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My first bingo read for this year was by a writer whose work I'd previously enjoyed is from the 70s-90s timeframe, and deals with weird science-and-religion interactions. My second is by a writer whose work I'd previously enjoyed is from the 70s-80s timeframe, and deals with weird science-and-religion interactions. So there are going to be some parallels, not only between this Engdahl and previous Engdahl, but also between this Engdahl and recent Hogan. Bear with me!
The "Children of the Star" trilogy, my previous exposure to Engdahl, is about a young man named Noren from a low-tech fantasy society who questions many of the dogmatic assumptions that govern his world. When he commits heresy, the Scholars in authority warn him that the punishments he must face are very severe, and that he's not going to like it, and it would be much easier if he just admits folly and confesses now. But his desire of knowledge is so overwhelming that he's willing to face any cost, and undergoes a punishment that is indeed harrowing, though not exactly in the way he expects. The main scholar, Stefred, sympathizes with Noren's idealistic impulses, but is unrelenting in the pain he inflicts. Later in the trilogy (spoilers), Noren meets a woman named Lianne with whom he has chemistry, and has to navigate his feelings for her while also mourning his late wife, Talyra.
While Noren's "heretical" attitude makes him somewhat of an outsider among his own people, they are also, certainly, his own people. Anyone from his world could have taken the path he did (and, we learn, others do). In contrast, Lianne is an outsider; she shares Noren's curiosity and love of learning, but her preconceptions of what is and isn't possible with science make her exceptional.
"Stewards of the Flame" focuses on a man named Jesse Sanders, a starship captain for the Earth-based Fleet who finds that interstellar space doesn't really live up to the hype. On a mission to the planet Undine, he is detained for public drunkenness, which puts him in the custody of the planet's extremely extensive medical system. This initial interaction does not endear him to the paternalistic government of Undine, and he finds himself drawn to a mysterious Group (just called "the Group," they've abstracted away a lot of the symbolism) who are seeking alternatives to the safetyist policies. In order to unlock the psionic powers of his unconscious mind, Jesse needs to face his fears and overcome them; only by risking losing control, whether that be physical or mental pain or anything else, can he truly rely on the mental powers that transcend any bodily limits.
So on the one hand, there's a parallel between Jesse and Noren, as the POV characters who have to undergo grueling trials to gain greater knowledge/empowerment. There's a corresponding parallel between Stefred and Peter, one of the group leaders, who telepathically empathizes with Jesse and feels his pain, but has to keep pushing him to the edge of his limits.
But there's also a parallel between Jesse and Lianne, as the outsiders who bring a new perspective to the worlds where they find themselves, and love interests Noren and Carla, who is drawn to Jesse even as she's mourning her first husband, Ramón. While the rest of the Group are Undine natives who are likely to be first interested in the paranormal and only later intrigued by the prospect of an alternative to the medical system, Jesse is at first horrified by the Meds and only secondarily, if at all, willing to embrace the paranormal. This means that he can be an effective audience surrogate; when Peter's arguments about the ultimate superiority of mind over matter or the pitfalls of an overly-zealous bureaucracy go too far, Jesse dials it back and goes "hey, wait a minute, there are times when trading a little freedom for a lot of security is good, actually."
Which is good, because as Engdahl notes in the introduction/afterword, many readers will find this weirdly preachy, especially in the context of COVID. ("Stewards" was written in 2007.) She mentions that there's a direct sequel and a later trilogy in the same universe (but with different characters) that some people might prefer even if they bounced hard off this one. Given the constraints of bingo, it might be a while, if ever, before I try those, so all I can say is: if you are a strong believer in government regulation of public health, there will be many parts you'll bounce off of, and it does sometimes read as a commentary on COVID even though it wasn't. The most yikes-inducing part for me was when a member of the Group somewhat-inadvertently betrays them; "She was bipolar, and would have been diagnosed as mentally ill even on Earth." Her impetus for rebelling against Undine's Meds is her terror of more electroshock treatment, which is an "improvement" over the 20th-century kind, but still not good. But yeah, "the only reason someone would sell us out is because they really were sick" is...kind of not a good look.
But, Jesse's role as the voice of skepticism helps to counterbalance that, and the Group does have some principles that aren't obvious from the outset. For instance, if having your body kept alive indefinitely long after brain-death is abhorrent, and accepting death when it comes is much to be preferred, can hastening suicide ever be acceptable? Only if the goal is to protect others, the Group claims: self-harm for self-serving reasons is always wrong.
On the other hand, while Noren is extremely brilliant even by the standards of Stefred and the other Scholars, and this gets him put on a pedestal at times, Jesse's role as an outsider can get him typecast as "Chosen One." The narrative plays with both sides of this--on the one hand, it's not a lot of fun if you don't have free will and are just doing what prophecy demands. On the other, if everyone is unlocking psionic and paranormal powers...well, there's gonna be some precognition involved, it's an occupational hazard!
I was pleased to see that even with the difficult bingo card, this fits the "Coastal Setting" square. Undine is an aquatic planet, and there's lots of time spent on the Group's private island, canal-type streets, scuba-diving, and travel by seaplane. The word "undine" refers to a mermaid-type creature, but it also calls to mind "undying"--the Meds' focus on preserving health at any cost has turned their planet into a dystopia.
Sex is greatly enhanced with telepathy, but members need a certain proficiency before they can enjoy it--it's not really fair for one partner to be doing all the mental/emotional sharing, with another missing out. When Jesse's powers begin developing, at first he's unnerved by his attraction to everyone around him, but Peter points out that that's normal. "We do get people who're bi and don't know it." And as Carla explains later, "Sexual arousal is an altered state, you see—when are you least distracted by rational thinking, if not during sex? It releases latent psi power in a way nothing else can. Among us telepathic control’s always learned from a partner." Which is also a little yikes-inducing: is there nobody who just isn't into sex? (Jesse also gets an "ignore us, officer, we're just embracing deeply, nothing to see here but heartwarming hugs!" moment with a nonagenarian male friend!)
In Christianity, the rite of initiation is baptism--sprinkling with or immersion in water. But in many denominations, another part of the ritual is the reception of a baptismal candle, linking the baptized person with the Paschal candle. On Undine, the water planet, "the Ritual" of initiation (again, they don't do metaphor) involves using the group's telepathic strength to survive flame, similar to the tradition of firewalking. Hence the title drop. When the Group performs another Ritual in exceptional circumstances near the novel's climax, they first blindfold the novices and members' children who haven't joined themselves yet, so they won't have the experience spoiled for their own Ritual--similar to the former practice of dismissing catechumens before Communion because they're not ready to witness it unless they're participating! (For what it's worth, the Group's rationale for why Earth-based religions haven't thrived on other planets is because large-scale collective unconsciousness/telepathy/the metaphor that religions are enacting can't function over an interstellar distance. So there's that.)
One of the lines from the Ritual is very reminiscent of the Litany Against Fear from Dune. "Unfaced fear is the destroyer. We will acknowledge fear and accept it, we will go past it and live free."'
"Peter—Warick must be aware that you know Ian didn’t start the fire." Billy Joel approves of this plot twist.
It's not entirely clear how much Earth-based culture endures. Characters mention things like "lotus-eaters," "Catch-22," and "the dark side of the Force" without explanation. But we also get this:
Hahahaha. Great minds think alike?
Ultimately, it would have been hard for this to live up to "Children of the Star" for me, because that one set a really high bar. But there's one specific contrast where I think "Children" has a non-obvious edge. The first stage of the "heresy punishments" for Noren consists of being hooked up to a machine that exposes him to recorded memories from the past. It's painful, because he's never experienced anything like it, and many of the memories themselves are very unpleasant material. But for the readers, it's just a different form of narrative exposition. Instead of a flashback or an in-universe document, we, along with Noren, learn the story of how the Founders set up this world.
For Jesse, he has to undergo "altered mental states" and match "mind patterns" with his teachers. He experiences these patterns as colorful graphs projected on a wall, but for the readers, it's mostly just torture porn. Yeah, it's indescribable, so why are we trying to describe it?
But if you enjoyed Noren's reflections on the difficult, but deep, edges between faith and reason, Jesse (and Peter and Carla)'s journey will provide more of the same!
Bingo: like I said, I think it'll probably be "Coastal Setting," but also counts as "published in the 2000s" and "self/indie published."
The "Children of the Star" trilogy, my previous exposure to Engdahl, is about a young man named Noren from a low-tech fantasy society who questions many of the dogmatic assumptions that govern his world. When he commits heresy, the Scholars in authority warn him that the punishments he must face are very severe, and that he's not going to like it, and it would be much easier if he just admits folly and confesses now. But his desire of knowledge is so overwhelming that he's willing to face any cost, and undergoes a punishment that is indeed harrowing, though not exactly in the way he expects. The main scholar, Stefred, sympathizes with Noren's idealistic impulses, but is unrelenting in the pain he inflicts. Later in the trilogy (spoilers), Noren meets a woman named Lianne with whom he has chemistry, and has to navigate his feelings for her while also mourning his late wife, Talyra.
While Noren's "heretical" attitude makes him somewhat of an outsider among his own people, they are also, certainly, his own people. Anyone from his world could have taken the path he did (and, we learn, others do). In contrast, Lianne is an outsider; she shares Noren's curiosity and love of learning, but her preconceptions of what is and isn't possible with science make her exceptional.
"Stewards of the Flame" focuses on a man named Jesse Sanders, a starship captain for the Earth-based Fleet who finds that interstellar space doesn't really live up to the hype. On a mission to the planet Undine, he is detained for public drunkenness, which puts him in the custody of the planet's extremely extensive medical system. This initial interaction does not endear him to the paternalistic government of Undine, and he finds himself drawn to a mysterious Group (just called "the Group," they've abstracted away a lot of the symbolism) who are seeking alternatives to the safetyist policies. In order to unlock the psionic powers of his unconscious mind, Jesse needs to face his fears and overcome them; only by risking losing control, whether that be physical or mental pain or anything else, can he truly rely on the mental powers that transcend any bodily limits.
So on the one hand, there's a parallel between Jesse and Noren, as the POV characters who have to undergo grueling trials to gain greater knowledge/empowerment. There's a corresponding parallel between Stefred and Peter, one of the group leaders, who telepathically empathizes with Jesse and feels his pain, but has to keep pushing him to the edge of his limits.
But there's also a parallel between Jesse and Lianne, as the outsiders who bring a new perspective to the worlds where they find themselves, and love interests Noren and Carla, who is drawn to Jesse even as she's mourning her first husband, Ramón. While the rest of the Group are Undine natives who are likely to be first interested in the paranormal and only later intrigued by the prospect of an alternative to the medical system, Jesse is at first horrified by the Meds and only secondarily, if at all, willing to embrace the paranormal. This means that he can be an effective audience surrogate; when Peter's arguments about the ultimate superiority of mind over matter or the pitfalls of an overly-zealous bureaucracy go too far, Jesse dials it back and goes "hey, wait a minute, there are times when trading a little freedom for a lot of security is good, actually."
Which is good, because as Engdahl notes in the introduction/afterword, many readers will find this weirdly preachy, especially in the context of COVID. ("Stewards" was written in 2007.) She mentions that there's a direct sequel and a later trilogy in the same universe (but with different characters) that some people might prefer even if they bounced hard off this one. Given the constraints of bingo, it might be a while, if ever, before I try those, so all I can say is: if you are a strong believer in government regulation of public health, there will be many parts you'll bounce off of, and it does sometimes read as a commentary on COVID even though it wasn't. The most yikes-inducing part for me was when a member of the Group somewhat-inadvertently betrays them; "She was bipolar, and would have been diagnosed as mentally ill even on Earth." Her impetus for rebelling against Undine's Meds is her terror of more electroshock treatment, which is an "improvement" over the 20th-century kind, but still not good. But yeah, "the only reason someone would sell us out is because they really were sick" is...kind of not a good look.
But, Jesse's role as the voice of skepticism helps to counterbalance that, and the Group does have some principles that aren't obvious from the outset. For instance, if having your body kept alive indefinitely long after brain-death is abhorrent, and accepting death when it comes is much to be preferred, can hastening suicide ever be acceptable? Only if the goal is to protect others, the Group claims: self-harm for self-serving reasons is always wrong.
On the other hand, while Noren is extremely brilliant even by the standards of Stefred and the other Scholars, and this gets him put on a pedestal at times, Jesse's role as an outsider can get him typecast as "Chosen One." The narrative plays with both sides of this--on the one hand, it's not a lot of fun if you don't have free will and are just doing what prophecy demands. On the other, if everyone is unlocking psionic and paranormal powers...well, there's gonna be some precognition involved, it's an occupational hazard!
I was pleased to see that even with the difficult bingo card, this fits the "Coastal Setting" square. Undine is an aquatic planet, and there's lots of time spent on the Group's private island, canal-type streets, scuba-diving, and travel by seaplane. The word "undine" refers to a mermaid-type creature, but it also calls to mind "undying"--the Meds' focus on preserving health at any cost has turned their planet into a dystopia.
Sex is greatly enhanced with telepathy, but members need a certain proficiency before they can enjoy it--it's not really fair for one partner to be doing all the mental/emotional sharing, with another missing out. When Jesse's powers begin developing, at first he's unnerved by his attraction to everyone around him, but Peter points out that that's normal. "We do get people who're bi and don't know it." And as Carla explains later, "Sexual arousal is an altered state, you see—when are you least distracted by rational thinking, if not during sex? It releases latent psi power in a way nothing else can. Among us telepathic control’s always learned from a partner." Which is also a little yikes-inducing: is there nobody who just isn't into sex? (Jesse also gets an "ignore us, officer, we're just embracing deeply, nothing to see here but heartwarming hugs!" moment with a nonagenarian male friend!)
In Christianity, the rite of initiation is baptism--sprinkling with or immersion in water. But in many denominations, another part of the ritual is the reception of a baptismal candle, linking the baptized person with the Paschal candle. On Undine, the water planet, "the Ritual" of initiation (again, they don't do metaphor) involves using the group's telepathic strength to survive flame, similar to the tradition of firewalking. Hence the title drop. When the Group performs another Ritual in exceptional circumstances near the novel's climax, they first blindfold the novices and members' children who haven't joined themselves yet, so they won't have the experience spoiled for their own Ritual--similar to the former practice of dismissing catechumens before Communion because they're not ready to witness it unless they're participating! (For what it's worth, the Group's rationale for why Earth-based religions haven't thrived on other planets is because large-scale collective unconsciousness/telepathy/the metaphor that religions are enacting can't function over an interstellar distance. So there's that.)
One of the lines from the Ritual is very reminiscent of the Litany Against Fear from Dune. "Unfaced fear is the destroyer. We will acknowledge fear and accept it, we will go past it and live free."'
"Peter—Warick must be aware that you know Ian didn’t start the fire." Billy Joel approves of this plot twist.
It's not entirely clear how much Earth-based culture endures. Characters mention things like "lotus-eaters," "Catch-22," and "the dark side of the Force" without explanation. But we also get this:
“Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic,” Michelle agreed.
“Huh?”
“Oh, that’s an old saying about a ship—not a starship, an ocean liner on Earth—that was doomed to sink. I don’t know if it was a real one or just a legend.”
Both "Voyage From Yesteryear" and "Stewards of the Flame" portray the new societies as a new stage of human evolution. But for these beliefs and practices to thrive, they need their own planet, without the baggage of previous societies' prejudices. In "Voyage," the US-based ship that journeys to Alpha Centauri (a couple generations after the robot-raised kids settled it) is the uncreatively-named "Mayflower II." And in "Stewards," well...“Huh?”
“Oh, that’s an old saying about a ship—not a starship, an ocean liner on Earth—that was doomed to sink. I don’t know if it was a real one or just a legend.”
Then he transferred his previously-untouched back pay and retirement accounts to Fleet as down payment on charter of the colonizer Mayflower XI.
“Mayflower?” asked Peter incredulously when they met later that day in a safe house. “Starships haven’t been given that name since before Undine’s founding! Is there a revival of sentiment for Earth’s ancient history?”
“You knew it was going to be an old ship,” Jesse said. “Didn’t your contact mention its name?”
Hahahaha. Great minds think alike?
Ultimately, it would have been hard for this to live up to "Children of the Star" for me, because that one set a really high bar. But there's one specific contrast where I think "Children" has a non-obvious edge. The first stage of the "heresy punishments" for Noren consists of being hooked up to a machine that exposes him to recorded memories from the past. It's painful, because he's never experienced anything like it, and many of the memories themselves are very unpleasant material. But for the readers, it's just a different form of narrative exposition. Instead of a flashback or an in-universe document, we, along with Noren, learn the story of how the Founders set up this world.
For Jesse, he has to undergo "altered mental states" and match "mind patterns" with his teachers. He experiences these patterns as colorful graphs projected on a wall, but for the readers, it's mostly just torture porn. Yeah, it's indescribable, so why are we trying to describe it?
Definitely not this much. Swift sickness struck him; his stomach heaved as his body rebelled against the sustained neural assault. He was engulfed by a wave of agony, suddenly aware that he had never felt anything like this, never imagined anything like it. You heard about pain, you experienced tastes of it, but there were things you did not know beforehand.
Bingo: like I said, I think it'll probably be "Coastal Setting," but also counts as "published in the 2000s" and "self/indie published."
