Star Sister

by Juanita Coulson

Renee Amos was a dreamer, dedicated to righting wrongs and championing under-dogs. But she never dreamed that there were others like her on alien worlds, also fighting for justice. Then two alien Arbiters, on their way to a distant planet to negotiate a peace treaty, accidentally picked up Renee and transported her with them. Suddenly she found herself on a strange world, with no way to get home and no choice but to join the Arbiters' mission.

But baiting City Hall had hardly prepared Renee for interstellar politics, and years of advocating pacifism were no preparation for stopping the destruction of entire star systems. For Earth itself was in the line of fire, and to save it, Renee would have to learn not only the ways of power, but also to kill...

Genres: Science Fiction

219 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published February 13, 1990

About the author

Juanita Ruth Coulson (née Wellons) is an American science fiction and fantasy writer most well known for her Children of the Stars books, published from 1981 to 1989. (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juanita...)

Reviews

[Andrew George · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some nice weird stuff in here, and sort of meta interesting in how it reflects certain liberal western political mythoi (and I'm not talking about the feminist stuff), but also pretty boring. There's a lot of repetition, and most of the book is spent in literal meetings.

The feminist themes are very intentional and spelled out. But what I personally found most interesting was the geopolitical ideas and how they reflected the author's beliefs and common narratives of the time, which I think was less consciously done and is interesting to analyze.

Basically there's a war between two less advanced civilizations, and a third civilization called the Arbiters is trying to create peace. The two less advanced civilizations are essentially ethnostates, made up of a single species. The Arbiters are a coalition of multiple species. The Arbiters also possess superior technology, including a superweapon they often refer to as a "scalpel" and is contrasted against the weaker but more widely destructive super weapons of the less advanced races.

The Arbiters are a sort of mish mash of supposed international peacekeeping organizations like the UN, but also the idea of the US as a benevolent world policeman. They're comprised of citizens of many different species, they send multispecial delegations to both warring parties, but they also wield and use superweapons. Funny enough, the internal politics of the Arbiters is never depicted, but it seems assumed to be democratic as they make vague hand waving to "free choice" and it is always shown as superior to the other civilizations which are explicitly shown to be autocracies.

Basically to me it feels like a funny time capsule of the optimistic liberal fantasy of the world order that was more widely believed pre Iraq War. And reading it while the US casually, almost effortlessly administers a genocide in Palestine makes it feel especially silly and antiquated. Although to be honest it's kind of wild this idea survived the Vietnam War even, or the Korean War, or the US support of atrocities in Bangladesh, East Timor, Yemen, assassination of democratically elected leaders in Iran, Congo, Chile etc etc I could fill out the word count going on and on.

At times it's so ridiculous it reads like satire. In the last few pages, after using the superweapon to kill an untold number of people in the war supporting faction, and getting agreement from the ruling monarch to end the war, the main character says "We're not essential to the peace process there, anymore. Their choices have been made, finally. The right choices." A painfully on the nose parallel to governments imposed upon people by violent force in the name of "democracy". An explicit and even concise outlining of this contradiction where there is supposed freedom of choice but you are killed unless you "choose" the only thing you're allowed to.

Of course, in the context of the story these killings seem justified, magically only the guilty are targeted in order to save the innocent. But of course it's a story. The contexts of the real life "Arbiters" killings and support of killings, and their targets, are much different.

I'll give it a bit of credit though. A lot of times these naive sorts of stories buy so far into the nonsense that resolution is achieved by people finally ~coming to understand each other~ and becoming better people and ending the conflict. Here that explicitly fails. Our heros manifest a hologram projection thingy to show the parliament and monarchy the atrocities committed ~on both sides~ and also do some psychic woo woo to really make it hit home, essentially dropping an empathy bomb on the ruling class lol. It works for most, but drives the hard-line fanatics to make a last ditch effort. Shortly after, things are finally resolved when the hero kills god knows how many people across the galaxy.

There's also some kinda cringe, funny race stuff in here, like a fetishization and specific type of stereotyping of black people that often goes with these kinds of politics. At one point our main character meets a tough alien woman and thinks
"This is a black sister par excellence. Capable of going anywhere, anytime, and taking no lip from anyone."
At another point some men are sparring and afterward: "They slapped hands enthusiastically, reminding Renee of black Earthmen celebrating a victory." And who could forget her absolute obsession with dashikis lol. Never seen that word so many times in my life. Every top she wears is a dashiki.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quick, enjoyable read with a few flaws. One flaw was the very frustrating little sentient gadgets, whose powers and limitations seemed to be whatever the story required. On the other hand, the rest of the writing was adequately enjoyable, and certainly worth reading.
The central character is put in the situation of trying to stop an interstellar war where, if the trigger is pulled on one of the doomsday weapons, Earth will be destroyed by the side effects. Her moral dilemma about what she has to do in order to achieve peace was interesting. Unfortunately, a "balance of terror" only works if both sides are inherently sane, and I'm sure that these were. The extremists shown on one side definitely weren't, and there's no reason to believe that only one side had extremists, based on the story.
Still, a fun read that made me think.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a great, quick light read. It's a sci-fi romance. If you are looking for something to pass the time during a car trip or plane ride, this is a good choice.

[Aaron Ingram · Rating 5 out of 5]

Been looking for this one for years! I found it a great read.