if I didn't know that this was a science fiction book rather than a fantasy book.

CRussel tried very hard not to spoil things (Thank you!) but just knowing that the book was science fiction rather than fantasy is enough to make you look at the book in a different way. I found myself looking at anything "magic" and asking "what is the SF interpretation of this?" and now I am wondering how much more satisfying some of the reveals would have been if this had been in the free-for-all category and nothing was said about genre.

Hmmm. I haven't read book 4 yet in this round, though I'm about to. My memory is that, like the first 3 books, it ends at a reasonable place, but I was definitely ready for the next and could see what it needed to be. It was not, as some books recently, left at a total cliff-hanger where you felt like the author hit her/his xxx number of pages and simply stopped.

Ms. Kirstein hasn't publicly said when she's going to have the next book ready (at least that I've seen), but she is, finally, actively working on it as her "day job", so I'm hopeful. :)

You're welcome, Dazrin, but I'm convinced you'd have picked up on them no later than the middle of the book. But I couldn't propose it for this category without at least what I did say (and even as it was, Jon got a bit excited.)

But wait until you move forward in the series. There's all sorts of SF things going to happen, only some of which have to do with "magic" and/or "wizards".

I hope I would have! If I hadn't I would have been hitting myself later. And Jon tends to do that. :)

Part of my frustration is that I decided to look for books that might tie into the June categories a little early (around 75%) thinking that I had enough of it figured out, and one article I read had some details in it that went beyond anything described in this book. That "review" was supposed to be just of this one book but was written by someone who had read the whole series to date, so I don't know if they realized what they were giving away or not. Either way they wrote way too much in their review for just the first book. It is similar to the picture of bricks* that was going around recently, once you have seen it, it is impossible to go back.

* I was going to use Phil Plait's link but he has a spoiler in the URL. He does have links to some other interesting illusions in his post though so I still wanted to include it...

SF vs F
 

Dazrin: It's a good point. I'm always interested in finding out at what point each reader realized that it was science fiction -- but in this case you all knew right up front.

In talking to readers in the past, I've found that it's very individual, and a lot depends on what you expect when you're going in. And for some really dedicated fantasy readers, they'll continue to consider the books to be fantasy, even when the science is absolutely explicit -- they'll just assume it's a fantasy book with some science in it.

Even professional critics can get murky on this. For example, there's an Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, and an Encyclopedia of Fantasy. And I'm listed in the Encyclopedia of Fantasy. Because (and I find this interesting), even though there's no magic, the plot of the book operates entirely in within the classic fantasy mode, and to the editors of the Encyclopedia of Fantasy, that was the most important thing.

I can certainly understand that position. The Steerswoman, even after spoiling it for myself and knowing I was wrong, still had me fooled. It just never felt like a science fiction book. In the vote thread one person went as far as "this is fantasy, not science fiction, we need a do-over!" And that was after being ensured that it was SF. I really liked that slightly confused feeling, not many books can completely fool you as to what genre they are. Especially not after being told what it is.

The largest "science fiction masquerading as fantasy" series that I can think of is the Pern series. They have fire-breathing dragons and a low tech society but when the reveal about their beginnings came and we find out that it is science fiction rather than fantasy it wasn't that surprising. I felt more relief than anything. "Oh, that's why this hasn't felt like fantasy. It isn't!"

With The Steerswoman, even though I spoiled it for myself and the dragons feel a little mechanical (glass eyes breaking?) and there is obviously a lot of high-technology being hidden by the wizards, the story always felt like a fantasy. I know in my head that it is science fiction but the writing style says THIS IS FANTASY and I just can't get my heart to believe anything else. Wonderful feeling really.

Interesting discussion
 

I think I’m finally getting somewhere…

Dazrin: yep, in retrospective labeling this book as science fiction changed the way y approached it and should be considered a spoiler; sorry CRussel, it wasn’t your fault, you did your best, pal :).
Even though early on the dragons are described as being basically metallic, then an electric protection around a wizard’s crate is described and then an electric lamp is blatantly shoved in my face when reaching port, had I been told this was a fantasy book, I would probably have gone right along, without questioning too much the principles underlying such contraptions.

pdurrant: you are right, it is mentioned during the ship’s clearing, and the way Will walks screams “I’m carrying nitroglycerin!”. I guess I didn’t pay much attention to all the clues and also it was never mentioned that he was carrying liquids or how he was carrying them. I was thinking that Will had discovered black powder by accident, which is certainly plausible with medieval technology; but nitroglycerin is completely out of reach of an accidental discovery with the same technology.

But then DiapDealer mentions that Now, this puts things in another light entirely; if Will was born with that knowledge, he got black powder at his first try without blowing himself up (well... sans two fingers), then got the hang of it and obtained nitroglycerin at first try without further incident. That still leaves the problem of how he obtained the materials, but hey, I’m not complaining, I take it, I got it :2thumbsup

This last one ups the ante about the technology level that the wizards have, but at the same time explains nicely the stunt they pulled with the tortured soldier: he couldn’t give the information even though he tried, because his speech was utter nonsense. This raises the question of why a Wizard would bother encrypting the information that a random soldier holds, and… I know, I know, don’t roll your eyes at me :p

Overall, this discussions has helped me a lot in uderstanding this book, and has made think a little harder than usual when reading ficion, :thanks: all

The quest of knowledge
 

Turning to another matter, what if the lamp technician was a victim of the same ‘magic’ the soldier was? Would the ban still apply? That is, what if he was literally incapable of providing the information that Rowan wanted, even though he obviously possessed it?

And this leads me to question Rowans commitment to knowledge and truth and the way of the Steerswomen. Back to the lamp technician, she bans him but still answers one question from him. The jeweler refuses to answer her how does he make the tiny strips in the jewels? and she doesn’t ban him, she doesn’t even consider it. When finding out that Will knows how to make ‘magic’ she doesn’t jump on him like a chicken on a junebug to try and find how he makes it… probably she’s afraid she’ll have to ban him when he doesn’t tell.

And that’s other thing she does, she refrains from making some questions from fear that she’ll be refused and forced to ban the questioned; she stops looking for the truth… out of fear ;). Or she tries to work around the spirit of the rules by volunteering information without being questioned.

To be fair, neither the wizards make a sterling job themselves. The young ones basically spill the beans to Rowan, showing her their satellite maps, telling her how the solar cells are used, and some other things that I don’t remember right now. Probably they thought she was going to die anyway, but what a James Bond Villain they pulled. :smack: And then the wizard at Wolfsburg, talking about conflicts among his fellow wizards, volunteering information about the satellites, and to a Steerswoman to boot! If things keep going like this, the wizard’s secrets won’t last too long.:book2:

I may be one of the few who didn't know how The Steerswoman was officially classified before reading it. I didn't participate in the discussions and voting -- just saw several strong recommendations in the What are we reading? thread. So I decided to get a copy from Amazon, read it and join the discussion.

I was quite unsure whether this fell into science fiction or fantasy for at least the first third of the book, and even now that I'm convinced it's SF, it still has the "character" of an epic fantasy. If I hadn't had a bunch of on request books suddenly show up at the library, I'd already be deep into book 2 or even 3.

I'm eager to find out whether this is a world like Pern where people have forgotten that technology even existed after being stranded on a new planet. Or perhaps they have been plunged into pre-technological existence after a major apocalyptic event -- or something even different (scientific and/or social experiment?). I'm glad there are several more books set in this world since I like LONG books and LONG series. (I figure if I'm going to invest a lot of time and interest in these people, they should stick around for a while!)

Thanks to Rosemary for participating in the discussion.

She's not a Steerswoman at that point. She resigned to take up the quest--so she could lie (and be lied to or ignored). From the time they leave the Archives in chapter eleven until she gets captured by Shammer and Dhree in chapter twenty-two, she's not bound by the usual Steerswoman rules.

Same here.

I had my suspicions that it wasn't typical fantasy fare pretty early, but wasn't certain until the electric lights in chapter eight.

Though I've run into lights powered by magic in other books, so didn't feel that the streetlights *had* to be electric -- just that they *could* be.

It's hard to remember, now, when I first realized it wasn't fantasy but SF, since I first read this >25 years ago. And it does have somewhat of a feel of fantasy in the writing style even knowing all I know now. But the discussion in Chapter 2, where Rowan and Bel are discussing how the blue jewels fell was my first clue, but then that's immediately followed by the tarot (or equivalent) cards, pushing you back to thinking it's really fantasy. Rosemary is really quite clever, hiding and misdirecting you while giving you clues at the same time. It's fun!

I'm late to the discussion and entirely unfamiliar with SFF tropes, so forgive me for what is quite probably a jejune comment. I was very strongly struck by the point that whlle there is no moon, at least legend says there was one once. To me, this screamed a combination of a post-apocalyptic world plus time travel and the wizards were travelers from the past who either couldn't get back or chose to stay in the future as overlords by benefit of their technological expertise.

Going back to lurking....