The Steerswoman, by Rosemary Kirstein
Nov. 14th, 2019 11:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
landingtreePosts shorten as coursework intensifies: I first really heard of the Steerswoman books at 2018 Scintillation, where there was a panel called something along the lines of 'Why you should be reading the Steerswoman books.' I didn't go to the panel, because the list of people giving it seemed like enough of a recommendation (and because an interesting conversation was going on in the hallway outside). And now I've got around to it.
If I had my copy with me I'd be tempted to quote the whole back cover - it's one of the better examples I've recently run into of cover copy which gives a good sense of why a person would want to read the book without giving anything away. But, paraphrasing:
A steerswoman will answer any question put to her, and she will never lie. But if you once refuse to answer a steerswoman's question to you, no steerswoman will ever again answer the slightest question of yours. For a very long time, there have been no problems with this arrangement. For that same length of time, no steerswoman's question has ever been answered by a wizard...
This is a book full of well-written thinking. Thinking done alone, in pairs, in groups; thinking about what to do next, about what route to take to get somewhere, about how to get out of a building given the general principles of how buildings work, about simple theoretical physics... More worlds should contain both wizards and graphs. It gives the kind of analytical pleasure which was one of the things I liked about Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, only without the author-insert genius who solves people with an air of scorn. Steerswomen do not solve people, and they are systematically bad at the suites of skills which are the opposite of what they practice, i.e. lying...
The order of steerswomen is an extremely congenial and interesting creation, in a range of ways, but I think what's fundamental to my enjoyment of the book is the fact that it's about people who practice truth. I will usually be frustrated by a book that hinges on characters not telling each other things (the example that springs to mind is Robin McKinley's Sunshine, where I found it hard to take). The Steerswoman is all about the exchange or withholding of information: whenever the main character isn't telling other people things, she is deeply worried about it, because truth-telling is fundamental to who she is. Which is to say, my narrative instincts are her deep principles. And also some of my deep principles. Truth is not only better, it is more interesting -- although I don't think the series is done with the question of whether there might be good reasons to tell very large lies.
If I had my copy with me I'd be tempted to quote the whole back cover - it's one of the better examples I've recently run into of cover copy which gives a good sense of why a person would want to read the book without giving anything away. But, paraphrasing:
A steerswoman will answer any question put to her, and she will never lie. But if you once refuse to answer a steerswoman's question to you, no steerswoman will ever again answer the slightest question of yours. For a very long time, there have been no problems with this arrangement. For that same length of time, no steerswoman's question has ever been answered by a wizard...
This is a book full of well-written thinking. Thinking done alone, in pairs, in groups; thinking about what to do next, about what route to take to get somewhere, about how to get out of a building given the general principles of how buildings work, about simple theoretical physics... More worlds should contain both wizards and graphs. It gives the kind of analytical pleasure which was one of the things I liked about Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, only without the author-insert genius who solves people with an air of scorn. Steerswomen do not solve people, and they are systematically bad at the suites of skills which are the opposite of what they practice, i.e. lying...
The order of steerswomen is an extremely congenial and interesting creation, in a range of ways, but I think what's fundamental to my enjoyment of the book is the fact that it's about people who practice truth. I will usually be frustrated by a book that hinges on characters not telling each other things (the example that springs to mind is Robin McKinley's Sunshine, where I found it hard to take). The Steerswoman is all about the exchange or withholding of information: whenever the main character isn't telling other people things, she is deeply worried about it, because truth-telling is fundamental to who she is. Which is to say, my narrative instincts are her deep principles. And also some of my deep principles. Truth is not only better, it is more interesting -- although I don't think the series is done with the question of whether there might be good reasons to tell very large lies.
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Date: 2019-11-13 11:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-11-14 08:47 am (UTC)