Subject: Review of _Ring of Swords_ by Eleanor Arnason

From: [email-masked] (P. Douglas Reeder)
Date: Wed, 12 Jul 1995 16:26:17 GMT

A review of _Ring of Swords_ by Eleanor Arnason
review by P. Douglas Reeder

Two things are indisputable about Arnason's writing: she is a writer of
skill and her stories make minimal use of conventional dramatic sequences.
Whether or not you like her stories depend if you like those two things,
your politics, and if her writing strokes you the right way.  However you
felt about _A Woman of the Iron People_, you'll feel about _Ring_.

_Ring of Swords_ is about sexuality, gender, and society.  It takes place in
a future where humans and the only other known intelligent species, the
hwarath, have been skirmising for forty years since their initial contact.
Now peace negotiations are under way.

Anna is a researcher,studying some possibly intelligent jellyfish, caught up
in events.  Nicholas Sanders was on a spying expedition into Hwarath space,
captured, and turned.  First Defender Ettin Gwarha is a leader of the
Hwarath.  The text consists of third-person narration from Anna's point of
view and numerous extended excerpts from Sanders's journal commented upon by
Gwarha.

The oldest Hwarath symbol for themselves is a hearth-fire of women and
children, surrounded by a ring of warlike men.  In modern Hwarath society,
most men are out in space, exploring and skirmishing with aliens, and almost
all women and children are on the home planet.  Homesexual sex is considered
normal, heterosexual sex is forbidden, and the Hwarath reproduce by
artificial insemination.  Naturally, Hwarath and humans are troubled by each
others existence.

Arnason's style keeps the reader at a distance from the characters, which
weakens the novel for me.  Other elements that troubled me but may not
trouble you are what seems to me to be a bland third-worldism to future
human culture and an extremely negative view of capitalism (when Gwarha
seeks an English word to translate a Hwarath concept, Anna suggests
'capitalist', but Nicholas corrects her with 'canibal'.)

The book also suffers from several logical flaws.  When human military
intelligence plans treachery at early negotiations, they are totally
unprepared for a counterattack by the Hwarath.  Later negotiations are held
on a Hwarath station far from human space, with the humans at the mercy of
the Hwarath.  Nicholas asserts that Hwarath are far better warriors than
human because of their ferocity (this might be only his opinion, but the
text offers no countervailing view).  Technology, industrialization, and
competence are more important in modern, technological, industrial war than
ferocity, and Arnason presents the Hwarath as roughly equal in technology.

So why did I like this book?  It's far more intelligent than most books
published.  It examines issues at the heart of our humanity and
civilizations, without preaching.  The characters and the Hwarath society
are highly plausible (if difficult to like).  The action feels like real
events, not conventional story plotting.

%A Eleanor Arnason
%T Ring of Swords
%I Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.  "A Tor Book"
%C New York
%D 1993
%G ISBN 0-312-85518-4
%O hb

P. Douglas Reeder

Roboticist and Fashion Designer
[email-masked]