The Child Goddess [Paperback]

Louise Marley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 31, 2005

Louise Marley weaves a compelling story of a woman whose faith may be the only thing that can save a girl from certain doom.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Initially a conventional first-contact story, Marley's sensitive, lyrical SF novel, set on 23rd-century Earth and the oceanic world Virimund, swiftly evolves into a meditation intertwining spiritual values, godhood itself and romantic love. Marley's feminist springboard is her acceptance of Mary of Magdala, long considered a reformed prostitute, as Christ's first disciple. The Magdalenes, a celibate Roman Catholic order of women priests known as Enquirers, travel the galaxy as anthropological investigators, "to shed light into dark places." Assigned to probe Oa, a mysterious child discovered on Virimund, empathetic Isabel soon learns that Oa represents one of humanity's deepest yearnings, for the fountain of eternal youth. Torn between her forbidden love for Dr. Simon Edwards, like herself a healer, and her sacred vow of celibacy, Isabel asks Simon to help Oa escape the megaworld ExtraSolar Corporation, whose general administrator, Gretchen Boreson, has her own devious reasons to claim Oa and her few fellow "anchens," the abandoned children of Virimund. Told in alternating glimpses through Isabel's and Oa's viewpoints and reintroducing the enigmatic character Jin-Li Chung from the author's The Terrorists of Irustan (1999), the book treats feminism's central issues gently, skirting the strident swamps of passion and the fatal abyss of sentimentality, with tender insights into love and sacrifice all too rare today.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Oa appears to be a 10-year-old, taken by Dr. Adetti from her home planet, Virimund, a lost-colony world that ExtraSolar Corporation considers ideal for its power park. Isabel, a priest of the Magdalen Order, is called in to investigate and act as Oa's guardian. Slowly, with help from Simon Edwards of the World Health and Welfare Organization, she realizes Oa's secret. Oa and the other children of the Sikassa are infected with a virus that makes them perpetually prepubescent and practically immortal. Adetti and ExtraSolar administrator Gretchen Boreson see Oa as a potential fountain of youth, not as a person. Of course, things aren't that simple, and when Boreson and Adetti go to Virimund for further study, the immortality virus exacts a higher-than-expected price. All Oa and the other children want is to become normal and grow up. Fortunately, immortality is never easy, although it is curable. Marley attacks the problems she poses satisfactorily, with a well-placed plot and characterizations, in particular, that are engaging even amid the tangles of interpersonal relations. Regina Schroeder
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Ace (May 31, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0441012124
• ISBN-13: 978-0441012121
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,234,588 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I'm a former concert and opera singer, now indulging my taste for the dramatic by writing fantasy, science fiction, and historical fiction with a dash of the fantastic. Under my own name and my pseudonym, Toby Bishop, I've written fifteen books and compiled a short story collection, ABSALOM'S MOTHER AND OTHER STORIES. My newest novel, THE BRAHMS DECEPTION, a story of time travel, has just been published by Kensington, and is the culmination of my years of fascination with Brahms and the beautiful, enigmatic pianist Clara Schumann. I love combining music, history, and fiction!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Unusual treatment of a sci-fi classic subject; begs a sequel, August 14, 2004

By 

Joanna Daneman (Middletown, DE USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Child Goddess (Hardcover)

The plot behind "Child Goddess" is probably familiar to you if you are a Trekkie; without giving a spoiler here, suffice it to say the "The Child Goddess" has something in common with an Original Star Trek's episode. However, the treatment of the subject has Marley's originality and ability to create entire worlds and societies in a few deft strokes.

Mother Burke, a member of the Magdalenes, a female Catholic priesthood, is tapped to investigate the finding of a survivor of an old colony on a planet being used for Earth expansion and enterprise. After a tragic first contact, a child is brought back to Earth. But she is not all she seems to be. An alien (in which case, the planet is rendered useless for colonization) or is she the descendent of an ill-fated settlement from centuries ago? And why is she being kept in quarantine far longer than the six-month mandatory period, and by a very shady doctor.

Isabel Burke is a fascinating character. She is doing penance as a Magadalene as well as fulfilling a vocation. She is also a scientist and a sympathetic character with a mix of backbone and tenderness. One wants to learn more about her, hence my feeling that "Child Goddess" could be worthy of a sequel. Her order of woman priests is also interesting; imagine the history that was behind a church finally granting disciple status to Mary Magdalene and validating the Gospel of Mary.

Oa, the child, is interesting. Marley borrows from Australian aborigine customs as well as African to create her alien, and Oa is cast well in the role of a naive, yet sophisticated person.

Though I found the plot entirely predictable, I still raced through the book with enjoyment and hope for more from this author.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Thoughtful, and out of the ordinary . . . ., July 22, 2004

By 

Patrick J. Callahan (La Crosse, WI USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Child Goddess (Hardcover)

When I first picked up and examined this book, I very much doubted I would find it interesting enough to get through it. Finally, I applied a test that I've used many times. I just opened the book and read the first paragraph. I finally decided to acquire the book and to see if it would interest me.

In truth, I could not put the book down and finished it in two days.

The investigator in this detective-like novel is Mother Isabel, a Catholic sister of a religious order that "attempts to shine light into dark places." She begins by trying to protect a child who has been the victim of exploitation by a money-hungry corporation. But as she pursues justice, she encounters mystery after mystery.

The story also involves a love theme -- and she is forced to cross paths with the great love of her life.

As the mystery draws her in and the stakes rise beyond the welfare of a single child to the welfare of many children, Mother Isabel travels to a distant planet, where she continues to wage a brave but unequal battle against corporate greed and the cold pursuit of wealth.

This book excellently depicts a crossed web of feelings -- love between a man and a woman, love of a motherly woman for an abandoned child, and the love of a child for her ersatz mother and protector.

This novel could be compared with the works of Rosemary Kirstein -- books such as THE STEERSWOMAN'S ROAD. Here too, a woman protagonist is a member of a sisterhood, or religious order if you will, dedicated to the pursuit of truth -- that is, "to shed light into dark places." This is to take nothing away, and I do not mean to imply that Ms. Marley and Ms. Kirstein even know each other's work. But the excellence of these two authors shows considerable parallel.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Splendid Twist on "First Contact" SF from Marley, March 26, 2005

By 

John Kwok (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Child Goddess (Hardcover)

Louis Marley makes a triumphant return to the universe she created in her 1999 novel, "The Terrorists of Irustan", which is a magnificient twist on the classic science fiction "First Contact" tale; it is simply more than that since it is an elegant examination of humanity, faith and romantic love too. In Isabel Burke, the Catholic priest who must choose between the dictates of her faith and her love for a doctor trapped in a marriage to someone he no longer loves, Marley has created one of her most mesmerizing characters; one worthy of favorable comparison to those created by authors as diverse as Ursula K. LeGuin and Mary Doria Russell.

On the oceanic world of Virimund which is thought to be uninhabited, Extra Solar workers have unexpectedly come across a lost colony of human children on a remote island. One of the children, the girl Oa, is brought back to earth and held in quarantine for over a year, until her existence is brought to the attention of the Magdalene order of Catholic priests. Mother Isabel Burke, a medical anthroplogist - and Magdalene priest - is sent to investigate and soon becomes Oa's guardian, enlisting the aid of her former lover, Dr. Simon Edwards, a world government medical official, who will make a surprising discovery about Oa's true chronological age and origins. In a surprising twist of events which will lead first to tragedy and then hope, Oa will finally realize what it means to be human.

Louis Marley has truly become one of the most interesting writers working today in the field of science fiction and fantasy. Her lyrical prose is almost as finely written as any from the likes of Ursula LeGuin or Joanna Russ. I found her latest novel simply impossible to put down, reading it in a short span of a few days. It's unquestionably among the finest science fiction novels published last year. And it is one which surely begs a sequel, which I hope will be forthcoming from Ms. Marley.