Carnival [Mass Market Paperback]

Elizabeth Bear's new novel is an exciting and twisty science fiction adventure story. Bear wields several fairly traditional (and not always quite so traditional) SF tropes with expertise: a female-dominated human culture, radical environmentalists killing off most of the Earth's human population, a dueling culture, transcended intelligences, AIs in control of society. This all works very well together, in a story that makes the reader think, makes the reader mad (with perhaps some disquiet), and keeps the reader turning the pages.

In a future after AI "Governors" programmed by radical environmentalists caused the depopulation of Earth, leading to colonization of a variety of other worlds, the Governors and the Earth-dominated "Colonial Coalition" are trying to re-integrated these worlds. Many years after a botched mission to one such world, New Amazonia, they have sent two diplomats to try again - and in particular to negotiate access to this planet's mysterious free energy technology.

The Coalition diplomats are Vincent Katherinessen and Michelangelo Kusanagi-Jones, secretly lovers who have been apart for years after their careers crashed. But New Amazonia's leaders will not negotiate with any but women or what they call "gentle" men. Homosexuality is generally taboo in the Coalition, and women are usually not allowed positions of power, so Vincent and Angelo are the best available choices. New Amazonia, we learn, is ruled by women. Men are kept as slaves, though in better conditions (for the most part) than say blacks in the American Antebellum South. Heterosexual males are matched in Trials: battles, often to the death, with the best chosen to be members of household, where they live in a sort of purdah. "Gentle" males are allowed slightly greater privileges.

The central New Amazonian character is Lesa Pretoria (one small conceit I enjoyed was the use of Old Earth world capitols as family names), an important figure in the Security Directorate. Her family is ranged on the political side urging continued separation from the Coalition. They are also involved in the more local issue of increased rights for males. (Motivated in part by Lesa's concern for her very intelligent young son.) Arrayed against them are the current government leaders, nominally in favor of the status quo, and of some attempt at rapprochement with the Coalition, and possibly secretly aligned with radical groups urging extermination of the male population.

So this is quite a political stew that Vincent and Michelangelo step into. And of course they each have their own secrets - even from each other. The motivations of all of the characters interact complexly, especially as there are not just two but several possible outcomes. And into all this is injected a surprising additional player: a representative of the disappeared original natives of New Amazonia.

It all plays out very entertainingly. There are twists upon twists. There is lots of neat SFnal detail. There is plenty of slam-bang action. Most of all this makes pretty good sense as well ... perhaps there are a couple of holes, but in general things were well explained. The resolution is mostly emotionally satisfying but perhaps a slight letdown - I felt Bear pulled her punches just a bit at the end. Plus, there is something of a deus ex machina aspect to the involvement of New Amazonia's natives - though that's not quite a fair statement as that was all foreshadowed from the beginning, and described in bits and pieces throughout. Carnival is a very fine SF novel, a contemporary SF novel with contemporary concerns that reads like a traditional SF book (in the best sense).

The best science fiction allows you to look at the world today with new eyes (I could never look at water the same way after reading Dune: years later seeing a hose pipe flowing into the street still makes me wince.) This book too, makes you look at familiar things in a new way. And what better recommendation can a book have! This is a really good find!
Slow to start, dense and thickly plotted, but then the characters and worlds click into place and it becomes wonderful! The plot moves a long but it is the world building that works best for me - looking at gender roles and alternate ideas of taboos and cultures. I loved it. Happy find!

Elizabeth Bear ("Hammered," "Scardown," "Worldwired") now has written a standalone that intrigues on many levels. The setup's a stunner--on what's now "Old Earth," environmental cuckoos have created AIs called "The Guardians," which have "culled" most of the planet's population in the name of Greenness. Under the Guardians an apparently fascist governing body known as "The Coalition" rules. Humans, however, have managed to settle a number of worlds under the Coalition, and in the process have pretty much put women back in the kitchen.

Except, that is, on the planet called New Amazonia, where women rule and duel (heterosexual males are called "stud males" and are no better than slaves; homosexual males are called "gentle" and have more rights). The Coalition wants the planet's mysterious source of cheap energy so--not having women (which the New Amazonians would of course prefer) to throw into the fray--they send two gay men (former lovers at that) as ambassadors (make that spies) ostensibly charged with returning art taken from the New Amazonians, but actually to obtain, by hook or by crook they will, the source of the planet's cheap energy.

The two spies, Michelangelo Kusanagi-Jones and Vincent Katherinessen, each have their own agendas, as do the women who are members of New Amazonia's government, most notably Lesa Pretoria--a security chief for the government--who has her own view of things.

The story takes place during the planet's carnival, a word that, as a headnote tells us (and this proves important), is derived from the Old Italian carnelevare, which means "farewell to the flesh."

The book's all about the clashes--of culture (the men shun meat; the women wear guns), of agendas (everybody you'll encounter is out for themselves), of sexual relations. And it's subtle. Ms. Bear sets everything out logically, but her explanations for how things got this way are shadowy and indirect. She tosses out pieces of information about the worlds she's built in a sentence or two here and there, in a "by the way" fashion.

Then, too, there's the intricate plotting, which works like an old-fashioned clock. It takes plenty of winding to set it in motion, but once it gets going it flows along smoothly and logically.

It's a great read.

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