The Conqueror's Child (Holdfast Chronicles, Bk IV) [Hardcover]

Suzy McKee Charnas (Author)

Book Description

Series: Holdfast Chronicles, Bk IV | Publication Date: May 1999

McKee Charnas brings us the triumphant conclusion to the classic dystopian epic, The Holdfast Chronicles. The direct sequel to The Furies, which Publishers Weekly named one of the 5 best SF titles of 1994,it is the story of how the Free Fems reclaim the Holdfast from the men who ruled them.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The Conqueror's Child is the fourth book in Suzy McKee Charnas's Holdfast series. Like a smith at the forge, Charnas hammers out a neorustic dystopia where the individuals become myths and the once-barbarous relations between men and women begin to be resolved.

Previously in the series, the fem-slave Alldera escapes the men-cities into the grassland wilderness where she is adopted by the Riding Women. These genetically altered nomads are devoid of males, reproducing without them and producing only female children. They are also deadly with the bow and lance. With their help, Alldera invades the men-cities and frees the fems.

Conqueror's Child begins here, with Sorrel, Alldera's daughter. Rape-conceived during Alldera's slave-days but born and raised free among the Riding Women, Sorrel yearns for a relationship with her hero-mother. For years Alldera kept Sorrel safe, far way, while she built a new society in the former men-cities.

Though safe, Sorrel feels herself a misfit--a conqueror's daughter ignorant of battle. She bonds with a fellow misfit, an orphaned child of another escaped slave--a male child. Because he is shunned by the unisex horsewomen, Sorrel adopts him, resolving to find him a better life. With the child, Sorrel rides out for the cities where fems now rule and men still live.

But there's danger in reunions. Sorrel will not only meet her mother but also two of her rapists. Either could be Sorrel's father, and either could betray her.

The appeal of Conqueror's Child spans genres. Readers of both science fiction and women's studies will find it a powerful read in which institutionalized violence is examined through its very personal effects. However, though Charnas's skill lies in crafting the epic, characterization sometimes falls short, especially with minor personas who seem somewhat interchangeable. Regardless, Charnas's works belong among the SF luminaries for her even-handed examination of relationships and sexuality--themes negligently ignored for much of SF's history. --Tamara Hladik

From Publishers Weekly

When Charnass dystopian novel Walk to the End of the World appeared in 1974, followed by similar work by Joanna Russ, Marge Piercy and Alice Sheldon, SF found itself in the middle of an angry feminist revolution. Charnas continued her exploration of the world of the Holdfast and the Riding Women in Motherlines (1978) and The Furies. Now she brings her classic series to a conclusion in the tale of Sorrel, daughter of Alldera, the woman who in the earlier novels escaped slavery, then raised a female army to return and destroy the misogynistic evil of her homeland. Sorrel has grown up strong among the Riding Women, but is embittered by her mothers abandonment. Traveling across the mountains with her adopted son, she discovers that the women of the Holdfast have largely mirrored the evil theyd previously fled, holding their men as slaves, using them for procreation and as beasts of burden. Some want to change this, Alldera among them, but the prospects for reform are endangered by the return of a charismatic, unscrupulous man known as the Sunbear, who may be Sorrels father via his long-ago rape of Alldera. Avoiding clichs and easy answers, Charnas brings this powerful series to a fitting end. There is much of the darkness and pain found in the previous books, but there is also hope as it becomes clear that, within limits, some of the women and men are ready to at least think about living together in peace. The year is less than half over, but this potent, thoughtful novel by a talented writer at the top of her form clearly counts as one of the best SF novels of 1999.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 428 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; 1st edition (May 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312857195
• ISBN-13: 978-0312857196
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,775,726 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Fems have conquered their male masters -- what now?, April 19, 1999

By 

Margaret L. Carter "MargVamp" (Annapolis, MD USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Conqueror's Child (Holdfast Chronicles, Bk IV) (Hardcover)

The Holdfast/Motherlines series reaches a triumphant conclusion with this fourth volume. Many authors might have ended with the third novel, THE FURIES, in which the Free Fems, with the help of the Riding Women, invade the Holdfast and overcome the men, their former masters. But the reversal of roles between masters and slaves is only the beginning. As the young heroine says in the epilogue of THE CONQUEROR'S CHILD, there are no real endings.

This final book focuses on the "next generation"; the warriors led by Alldera the Conqueror have won back their homeland, and now her followers must build a new society, where men and woman can live at peace together for the first time in centuries. The renegade male who returns from the wilderness to attack the female-ruled Holdfast proves to be an anachronism; so also, however, does Alldera, already in the process of growing into a legend. The major viewpoint character, Alldera's daughter Sorrel (NOT "adopted daughter"), flees the Grasslands for the Holdfast with a boy child she has taken under her protection. The narrative follows the structure of Dickens' BLEAK HOUSE and Bradley's HERITAGE OF HASTUR, alternating chapters told in the first person by Sorrel with third-person chapters focusing on various other characters, thus combining the advantages of both intimacy and breadth.

Given that men must be kept alive for breeding, must they remain forever prisoners or chattel? Can they ever be trusted? Can they learn to live with females as equals? Can both men and women forget old bitterness and hate? What will become of the new generation of male children? Ambiguous, multifaceted, lifelike characters work together toward answers. Even though there are no "real endings," Sorrel's epilogue ties up a number of loose ends to provide closure for the reader.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing, July 11, 2000

By 

Michele Lloyd "SF reader" (Minneapolis, MN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Conqueror's Child (Holdfast Chronicles, Bk IV) (Hardcover)

First, I don't know if this book would have the same impact if you hadn't already read the preceding three. That said, this novel is one of the best I've ever read (as are its predecessors). The characters are rich and complex, filled with contradiction and capable of growth and change. The dynamics of the interactions between different groups of people are as intricate and convoluted as in real life. The world of the Holdfast--both its culture and ecology--is described in rich detail. The prose is so good that it is invisible. I was transported into the future world of the Holdfast and was never drawn back to the present by a clumsy bit of exposition. You won't like this book if you don't like character-driven novels, or if you think that strong women characters have to be perfect. The Free Fems and the New Free are far from perfect, but they are utterly human, and doing their best to create a new way to live from the ashes of the old. 4 thumbs up! I strongly recommend that you read the whole series: The Slave and the Free (2 books in one), The Furies, and The Conqueror's Child.

3 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Violent end to a violent book series, August 29, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (an American male) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Conqueror's Child (Holdfast Chronicles, Bk IV) (Hardcover)

I have read all four books in the Holdfast Chronicles. I have sometimes wondered what the world would be like in a matriarchal society where women made most of the decisions. Would women be as violent and war-like as men have been throughout history? I doubt it! However, the women in Ms. Charnas post-holocaust world are surprisingly like their former (male) masters. I prefer the utopian world of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "Herland". Neither worlds are particularly believable. But it is interesting to speculate.