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Overview
Hugo and Nebula award-winning author David Brin is one of the most eloquent, imaginative voices in science fiction. Now he returns with a new novel rich in texture, universal in theme, monumental in scope--pushing the genre to new heights.Young Maia is fast approaching a turning point in her life. As a half-caste var, she must leave the clan home of her privileged half sisters and seek her fortune in the world. With her twin sister, Leie, she searches the docks of Port Sanger for an apprenticeship aboard the vessels that sail the trade routes of the Stratoin oceans.
On her far-reaching, perilous journey of discovery, Maia will endure hardship and hunger, imprisonment and loneliness, bloody battles with pirates and separation from her twin. And along the way, she will meet a traveler who has come an unimaginable distance--and who threatens the delicate balance of the Stratoins' carefully maintained, perfect society....
Both exciting and insightful, Glory Season is a major novel, a transcendent saga of the human spirit.
In a high-caste society led by genetically-engineered females cloned from their mothers, Maia sets out to win a place for herself in a divided world--and finds adventure and excitement as she traverses the strange and beautiful planet of Stratos. An unforgettable new universe from the bestselling author of Startide Rising.
Synopsis
Hugo and Nebula award-winning author David Brin is one of the most eloquent, imaginative voices in science fiction. Now he returns with a new novel rich in texture, universal in theme, monumental in scope—pushing the genre to new heights.
Young Maia is fast approaching a turning point in her life. As a half-caste var, she must leave the clan home of her privileged half sisters and seek her fortune in the world. With her twin sister, Leie, she searches the docks of Port Sanger for an apprenticeship aboard the vessels that sail the trade routes of the Stratoin oceans.
On her far-reaching, perilous journey of discovery, Maia will endure hardship and hunger, imprisonment and loneliness, bloody battles with pirates and separation from her twin. And along the way, she will meet a traveler who has come an unimaginable distance—and who threatens the delicate balance of the Stratoins' carefully maintained, perfect society....
Both exciting and insightful, Glory Season is a major novel, a transcendent saga of the human spirit.
Publishers Weekly
Moving into territory heretofore eschewed by male SF writers, Brin ( Earth ) here presents a world settled by radical feminist separatists, where through genetic engineering most reproduction occurs parthenogenetically, yielding clones of the mothers. On Stratos, skill-specialized clone clans dominate society. Genetic engineering could not entirely eliminate the male role, however, and Stratos's founders were aware of the value of ``variant,'' or sexually reproduced, offspring to generate new combinations of genes, skills and attributes. The heroine, Maia, is such a ``var,'' and the novel traces her traditional banishment (with her twin, Leie) from the clan to seek out her own niche (vars dream of being successful enough to found their own clone clan). Maia's plans soon fall apart; separated from her sister and believing her dead, she runs afoul of smugglers and ends up allied with the strange male Visitor, an emissary from the vast Human Phylum of worlds, whose arrival has triggered political struggles all over Stratos. Should they renew communication with the other human worlds, or would that contaminate their social and biological experiment? Brin's handling of this material is cool and rational. While he criticizes some of the weaknesses of Stratos life, he also makes as good a case for its viability and benefits as might any feminist. An inconclusive ending and some slow pacing mar this otherwise provocative and intriguing new perspective on gender issues. (May)