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4.0 out of 5 stars
I recommend this, liked it even better than Speaking Dreams., 23 Nov 1998
By A Customer
This is the second of her books that I've read -- perhaps there are only two. The first, "Speaking Dreams" I think is the name, takes place in the same universe and may even share a minor character. It is not necessary to read them in order, though having the first as background was surely helpful.I liked this book more than the first. It seemed tighter, less grim, and I thought it had more appealing characters. It was a real page-turner and adrenaline-rusher, with a complex enough story to keep me from figuring out how it would come out. And the characters were believable, the dialogue reasonable -- in short, nothing got in the way of a very nice read. One basic premise of the story is that slavery is somehow an accepted part of this future civilization, which otherwise is not too different from ours. There's a people that "developed" slavery with some genetic and biological aspects such as a virus that keeps a person from aging and enhances healing for twenty years, then kills the host when the virus runs out of steam. The slavers are now the pariahs, but the general structure of slavery remains, with a lottery feeding the slave population. This was a really scary idea: anyone in their late teens was eligible to be "selected", that is, turned into a slave and stripped of their rights and previous life, treated as property for twenty years, then to die a horrible death. The other basic premise of the story is that there's a "cure" for the slave virus. This story follows various characters as the word gets out about this cure. It's easy to imagine a subsequent novel exploring the social consequences of this cure, and I'd love to see it. This is kind of frustrating because all this says nothing really about the story or characters. There's a runaway slave who learns a lot about herself, her people, and her relationship with the slaver peoples over the course of the story. There's a fascinating description of a troupe of gladiator slaves, including the warrior Hallie who was my favorite. And there's the prophet herself, a very intriguing character. Tons of interesting, strong, complex, believable female characters. I recommend it.
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