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primeidealWhen last we met Jesse, Carla, and Peter, they had hijacked a spaceship and jumped to an uninhabited planet to set up a colony where humans could develop psionic powers free from the medical bureaucracy of Undine. Jesse's hyperspace jump was rushed and not perfectly calculated, so in order to ensure their oxygen supply makes it all the way to planet Maclairn (named after their late founder), the Group had to confront their deepest fear and brave the stasis boxes that had been Chekhov-gunned several times in the last section. As the existence of the sequel implies, the protagonists and most of their comrades survive stasis. But while, in "Stewards," the hyperspace navigation "error"/imperfection sets up the Group's ultimate test, here it casts a long shadow as Jesse keeps wondering, "could we have picked a better landing site if I hadn't screwed it up?"
The early days on Maclairn are a struggle. The first part of the book is a recurring cycle of "should we do things this way or that way? Well, we came here to set up a society fully founded on mind powers, we pretty much have to commit to the bit or else what's the point." Repeat ad infinitum. Later, this broadens somewhat to "we have to have psi powers coexist with modern technology to fulfill Ian [Maclairn]'s dream, otherwise what's the point." There are clear parallels to "Children of the Star"; that society represents the endpoint if they go down a path of giving up on modern technology--and the burdens of agrarian, high-population-growth societies fall disproportionately on women. If "Stewards" had motifs of baptism, this is more of an Exodus story, with the characters sulking about "why did you bring us out of Undine just to starve in the wilderness, at least there we had enough to eat." "My God, came Carla’s thought, we’re homesick! Homesick for Undine! I never admitted that to myself, it was so foolish, I’d wanted so much to leave . . . I guess I just pushed it down inside, into a place I didn’t dare go. . . ."
The consequences of the hyperspace jump being off are a minor tonal retcon/change in perspective on the events of the first book. A more significant one, to me, involves love triangle dynamics. In "Stewards," we learn that Carla and Peter both previously had spouses who died under the authoritarian Undine government. Fortunately, Jesse shows up just when Carla is ready to love again, and their relationship brings him into the Group and thus enables their escape from Undine. "Promise" adds that Peter has been silently pining for Carla all along, but needed Jesse's starship skills too much to say anything. We're told the Group's adult recruits skew slightly female, but that isn't represented among the main characters, and you're telling me that none of them are Peter's type? All three of them sigh and angst about "oh, we're such great friends, we can't let this love triangle come between us," and at times it feels like it's setting up for a polygamy plotline (they're all highly powerful telepaths, they can't keep secrets from each other!) And then it just...goes nowhere. As in the first book, I can accept that sex is probably great among telepaths; I can't buy that every single person has to have sex in order to fully level up their telepathic sensitivity!
The best parts of "Promise" involve the culture clashes between Jesse, who grew up on Earth; the rest of the adult Group members, from Undine; and the Maclairn-born generation. Undine's environment is so tightly regulated, they don't even have insects or lizards, so the planet's "collective unconsciousness" doesn't have a fear of creepy-crawlies; Jesse's initial revulsion risks "contaminating" the psyche until everyone faces their fear.
Criticisms aside, I do think that this is less heavy-handed than "Stewards" and at least as good a starting point!
Bingo: Dreams, Prologues/Epilogues, Self-Published, Survival. One prominent character acquires a physical disability midway through the story. Jesse and Peter's Criminal record on Undine is not very important (since the entire book is set on or around Maclairn), but it becomes more prominent in the last section.
The early days on Maclairn are a struggle. The first part of the book is a recurring cycle of "should we do things this way or that way? Well, we came here to set up a society fully founded on mind powers, we pretty much have to commit to the bit or else what's the point." Repeat ad infinitum. Later, this broadens somewhat to "we have to have psi powers coexist with modern technology to fulfill Ian [Maclairn]'s dream, otherwise what's the point." There are clear parallels to "Children of the Star"; that society represents the endpoint if they go down a path of giving up on modern technology--and the burdens of agrarian, high-population-growth societies fall disproportionately on women. If "Stewards" had motifs of baptism, this is more of an Exodus story, with the characters sulking about "why did you bring us out of Undine just to starve in the wilderness, at least there we had enough to eat." "My God, came Carla’s thought, we’re homesick! Homesick for Undine! I never admitted that to myself, it was so foolish, I’d wanted so much to leave . . . I guess I just pushed it down inside, into a place I didn’t dare go. . . ."
The consequences of the hyperspace jump being off are a minor tonal retcon/change in perspective on the events of the first book. A more significant one, to me, involves love triangle dynamics. In "Stewards," we learn that Carla and Peter both previously had spouses who died under the authoritarian Undine government. Fortunately, Jesse shows up just when Carla is ready to love again, and their relationship brings him into the Group and thus enables their escape from Undine. "Promise" adds that Peter has been silently pining for Carla all along, but needed Jesse's starship skills too much to say anything. We're told the Group's adult recruits skew slightly female, but that isn't represented among the main characters, and you're telling me that none of them are Peter's type? All three of them sigh and angst about "oh, we're such great friends, we can't let this love triangle come between us," and at times it feels like it's setting up for a polygamy plotline (they're all highly powerful telepaths, they can't keep secrets from each other!) And then it just...goes nowhere. As in the first book, I can accept that sex is probably great among telepaths; I can't buy that every single person has to have sex in order to fully level up their telepathic sensitivity!
The best parts of "Promise" involve the culture clashes between Jesse, who grew up on Earth; the rest of the adult Group members, from Undine; and the Maclairn-born generation. Undine's environment is so tightly regulated, they don't even have insects or lizards, so the planet's "collective unconsciousness" doesn't have a fear of creepy-crawlies; Jesse's initial revulsion risks "contaminating" the psyche until everyone faces their fear.
“Horror vids involving animal life aren’t permitted on colony worlds,” Peter told him. “Haven’t you ever wondered why starship libraries don’t contain any? Earth has always banned their export as a measure to protect extraterrestrial lifeforms. It’s one of the few government trade regulations I think is wise.”
Of course, Jesse realized. The average Earth citizen’s reaction would have been to kill the crawlies—if possible, to exterminate them. That hadn’t occurred to anyone yesterday. And horror vids often portrayed even intelligent aliens as repulsive; what kind of precedent would that set if similar ones were ever encountered?
Traditionally, said the knowledgebase, small farmers had chopped chickens’ heads off with a hatchet. Wringing their necks was said to be more humane, but nobody wanted to experiment on live, squawking chickens despite the specific instructions provided. These warned that the hardest part, in the physical sense, would be catching a grown chicken in the first place—a fact soon borne out by experience, as chickens are not devoid of telepathic sensitivity and the pursuers were unconsciously broadcasting their intent to kill.
Kel, like many of the Group’s other children, had been slow in learning to talk. It had taken awhile before it dawned on the adults that this was because the kids’ telepathic bonds with their parents had been so strongly encouraged that they felt no need to communicate vocally. Speech could not be allowed to die out in a psi-based culture; it was essential not only to reading but to the framing and communication of complex ideas. Now, everyone realized that like the skills for volitional control of the body, telepathic conveyance of concepts, as distinguished from emotions, must wait until the kids were older.
Traditionally, said the knowledgebase, small farmers had chopped chickens’ heads off with a hatchet. Wringing their necks was said to be more humane, but nobody wanted to experiment on live, squawking chickens despite the specific instructions provided. These warned that the hardest part, in the physical sense, would be catching a grown chicken in the first place—a fact soon borne out by experience, as chickens are not devoid of telepathic sensitivity and the pursuers were unconsciously broadcasting their intent to kill.
Kel, like many of the Group’s other children, had been slow in learning to talk. It had taken awhile before it dawned on the adults that this was because the kids’ telepathic bonds with their parents had been so strongly encouraged that they felt no need to communicate vocally. Speech could not be allowed to die out in a psi-based culture; it was essential not only to reading but to the framing and communication of complex ideas. Now, everyone realized that like the skills for volitional control of the body, telepathic conveyance of concepts, as distinguished from emotions, must wait until the kids were older.
On the other hand, the scope of "this is dangerous, but we must, to commit to the psionic bit" and "well, we've come through a lot of tough situations before, but this time really is the end...jk never mind we got out of it" got repetitive. There was one scene towards the end where it's like "okay, we're almost done, I can see how telepathy might be used to enable a permanent self-sacrifice...nope, we're still going, huh," and even though some of the resolutions were nice callbacks/tying up foreshadowing, it was still a lot.
Like in "Voyage to Yesteryear," the kids who were raised outside of Earth and Undine's prejudices are, overall, a great step forward for humankind, but there can be some values dissonance. In both cases, the desire for lots of population growth leads to a much lower age of consent than Earthlings are used to. Justified somewhat more in Maclairn's case; telepathy means almost everyone wouldn't fathom hurting each other and of course sex is consensual, as well as amazing. On the other hand, in both cases, there's no prison infrastructure; if someone is determined to be evil and is posing a grave threat to others, you just have to kill them. "Promise" gets a little more philosophical about the problem of evil--if it's not nature and it's not nurture, what causes it? Free will? Sure, but it seems as if some people are also evil from day one even if their DNA is just fine.
There are a couple shoutouts to Lord of the Rings and Star Trek that fit in nicely. I found "it's just like using the Force, you know, like in that old vid, Star Wars" to be more of a distraction. Similarly, Engdahl's commitment to showing her work ("in the twentieth century on Earth, you know, people experimented with remote viewing!") got to be a distraction. But the exploration of "okay, let's try a rain dance, even if it fails we're learning something and pushing knowledge forward" was a great use of the "sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" trope, which is what I come to Engdahl for anyway.
Some people, like Peter, tend to believe in an afterlife; others, like Jesse, are more skeptical. Earth religions don't transfer well to other planets because the interstellar gap is too big for the collective unconsciousness to bridge. Despite this, characters use the word "God" (like in a telepathic context of "Carla . . . oh, God, Carla, answer me!") approximately 144 times. Do you have no one else's name to take in vain???
Like in "Voyage to Yesteryear," the kids who were raised outside of Earth and Undine's prejudices are, overall, a great step forward for humankind, but there can be some values dissonance. In both cases, the desire for lots of population growth leads to a much lower age of consent than Earthlings are used to. Justified somewhat more in Maclairn's case; telepathy means almost everyone wouldn't fathom hurting each other and of course sex is consensual, as well as amazing. On the other hand, in both cases, there's no prison infrastructure; if someone is determined to be evil and is posing a grave threat to others, you just have to kill them. "Promise" gets a little more philosophical about the problem of evil--if it's not nature and it's not nurture, what causes it? Free will? Sure, but it seems as if some people are also evil from day one even if their DNA is just fine.
There are a couple shoutouts to Lord of the Rings and Star Trek that fit in nicely. I found "it's just like using the Force, you know, like in that old vid, Star Wars" to be more of a distraction. Similarly, Engdahl's commitment to showing her work ("in the twentieth century on Earth, you know, people experimented with remote viewing!") got to be a distraction. But the exploration of "okay, let's try a rain dance, even if it fails we're learning something and pushing knowledge forward" was a great use of the "sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" trope, which is what I come to Engdahl for anyway.
Some people, like Peter, tend to believe in an afterlife; others, like Jesse, are more skeptical. Earth religions don't transfer well to other planets because the interstellar gap is too big for the collective unconsciousness to bridge. Despite this, characters use the word "God" (like in a telepathic context of "Carla . . . oh, God, Carla, answer me!") approximately 144 times. Do you have no one else's name to take in vain???
Criticisms aside, I do think that this is less heavy-handed than "Stewards" and at least as good a starting point!
Bingo: Dreams, Prologues/Epilogues, Self-Published, Survival. One prominent character acquires a physical disability midway through the story. Jesse and Peter's Criminal record on Undine is not very important (since the entire book is set on or around Maclairn), but it becomes more prominent in the last section.
