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The Maerlande Chronicles (Silent City #2)

Élisabeth Vonarburg

Start date: August 1, 2024

Finish date: August 31, 2024

Discussion: Monthly Reads: Discussion

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Monthly Reads: Discussion

* December 2024 - War with the Newts (Spoilers Tagged)
By Oleksandr · 33 posts · 14 views

last updated Jan 05, 2025 01:26AM

* November 2024 - Continuum (Tag Spoilers)
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last updated Dec 21, 2024 01:02AM

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Sep 11, 2024 Oleksandr Zholud rated it liked it · review of another edition

This is an SF novel of a Francophone author from Canada. Formally, this is the second volume of the series, the first being The Silent City. However, it is connected only with the world, so each can be perfectly read as a standalone. I read it as a part of the monthly reading for August 2024 at Speculative Fiction in Translation group. Alas, this book has neither audio nor e-book version, so I finished it only now.

This is our world, but several centuries in the future. Roughly in our times, ther This is an SF novel of a Francophone author from Canada. Formally, this is the second volume of the series, the first being The Silent City. However, it is connected only with the world, so each can be perfectly read as a standalone. I read it as a part of the monthly reading for August 2024 at Speculative Fiction in Translation group. Alas, this book has neither audio nor e-book version, so I finished it only now.

This is our world, but several centuries in the future. Roughly in our times, there were multiple environmental calamities and poisoning of a large share of the planet during wars (supposedly nuclear). The determining factor of this world is the Malady – a deadly disease, chiefly affecting prepubescent children (mortality initially was like 50%, after centuries of adaptation it is closer to 10%). It also led to a sharp drop in male births – from our roughly 50/50 to like 90/10 or even lower. Therefore, this is the women’s world.

Readers follow a girl named Lisbeï, starting with her growing up in a kind of children's ward. There children (called ‘mostas’) basic physical needs are satisfied, but their caretakers (gardianas) try not to get emotionally close to them (for many won’t survive) or teach them anything. Therefore, the first part is mostly about Lisbeï getting to know her world and herself. She is a daughter of local leader – Mother Sylva, and feels a special bond with who, she later finds out is her younger half-sister Tula (to keep genetic diversity, usually each child from a different partner). Their life is on a surface medieval – most things are done by hand, but they haven’t fully lost the pre-Malady knowledge – they know e.g. about germs or genes. Another difference is that there are no wars, maybe to some extent due to the matriarchy, but mostly just because there are too few people. There is a religion, a belief in Elli, the demiurgess.

As Lisbeï grew up, she was initially set to replace her mother, but after the Malady she had no menses and therefore declared ‘Blue’ (infertile). She is an amateur archeologist and finds out a new source for their religion, which questions some of their tenants… there is her life as a scientist (and a religious person), her relations with her mother, sister and a lot of other people.

The language used in the book has feminine versions of most professions, which looks a bit weird in English, with all those believras, workas, exploras and so on. It isn’t a women’s utopia, it isn’t a common post-apoc dystopia and this makes it somewhat unique. It actively explores themes of people’s relations including sexual – the usual for us woman-man couples are inexistent, moreover, male breeders are considered not worth anything except for their sperm, to some extent a mirror image of the women’s place, esp. in a near past.

For me, the earliest part of the growing up was the most interesting, but the whole book is ok.

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Dec 31, 2024 Ed Erwin added it · review of another edition

Shelves: sf-francaise

Not actually "read". I've set this aside at the half-way point because while this is interesting, it is also slow. I'll get back to it someday. ...more

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