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The Fated Sky (Transgressor Trilogy, #1)

E.M. Swift-Hook

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Nov 19, 2016 Werner rated it really liked it

Shelves: books-i-own, science-fiction

Note, Dec. 3, 2016: I've just edited this to correct a couple of minor typos.

At present, none of the books of my Goodreads friend E. M. Swift-Hook's Transgressor Trilogy are available in paper format (though the author's intention is that they eventually will be). Ordinarily, I don't read e-books; but I got this one when it was temporarily offered for free on Kindle (an offer that's since expired), in the hopes of liking it enough to support a friend's work with a review and to put it on my list Note, Dec. 3, 2016: I've just edited this to correct a couple of minor typos.

At present, none of the books of my Goodreads friend E. M. Swift-Hook's Transgressor Trilogy are available in paper format (though the author's intention is that they eventually will be). Ordinarily, I don't read e-books; but I got this one when it was temporarily offered for free on Kindle (an offer that's since expired), in the hopes of liking it enough to support a friend's work with a review and to put it on my list of books to eventually buy as a paper copy. As my review indicates, those hopes were abundantly fulfilled!

This tale is set in a far-future, human-colonized galaxy, dominated (but not universally occupied and ruled) by a self-serving, oligarchic empire, the Coalition. The more immediate setting is Temsevar, a backward non-Coalition world circling a red sun, settled millennia ago by colonists before the days of FTL space travel, who've had little contact with the rest of the galaxy since then and have regressed (technologically and socially) to a medieval-like culture with a stratified, slavery-based socio-economic system, not much high technology, and an ingrained "might-makes-right," "dog-eat-dog" ethos. Swift-Hook uses a variety of viewpoint characters to tell her story (and those she starts off with won't actually be the main characters --though I'm guessing they'll play important roles in later books of the trilogy). Our protagonist (I think) is Avilon Revid, a high officer in the armed resistance movement against the Coalition, whose spaceship, damaged in battle, crashes on Temsevar; he's the only survivor. When he's found by the locals, injured and helpless, he's promptly enslaved. But intrigue is afoot in this world, where a brutal warlord who uses mass murder as an instrument of policy has set out to conquer a continent; and Avilon doesn't intend to give up on finding his way off-world and re-joining his revolution.

Some of the basic premises here have been used before in the genre; but Swift-Hook essentially re-vitalizes them and makes them her own. There are affinities to Edgar Rice Burrough's Barsoom novels; but the author's prose stylistic skills are a considerable cut above his, and her world-building both vastly more detailed and vastly more plausible. Her characterizations are top-notch --vivid, three-dimensional, and believable. While she doesn't offer incessant action, there's a fair amount of it, and she handles those scenes well. SF of this type --incorporating action, and with "space opera" characteristics-- is readily dismissed by snob critics as shallow and lacking in really serious thought content. Like other tales of its ilk, though, it doesn't truly lack serious thought content; it just thinks seriously about topics snob critics prefer to ignore: kindness vs. cruelty, loyalty vs. treachery, concern for others vs. sole concern for self, honor vs. self-serving expediency. And the look at a very unhealthy kind of society necessarily prompts readers to think about what a healthy one would look like, and what kinds of attitudes would engender one. Plotting and pacing here are also very good; this is a compulsive page-turner. (The nearly two and a half months I took to read it was solely do to the format, which doesn't lend itself to reading on the stationary bike where I do my main, regular reading. In paper format, I'd have blazed through it pretty quickly.)

While the major characters (Avilon, nobleman Jariq Zarengor, and secretive information broker Durban Chola) are well-drawn and complex, and evoked genuine interest in their well-being and safety on my part, I can't actually say I liked any one of them. All three are flawed to one degree or another; though they also have very real good qualities, some of the things they're willing to do can be quite off-putting (and even chilling at times). Surprisingly for a female writer, Swift-Hook's important characters are almost all male (of course, Temsevar is a very sexist, male-ruled society). None of the characters here display any scruples about using members of the other gender as playthings for sexual gratification, and even Avilon thinks nothing of using slave women for that purpose. Granted, he doesn't violently rape them --though raping their social "inferiors" seems to be a pretty standard practice for the planet's not-very-noble "nobility"-- but in a situation of slavery, constricted options and cultural brainwashing, their "consent" isn't worth very much. (On the plus side, however, there's no explicit sexual content, and no bad language.) This also isn't a work of great spiritual insight; Christianity is totally forgotten on this world, what passes for religion is a vague polytheism, and Avilon and Jariq both view life from a standpoint of atheistic skepticism.

Although I've had to read this (at least for the moment) as pretty much a stand-alone, that isn't really the optimum way to read it. There are a lot of secrets and unanswered questions here about the characters' real motives and agendas; some of these questions will be answered, but not all --and the answers to other questions may simply give rise to new ones. And readers should be aware that this trilogy opener ends in a total cliff-hanger (though no spoilers here about what it is!). This and some of the factors mentioned above knocked a star off my personal rating (they may not bother other readers); but nevertheless, I really liked the book overall. That's a testimony to how genuinely well written it is!

Memo to the author: the paper version, when it's published, could really use a map of Temsevar's Western Continent. The verbal geographical clues in the text provide a basic spatial orientation, but for me they're no substitute for a map. (Of course, I fell in love with world and U.S. maps as a kid, and felt that they grounded me and helped me to relate myself to my environment; maybe not all readers bring that kind of map-happy mindset to the table!) ...more

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