The setup in The Ghost Sister is
that Humankind's history over the last millennia or so has followed
the screamin'-mimi nightmare of every present-day Greenie in that
the Earth has been left behind as a hopelessly-polluted sludgeball
for the terraformed and completely controlled environs of colony
world Irie St Syre. But, as a reaction to this global makeover
where dirt is evidently considered dirty, a visionary back in the
day named Elshonu Shikiriye colonized another world based on the
principle that man should adapt to the environment, not the other
way around. Not soon after, the Homies got a call saying this new
colony was “cursed
[and] that a darkness had fallen upon it” (Bantam, ISBN 0553583743,
2nd PB edition, c.2001, p.20). Why it took hundreds of years to respond
with a team of Gaian sisters heaven-bent on returning these lost
sheep back into the reactionary-religious, matriarchal feverfold,
only Ms. Liz knows.
What the feminist mission-members find on Monde D'Isle is
a medieval community without any obviously-feudal steerage. Traumatically,
it is schizophrenically balanced between a humanistic moral code
regarding life and culture, and the animal survival instincts of
prey and procreation. At times called “masques” (p.212), everyone
suddenly has an overwhelming desire to drink hard, laugh heartily,
and ball like bunnies. Strangely, it's not so much a propagation
thing, as most of the main characters are gay or at least bisexual.
Othertimes, the “bloodmind” (p.78)
takes over, and people charge into the forests in a feral-fanged
rage to murder animals—including the children and any other permanently-wild
humans who get in their way—chiefly for sustenance, but in definite,
carnivorous glee. They also go on migrations according to mooncycle
and even hibernate one month in winter. But, strangest of all to
civilized and logical minds, is that the children as early as one
year of age wander off into the wilds to raise themselves as animals,
then return to the townships around age eight or nine to become tame
and human. Too bad they don't go back out through the teenage years,
huh? Or do they?
To finish off these curious affectations, in all other times—which
takes up the vast majority of the novel—these people are normal,
interactive, social and caring beings. Yeah, they got problems—mainly
of self-identity stained in pre-conceived notions—and it drives an
effective storyline toward discovery.
And so it goes on the world of Monde D'Isle .
If you haven't been roughed up by a lifetime of reading
science fiction and fantasy, this novel is probably a pretty satisfying
and provoking adventure. The basic setup is a kick. Unfortunately,
with this being her first novel, Ms. Williams falls into too many
obvious potholes to sustain my disbelief for long. The characters
work well sketching the plot, but they feel underdrawn. The Gaian
missionary team, for example, is presented without any embellishment
or understanding of their core belief systems. Technically, the
book is a miasma of writing styles that seem more exploratory and
whimsical than adroit or enlightening. One of the indigenous characters
is presented in 1st person with another in 3rd person limited omniscient,
while the leading character from the mission team is handled most
of the time in 3rd person limited, yet has journal entries in 1st
person. The point-of-view switching is not so much confusing as
it seems unnecessary. It appears as if there's left-over smudging
from Creative Writing 101.
Overall, The Ghost Sister is a refresh
from the current High Tower, Sword ‘N Sorcery rigor mortis. The author
writes with enough ingenuity and sparkle to drive me to her third novel, The
Poison Master, mainly for her proclivity to stomp on the traditional
genre fences between Sci Fi and Fantasy with such modern notions as
sexual preference and environmental concerns. I feel confident that
success and practice will have honed even sharper cutting tools.
