jagardner@watmath.UUCP (Jim Gardner) (09/09/85)
[...] From Chuq's review of Courtship Rite, I can only conclude that he has a much weaker stomach than mine. I had no problem with the material at all (then again, I've read a good deal about ritual scarring practices on earth, so I wasn't taken aback by the descriptions in the book). The basis of the book is interesting biologically. We are obviously looking at a colony that has descended from pacifists who fled the wars of earth. They have no meat animals; maybe the original colonists didn't bring any, maybe they all died. They have eight types of plants brought from earth (wheat, potatoes, etc.). These are the only sources of food, because the indigenous forms of life are incompatible with earth life. (You can't eat local plants because they're poisonous; local insect life can't eat your crops, because the insects die almost immediately.) The founding colonists were very big on biological technology, and this is the only type of technology that was preserved over the years. The current inhabitants can splice genes with their eyes closed, but you're halfway through the book before the bicycle is invented. Because of the biological emphasis of the book, the tribes of the planet are very conscious of the evolutionary process. Tribes tend to specialize in one or two areas of activity, then breed their members for superiority in those areas. They do this by giving everyone a rating on an "evolutionary value" scale, based on intelligence, physical constitution, presence of desirable traits, etc. Everyone wants to mate with someone at the same level on this scale, or higher. This ensures true evolutionary progress. For example, the tribe that has decided to specialize in inter-city travel (escorting travellers, running with messages, etc.) have incredible endurance, while the tribe that specializes in producing courtesans have incredible beauty, agility, and so on. Cannibalism is central to the society, since there is no other source of meat. It is important to stress, however, that the cannibalism is restricted to the ritual eating of those who have died for some other reason. In times of famine, those with low evolutionary potential (and criminals) are "culled" from the population, not really for the meat (although they are eaten) but because of the strong evolutionary views of the people: when resources are scarce, you do not squander them on those who will not advance the future of the species. There is never any suggestion that they kill specifically to produce meat; indeed, they look upon meat as the stuff that you're forced to eat when you fall on hard times. The ritual scarring in the book is highly reminiscent of tribal practices in Africa. Indeed, my wife is annoyed that the illustration on the front of the book shows a white woman, because white skin does not scar as attractively as black skin does (yes, some African tribes have long histories of choosing mates on the attractiveness of their scars, so these same tribes have gradually come to have skin that scars beautifully). There are many good reference books on ritual scarring, and I have seen colour photos of quite expansive scar drawings. As a book, Courtship Rite is a very interesting read, even though it falls flat towards the end. The problem is that it is two different stories tied together. The original story (published in Analog, I believe) was the story of a group marriage (two women, three men) who are ordered to marry a sixth woman. Why? Because this particular tribe values the ability to win friends, and the woman is a charismatic preacher who has won a large following. Her abilities will increase the tribe's chances for survival. However, the group in question want to marry someone else instead. To avoid marrying the preacher, they invoke a rule that says they're allowed to test someone's overall evolutionary potential before marriage. The particular testing rite they choose is one that has a good chance of killing the preacher before it's over. All well and good. But the author has superimposed another story on top of the courtship rite, a story about the discovery of war after centuries of pacifism and whether a pair of tribes will go to war or avoid it. This second story is the more powerful of the two and the author hasn't managed to integrate it very well with the other. The war problem is resolved 100 pages from the end of the book...then we are returned to the courtship, which is an anticlimax. I would have been much happier if the author had managed to tie off the two stories simultaneously, or at least 70 pages closer together. Rate it ***1/2 for the story premise, and **1/2 for the story itself. Jim Gardner, University of Waterloo