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The Ghost Sister
The fate of a planet lies with an outcast woman and a mysterious visitor....
In this richly imagined and thought-provoking novel, Liz Williams tells the story of a world engineered to preserve the precarious balance between animal and human. To this world comes an emissary from a distant planet who will walk the razor-thin line between consciousness and instinct, freedom and conformity, life and death.
On Monde D'Isle a rugged people live in union with their world. They migrate with the tides of the moon, sense the meridians of the planet, and slip into a Dreamtime that grants them access to -- and escape from -- the darker urges of their animal nature.
Mevennen ai Mordha is out of tune with her people's "bloodmind." She is protected by her devoted brother Eleres, who refuses to listen to those who say that Mevennen is not fit to live. Still, Mevennen fears that even her brother will give in to his instincts during the time of the hunt, when the Mondhaith seek out the weakest as their prey.
Taking her on an expedition in hope of a cure, Eleres has brought Mevennen deep into the wilderness. There they are visited by a strange woman who they are certain is a ghost, but who is really a Gaian anthropologist charged with bringing utopia to their world. She promises to heal Mevennen -- but it is a promise that comes with a terrible price....
From the Paperback edition.
In this richly imagined and thought-provoking novel, Liz Williams tells the story of a world engineered to preserve the precarious balance between animal and human. To this world comes an emissary from a distant planet who will walk the razor-thin line between consciousness and instinct, freedom and conformity, life and death.
On Monde D'Isle a rugged people live in union with their world. They migrate with the tides of the moon, sense the meridians of the planet, and slip into a Dreamtime that grants them access to -- and escape from -- the darker urges of their animal nature.
Mevennen ai Mordha is out of tune with her people's "bloodmind." She is protected by her devoted brother Eleres, who refuses to listen to those who say that Mevennen is not fit to live. Still, Mevennen fears that even her brother will give in to his instincts during the time of the hunt, when the Mondhaith seek out the weakest as their prey.
Taking her on an expedition in hope of a cure, Eleres has brought Mevennen deep into the wilderness. There they are visited by a strange woman who they are certain is a ghost, but who is really a Gaian anthropologist charged with bringing utopia to their world. She promises to heal Mevennen -- but it is a promise that comes with a terrible price....
From the Paperback edition.
352 pages, ebook
First published June 26, 2001
1 person is currently reading
185 people want to read
About the author
Liz Williams
146 books268 followersThere is more than one author with this name
Liz Williams is a British science fiction writer. Her first novel, The Ghost Sister was published in 2001. Both this novel and her next, Empire of Bones (2002) were nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award.[1] She is also the author of the Inspector Chen series.
She is the daughter of a stage magician and a Gothic novelist. She holds a PhD in Philosophy of Science from Cambridge. She has had short stories published in Asimov's, Interzone, The Third Alternative and Visionary Tongue. From the mid-nineties until 2000, she lived and worked in Kazakhstan.[2] Her experiences there are reflected in her 2003 novel Nine Layers of Sky. Her novels have been published in the US and the UK, while her third novel The Poison Master (2003) has been translated into Dutch.
Series:
* Detective Inspector Chen
* Darkland
Liz Williams is a British science fiction writer. Her first novel, The Ghost Sister was published in 2001. Both this novel and her next, Empire of Bones (2002) were nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award.[1] She is also the author of the Inspector Chen series.
She is the daughter of a stage magician and a Gothic novelist. She holds a PhD in Philosophy of Science from Cambridge. She has had short stories published in Asimov's, Interzone, The Third Alternative and Visionary Tongue. From the mid-nineties until 2000, she lived and worked in Kazakhstan.[2] Her experiences there are reflected in her 2003 novel Nine Layers of Sky. Her novels have been published in the US and the UK, while her third novel The Poison Master (2003) has been translated into Dutch.
Series:
* Detective Inspector Chen
* Darkland
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
December 6, 2018
Interesting anthropological perspective on a mission to ReForm a planet with an extant indigenous population. The writing is twitchy. There are words for stuff we actually never encounter that could have been broomed. This is Williams' debut, and we can recognize the need to explain the backgrounding. The characters are quite good in the context of evaluating which parts of our nature are necessary for survival on a challenging planet. The planet is not all that challenging which is the central issue - the challenge is the dominant predator. And just who may that be?
August 19, 2020
This is one of those novels that I fear will be lost to the passage of time. It's funky, and not altogether successful, a first published novel by a writer determined to work a genre interstice, and for many years turned out singletons.
This one is worth seeking out (I do not find an ebook for it yet) for the way it plays with physics. She also has a story "Quantum Anthropology" which is worth tracking down.
It's a bit of a mushy middle, and the overall affect is a bit, well, disaffected, but as planetary romance goes, it's a quirky, peculiar story which I enjoyed reading.
This one is worth seeking out (I do not find an ebook for it yet) for the way it plays with physics. She also has a story "Quantum Anthropology" which is worth tracking down.
It's a bit of a mushy middle, and the overall affect is a bit, well, disaffected, but as planetary romance goes, it's a quirky, peculiar story which I enjoyed reading.
May 6, 2020
In "The Ghost Sister", we are introduced to a world whose inhabitants have an instinctive connection to their planet: a profound awareness which alerts them to weather changes, permits them to navigate by ley lines, and ensures water and shelter through dowsing. These inhabitants, genetically engineered descendents of colonizing ecologists, also are bound by this connection to primal, dionysian urges: "the bloodmind". Eleres ai Mordha cherishes his younger sister Mevennen, who is subject to fits because she cannot sense the world's tides, and who may not survive the next clan migration. As Eleres searches for a way to heal Mevennen, his path crosses that of the Gaian anthropologist Shu Idaan Gho, part of a mission to their lost colony, Monde D’Isle. Eleres and Mevennen believe Shu a "ghost" (a person with no ties to the world or the bloodmind). As the three unite to penetrate the workings of the bloodmind, the rest of the Gaian expedition discovers the biomorphic technology that causes the psychic field uniting the colonists with their world, and decide to turn it off! "The Ghost Sister" is, on the surface, Eleres's hero's journey: his quest to help his sister and comprehend his world. But below the surface, it is a parable about the consequences of action without understanding. The character-driven plot moves slowly, to permit the reader to absorb the scenery and colonist lifestyle. This science fiction novel should appeal to those who read SF because it makes them think.
September 27, 2012
I really do love this author. I love her world building, and her character-driven plotting. In this book they are one. This is a planet that is apparently inextricably linked to the beings that live there. They were made that way--tied to the planet and to their own inner animal in such a way that when it doesn't occur, when the being has been somehow cut off from that planetary tidal connection, things cannot possibly go well for that being--Mevennen in this case. Mevennen is at odds with the harmony of the world around her and it will possibly be the death of her if it can't be put to rights. Her brother is doing his best to find a cure for her, when a being from another planet arrives claiming to be able to find a way to truly fix things for her, and for the rest of the beings on the planet.
They were all human once but have been altered to mesh with the world around them, and now have distinct animal urges when the "bloodmind" overtakes them. Mevennen's brother fears that she will eventually be killed by someone in that state since she will be seen as weak and prey. Can the woman from the other planet fix things and save Mevennen?
If you enjoy character-driven, anthropological science fiction you will likely enjoy this one. No, there isn't a ton of action, and don't bother reading this if that is important to you. If you like thoughtful science fiction, that will likely stick with you long after you have finished the book, try this one. Liz, please don't stop writing science fiction!
They were all human once but have been altered to mesh with the world around them, and now have distinct animal urges when the "bloodmind" overtakes them. Mevennen's brother fears that she will eventually be killed by someone in that state since she will be seen as weak and prey. Can the woman from the other planet fix things and save Mevennen?
If you enjoy character-driven, anthropological science fiction you will likely enjoy this one. No, there isn't a ton of action, and don't bother reading this if that is important to you. If you like thoughtful science fiction, that will likely stick with you long after you have finished the book, try this one. Liz, please don't stop writing science fiction!
June 3, 2015
Space Gaians Visit the Elf Planet
Tentative and cliche, this book relies on far too many derivative tropes to hold my interest. A first novel by a writer not yet confident enough to really own her own concepts. In particular, the use of the "bio" prefix as a generic "sekrit magic future stuff" placeholder is a red flag. ("Biotents"? "Biomagnetic field"? "Biomorphic generator"? Next they'll be breaking out the drinkwater and nutrition food.) Structural problems, too - a first-person narrative plus two third-person threads, one of which occasionally goes first-person? I wish someone had talked her out of THAT.
Also, Irie St Syre is a pretty rich and smug planet that they send an entire starship with just four noob pacifists on board to investigate a several thousand year old failed splinter colony. Where's its captain? Why didn't they do an orbital survey prior to landing? The planet seems to be teeming with civilization, yet they barely manage to stumble across one small isolated group of people. Hands, ass, dark.
Tentative and cliche, this book relies on far too many derivative tropes to hold my interest. A first novel by a writer not yet confident enough to really own her own concepts. In particular, the use of the "bio" prefix as a generic "sekrit magic future stuff" placeholder is a red flag. ("Biotents"? "Biomagnetic field"? "Biomorphic generator"? Next they'll be breaking out the drinkwater and nutrition food.) Structural problems, too - a first-person narrative plus two third-person threads, one of which occasionally goes first-person? I wish someone had talked her out of THAT.
Also, Irie St Syre is a pretty rich and smug planet that they send an entire starship with just four noob pacifists on board to investigate a several thousand year old failed splinter colony. Where's its captain? Why didn't they do an orbital survey prior to landing? The planet seems to be teeming with civilization, yet they barely manage to stumble across one small isolated group of people. Hands, ass, dark.
May 4, 2015
She looked so vulnerable, but to my utter dismay I sensed something beneath my love and pity; something old and insistent and dark, that called for death . . . My vision blackened and I looked down into the nightmare of the bloodmind.
Three missionaries and an anthropologist from the stable, terraformed planet of Irie St Syre, travel to the planet of Monde D’Isle, to find out what became of the colonists who travelled there thousands of years ago. Expecting to find a nicely terraformed planet, they are shocked to find that the head of the colonising expedition never even began the terraforming process, deciding instead to alter the colonist to fit the harsh environment of their new home, leaving them no longer entirely human.
Interesting world-building and discussions about whether the new arrivals would be justified in interfering in Monde D'Isle either by switching on the terraforming machines or by trying to change the inhabitants' biology and culture.
Three missionaries and an anthropologist from the stable, terraformed planet of Irie St Syre, travel to the planet of Monde D’Isle, to find out what became of the colonists who travelled there thousands of years ago. Expecting to find a nicely terraformed planet, they are shocked to find that the head of the colonising expedition never even began the terraforming process, deciding instead to alter the colonist to fit the harsh environment of their new home, leaving them no longer entirely human.
Interesting world-building and discussions about whether the new arrivals would be justified in interfering in Monde D'Isle either by switching on the terraforming machines or by trying to change the inhabitants' biology and culture.
January 26, 2011
Anthropological sf a la Le Guin, promising first novel.
February 7, 2017
Enjoyable read, but I felt a bit like I'd read this before although I know I haven't. It reminded me of Marion Zimmer Bradley's books I think.
October 24, 2011
Carnivorous llamas, Awesome worldbuilding and feral children!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews