Penguin, 1986, 251 p.

Reyna is a barohna’s daughter all set to make the trip into the hills to face the challenge which will make her into a barohna herself or die in the attempt. Her parents are Khira and Iahn from Bluesong who have fallen out over this tradition, with Iahn returning to the plains where Khira met him. On the day of the annual dance (when it seems the inhabitants of Brakrath choose mates) Reyna meets a hunter, Juaren, one of the last of his kind. That evening though it is her mother who picks out Juaren to dance and take to her bed. Some weeks later Khira tells Reyna she will not be the next barohna, her unborn sister will, and forbids her to take go on her challenge. The Arnimi, off-planet humans reliant on instruments to a very un-Brakrathi extent and who have been studying the people of Brakrath for many years, have discovered which part of the brain allows a palace daughter to become a barohna and Reyna has not inherited it. That her father is himself an off-planet Rauthimage is almost certainly a factor in this and Khira has therefore been forced to mate with a Brakrathi to fulfil her purpose of providing a daughter to replace her as barohna.

The communication from Birnam Rauth (of whom Iahn is a clone) via the bluesilk from the previous book in the sequence provides a new purpose for Reyna’s life though, as the Arnimi propose she travels to the likely planet where he is held captive to find and, if possible, rescue him. Her companions will be Verra, an Arnimi, and Juaren, whose dynastic purpose having been fulfilled is something of a spare at the palace.

Reyna’s tale is interspersed with details of the lives of some sithi, indigenous bear-like creatures of Birnam Rauth’s prison planet; in especial, Tsuuka, mother of several sithi one of whom, Dariim, is so enthralled by a red starsilk that he disobeys her strictures about penetrating deep into the nearby forest and falls into danger. There creatures called spinners produce the starsilks which sing to the sithi and also protect the eldest tree within which Rauth is trapped.

Through the third person text, Reyna keeps asking herself questions, as does Tsuuka. As a means of information provision (I hesitate to call it dumping) and illustration of Reyna’s lack of knowledge of the sithi’s planet, this is fine but there was perhaps too much of it.

As if to prove that Science Fiction is rarely about the future the Arnimi recording medium of choice in this book is tape. In Starsilk’s year of publication, 1984, of course, this would have seemed unremarkable and to have invented another a seemingly unnecessary extrapolation. How much has changed in the past 36 years.

The journey to find out where and how starsilks were produced and Birnam Rauth sequestered is where the trilogy has been headed all along. Though it takes us off Brakrath with its unusual culture and doesn’t really illuminate those of the Arnimi and the inimical Benderzic, it is not a disappointment. This is good, solid SF – even if it doesn’t quite reach the heights of the genre.

Pedant’s corner:- “picking up his work without word” (without a word,) “to show them that none of those supositions were true” (that none … was true,) “it had flirted away” (flitted makes more sense,) “a deep sound accompanying its ascent” (this was of a ship – or shuttle – coming down from orbit; descent, then,) “‘Danior described the night sky in just enough detail that our ship’s system was able to calculate the location of the forested atea he described’” (a knowledge of its night sky would be enough to locate a planet’s position, but not a specific area on its surface,) “‘to see if its drinkable’” (it’s,) “more briskly then before” (than before,) abosrbed (absorbed,) “‘maybe its nocturnal’” (it’s,) Komas’ (Komas’s,) thougts (thoughts.) “She saw what she hadn’t dare believe” (dared.)

The second novel in “Walk to the End of the World and Motherlines,” The Women’s Press, 1989, 219 p.

In Walk to the End of the World fem Alldera finally escaped from the Holdfast, the brutal male dominated enclave which had been set up after the Collapse. Pregnant and starving, she makes her way across the desert into the grasslands where she is rescued by a Mare, one of a society of women who ride horses and patrol the desert to ensure no men from the Holdfast ever learn of their existence and also prevent free-fems, escapees from the Holdfast, from attempting to return to overthrow the men there.

It is these Mares who embody the Motherlines of the title, their ancestors having been made able to bear clones of themselves by scientists before things went awry, resulting in different breeds of descendants who look alike within each type. (The mechanics of the trigger for this reproduction strain credulity a little but also provide a source of derision towards them from the free-fems.)

The Mares’ decision to keep Alldera’s cub (as children are called here) and raise her as a Mare runs against previous practice whereby all such children of the Holdfast were entrusted to the free-fems. Alldera’s allegiances swing between Mares and free-fems (with whom she spends some time) as the narrative progresses. But, despite tensions within each of them, it is her affinity with both groups that brings them closer together among rumours of the Holdfast descending into conflict over diminishing amounts of food.

Motherlines narration does not embody the disjointed structure of Walk to the End of the World but the pastoral/nomadic lifestyles of the Mares and free-fems again resemble those in other books I have read recently, Bluesong and In the Red Lord’s Reach. Charnas is more concerned with the position of women, however, and the societies they might produce if left to themselves. As such Motherlines is in the fine SF tradition of “What if?”

Pedant’s corner:- “she though wretchedly” (thought,) rarified (rarefied,) ws (was,) “the Mare’s visit” (Mares’.)

Penguin, 1984, 266 p.

This is a sequel to Darkchild, and is again set on the planet of Brakrath but here Scyoc broadens out her depiction of the societies there. Events are seen through two viewpoint characters, Keva and Danior, but a third appears in the Epilogue which sets up another sequel.

Keva has been brought up in the warmstream among the fisher-people by Oki. But Keva’s dreams are dominated by thoughts of fire. While seeking a poison antidote in Oki’s stash she finds a blue cloth which sings to her when she touches it. She finds Oki has lied to her about her origins and that her memory of a bearded man on a horse is real. She is the daughter of Jhaviir, one of the clones of Birnam Rauth – a Rauthimage – from the earlier book, and of a barohna now dead.

Danior’s mother was also a barohna (Khira from Darksong) and his father was The Boy from that book. Since barohnial inheritance comes through the female line Danior sees no place nor future for himself in the barohnial palace.

Both Keva and Danior set off on their own, Keva to attempt to find her father, and Danior to make his own way. Jhaviir – as the Viir-Nega – has collected together some of the desert people to live in a settlement but they are constantly at war with those who still roam. This pastoral existence and the wanderings through the plains reminded me of Phyllis Eisenstein’s In the Red Lord’s Reach, but perhaps hunter-gathering/partly settled societies are all similar.

When the nomads discover that a barohna has come to the settlement it provokes them to form an alliance to attack. Despite her reluctance Keva is forced to use her barohnial powers as mediated by her sunstone to defeat them.

The vast majority of this novel deals with the situation of the desert clans. The background to Scyoc’s trilogy remains resolutely that – background – for the most part. Little of the Rauthimage inheritance both Keva and Danior embody is referred to – except for the glimpse of Birnam Rauth, as tramsitted via the white cloth Jhaviir possesses, experienced by Danior as he touches it. This presages the third book in the trilogy.

Bluesong can be read on its own. No knowledge of the previous book is necessary and it reads as not merely the second part of a series but works by itself as a novel.

Pedant’s corner:- lightening (lightning.) “‘She’d dead.’” (She’s.) “It made her feel no better than he drew back at her tone” (that he drew back,) dispell (dispel,) vaccum (vacuum,) “instead the Nathri-Varnitz” (instead of the Nathri-Varnitz,) “three pair of eyes” (pairs,) a missing full stop at one paragraph’s end, an end quote mark at a paragraph break where the next continued the same speaker’s dialogue. “The Viir-Nega brows rose” (Viir-Nega’s brows,) “for constance” (constancy,) insured (ensured,) he ask uncertainly (asked,) “she needed to the think now” (no ‘the’ needed.)