Ring of Swords - Eleanor Arnason

[bibliogramma]

One of the most interesting "early alien contact" novels, and one of the most thought-provoking representations of an alien culture, I've read in a long time. With her aliens, the Hwarhath, Arnason creates a culture based on a very different set of relationships between gender, sex, reproduction, power and violence than those that exist in modern human culture (though there are some historical and non-human parallels - I found myself thinking of both Spartans and elephants), and makes the reader think seriously about the implications.

Ursula LeGuin, herself no stranger to thought-provoking representations of alien cultures and sexualities, wrote this about Arnason's Ring of Swords (in the Wiscon 20 Program Book):

Both the narrators of this book use an understated, slightly self-mocking, casual tone which may lead the reader to take the story lightly. It is not a lightweight story. It is intellectually, emotionally, and ethically complex and powerful. A great deal of it is told by implication only, and so the moral solidity of the book and its symbolic and aesthetic effectiveness may pass a careless reader right by. The characters are mature, thoughtful, imperfect people, the settings are vivid, the drama is tense, and the science-fictional reinvention of gender roles is as successful as any I have ever read.

The only problem is that Arnason's other writings about the Hwarhath are a series of short stories, published in a number of magazines, and it's going to be rather difficult getting my greedy little paws on them all. Fortunately, three of them have apparently been reprinted in a collection of Arnason's short fiction just out from Aqueduct Press, entitled Ordinary People. That's a starting point.