turk@cs.unc.edu (Gregory Turk) (05/31/91)
Courtship Rite by Donald Kingsbury Copyright (c) 1991 Gregory Turk. (ugly bibliographic info given after review) When I saw that the vote was in favor of creating rec.art.sf-reviews, I decided that I would review an old favorite of mine, this book. It is likely that many reviews posted here will be of newer books, but perhaps we can also suggest to each other older books and stories that might otherwise slip from memory. Before I begin, I will mention that my taste in SF runs slightly out of the mainstream. A couple of my favorite books are _Little, Big_ (John Crowley) and _Dhalgren_ (Samuel Delany). I don't care for Star Trek and I approach with caution any book with the words "sword" or "dragon" in the title. I encourage other reviewers in this group to give the rest of us some ideas about your tastes. The purpose of a review is to help a reader decide whether a given book or story will be to their liking. How can a reviewer do this without describing his or her tastes and biases? Okay, the book. No spoilers, trust me. Let me begin now by saying that _Courtship Rite_ is very much a mainstream SF book in comparison to the two books I mention above. It is a book of action and ideas rather than one of emotions. The story takes place on a world called Geta, and it focuses on a pivotal time in the history of the Kaiel clan. The leader of this clan has ordered the maran-Kaiel family to woo and wed a particular woman for political reasons, an outsider to the clan called Oelita, also know as the Gentle Heretic. But the family (two women and three men) already know who they want for their third wife, and it is not the heretic. Angry at the clan leader, the husband called Joesai settled on an unusual way to court the heretic: through the Death Rite. This woman must live through seven life-threatening trials before she is again safe. An odd courtship. If I were a reader of this review, I would now be thinking uh-oh, one of those books where all the characters have funny names and everyone runs around in clans. Yes, and it's also one of those books where there is a quote beginning each chapter that is taken from the written history of the planet. You know, like _Dune_. As much as I liked _Dune_, I found myself snickering at more than a couple of Herbert's just a bit too serious chapter headers. However, I found that I enjoyed some of the quotes in _Courtship Rite_ as much as the main plot. You can check me on this. When you are browsing a copy of this book, read the header to chapter 17 that describes oddities of some insects of the planet. And try the start of chapter 30, which tells why six is the best number of participants in a marriage. This book is wonderfully rich in ideas. The biology of the world is well thought out, and it poses a puzzle that is fun to think through. The descriptions of the group marriage are fascinating, and I must confess that the book makes such a marriage sound quite appealing to me. The method of political representation as practiced by the Kaiel clan sounds as reasonable as any method of representation that I know. This is speculative fiction at it's best, where ideas about people and cultures are explored that could not be presented through mainstream fiction. No book is perfect, but the flaws of this book are slight. The focus of this book is Oelita, but the author becomes enamored with another female character midway into the book and he lets the plot meander a bit before returning to the central stream. Also, I found the pace of technological discoveries to be too rapid given the time span covered by the book. Also, be warned that _Courtship Rite_ is a book about cultures, not about personal growth. Don't expect the emotional depth that you will find in the works of someone like Ursula LeGuin. Ultimately, however, none of these problems seriously detracted from my enjoyment of this book. The next time you think about reading Book Seven of the Something-Or-Others of Whatever, consider instead picking up _Courtship Rite_. I think you'll find it worth your while. - Greg Turk (turk@cs.unc.edu) %A Kingsbury, Donald %T Courtship Rite %I Pocket Books %C New York %D 1982 %G ISBN 0-671-46089-7 %P 409 pp. %O paperback, US $3.95 (several years ago)