Subject: Review: The Last Hawk, by Catherine Asaro (1997)

From: [email-masked] (Rich Horton)
Date: 17 May 1998 15:42:42 -0400

The Last Hawk, by Catherine Asaro
	Tor, 1997, $25.95 ISBN: 0-312-86044-7
	Review Copyright 1998 Rich Horton

[Spoilers appear at the end of the review, after a spoiler warning --AW]

Catherine Asaro's latest Skolian novel is _The Last Hawk_.  This takes
place roughly at the same time as the action of her first novel, _Primary
Inversion_, but on a completely isolated planet.  The Skolian connection
is that the protagonist, Kelric, is a member of the Ruby Dynasty, ruling
family of the Skolian empire.  He crash-lands on an isolated, restricted,
planet, Coba, and becomes a pawn in an extended power struggle.

The novel is really concerned with the social and political setup on this
planet.  The society of this planet is female dominated, and a powerful
male like Kelric is a threat, both to the societal structure, and to the
political independence: this last because if he is found by the Skolians,
the restricted label is likely to vanish, and Coba will be absorbed into
the Empire.

There are other key aspects to the social structure: Coba is dominated by
a number of Houses, each with a female head.  The planet has replaced war
with a game called Quis.  Each House has some first rate Quis players: the
Head of the house, and members of her household, especially including her
"husbands" (or "akasi"s).  Information is transmitted by Quis playing, and
very good players can influence "public opinion" by innovative playing.  I
found this concept fascinating, though in the end quite unconvincing.  An
important aspect of this is that a Calani (male Quis player) from one
household is very valuable to another household, because of his "inside
knowledge," as it were, and a certain flexibility he seems to gain from
being exposed to different styles of Quis.  Thus these Calani become,
essentially, prize commodities, tradable for money or political favors.

[Some of the following may include spoilers, though I don't think they
are too bad.  The spoilerphobic, however, may disagree.  I'll mention
briefly, then, that I liked the book, and I recommend it.]

After his crash, Kelric is rescued by a team from the leading allied house
to the "ruling" house.  Kelric, damaged and also unable to tolerate some
of the local chemistry, barely survives.  Soon, however, he has "married"
the head of Dahl house which found him, and he has met the heir apparent
to the ruling House.  Despite his emotional ties, he eventually tries to
escape, and accidentally kills someone, as a result ending up in prison.
However, he has two important things on his side: he is a natural genius
at Quis, helped somewhat by his Skolian biomechanical enhancements); and
he is very sexy, and the powerful women of the Houses tend to fall in love
with him.  The story follows him through a variety of Houses, as for
political and other reasons he becomes a very rare Calani of six houses.
However, the disruptions his presence causes begin to threaten the
structure of Coban society.

This is an interesting novel, with much to recommend it, and very
readable.  I had problems with couple of things: the ultimate
improbability of Quis is one, including the improbably sudden scientific
advances supposedly resulting from Kelric transmitting ideas from Skolian
culture to the Cobans via Quis.  Also, a couple of villains who were
almost too bad, though Asaro really tries hard to make them plausible and
close to sympathetic, and I had a certain difficulty in staying
emotionally involved with Kelric's many romances and quasi-romances.
Kelric's amazing Quis ability was a bit of a cliche', though to be fair,
Asaro provides at least some justification for it, in the form of his
bio-mechanical enhancements, and the actions of some of the characters at
times seemed to be designed to advance the plot rather than to arise from
their own characteristics.

The female-dominated society was quite well handled, I thought.  Sometimes
Asaro was too clearly engaging in allegory though, having the Coban women,
generally good people, casually treat their men in blatantly sexist ways:
all this seemed obviously a reversal of male sexism in our society: a
fairly effective device for the most part, but a bit too pat and obvious
in places.  The novel's structure, in six parts corresponding to the six
Houses of which Kelric becomes a member, allows Asaro to explore Coban
society from many angles: some of the Houses are traditional, some modern,
some strong, some weak: so we get a fairly varied look at the planet and
society.  That said, I didn't get a strong sense of a "complete" planet:
rather, the society seemed to consist of smallish, isolated, enclaves.

Asaro has become known as a sort of hybrid SF/Romance writer.  Her books
are published by an SF imprint, and certainly widely read by SF readers,
but she also gets reviewed in Romance-oriented publications, and as I
recall she has won an award from a Romance organization.  Her first two
novels seemed on occasion to suffer from this dichotomy, as SF
expectations were not necessarily satisfied, and possibly vice-versa.  I'm
thinking in particular of Primary Inversion, which ends when the romance
plot has been more or less resolved, but well before the SF/Adventure plot
has been resolved.  I understand a direct sequel is forthcoming.  The Last
Hawk works very well as an SF novel, but might disappoint romance readers.
Read as a romance, certain expectations are set up, and then (perhaps
deliberately?)  subverted.  In fact, Asaro seems almost to be playing with
Romance novel conventions: she has several romantic entanglements to work
with, and they seem almost to be comments on typical relationship-types.

When I originally finished this book, I thought "Fast, fun, read.  Some
nice ideas.  Not quite successful."  Over the weeks since I've read it, it
has improved in memory.  Even if I found the basic idea of Quis
unbelievable, it is a clever idea, and moreover one which works very well
thematically.  Also, I believe some of my original mild disappointment was
related to a what I mention above: the failure of the novel to conform to
typical Romance plot expectations.  But on reflection, this is a strength,
and not a weakness.  I feel sure, too, that this novel plants a charge
waiting to be detonated later in the Skolian series, whenever Coba
confronts the Universe at large.

%A Catherine Asaro
%T The Last Hawk
%I Tor
%C New York
%D 1997
%P 448pp
%G ISBN 0-312-86044-7
%O HC, US $25.95
-- 
Rich Horton
Homepage: www.sff.net/people/richard.horton