Empire of Bones [Mass Market Paperback]

Liz Williams (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 26, 2002

From Liz Williams comes a bold and provocative novel of the future in which the vast Indian subcontinent, home to thousands of gods, is visited by all-powerful alien beings from a distant world of controlled, sterile perfection. But what is their purpose: to free humanity–or to enslave it?

EMPIRE OF BONES

Millions of years ago alien beings seeded Earth with their genetic strands to create a new outpost of intelligent life. Now their descendants have returned to Earth’s skies, drawn by their detection of a Receiver, a human with the genetic ability to tap into alien communications. It is the signal that Earth is ready to be absorbed into a vast galactic empire.

Jaya Nihalani has been a prophet, a crusader, and a terrorist, fighting for the rights of her despised Untouchable caste. Now she lies in an Indian hospital, dying of a hideous disease. Her head is filled with voices and visions; her body is aging rapidly, inexplicably. But the voices and visions are no disease. Jaya is the Receiver whom the aliens intend to heal, enlighten...and use.

Soon the subcontinent erupts in riots and chaos as powerful forces attempt to co-opt the enigmatic alien emissaries, and a shocked world awaits its fate. Jaya must somehow discover the plans of her perfect and powerful “friends.” Have they come to end human suffering, or to make it worse? Should she help them–or lead the impossible fight against them?

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Prematurely aging from a mysterious illness, Jaya Nihalani, a former prophet and revolutionary, lies dying in a hospital in India until a strange being, who purports to be from outer space, appears to rescue her and use her as a mediator to initiate first contact with its species. Jaya's struggle to reclaim her life and understand the mindset of a truly alien creature forms the central conflict in this thoughtful and elegantly written story of self-discovery amid the ruins of social and environmental decay. Set in a near-future India, this tale by the author of The Ghost Writer offers an intriguing glimpse into an important culture and belongs in most libraries' sf collections.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Williams follows Ghost Sister [BKL My 15 01] with an explanation of the pantheon of Hindu divinities: it is a racial memory. Eons ago, a race of starfarers, whose civilization was so relatively advanced it could well be thought of as godlike, seeded Earth with life, then left it alone. Now they have returned, and at a bad time. There is a resurgence of religious interest everywhere. In India, this interest has turned reactionary, and the old caste system has been restored. One rebel, a feisty untouchable named Jaya Nihalani, fights for her caste, carrying on the tradition of her father. The aliens perceive her to be a "Receiver," a necessary conduit through which they determine whether their enterprise is worth further development, or should be destroyed. Thus Jaya, the prophet of her caste, becomes an unwitting messiah, or, perhaps, a prophet of doom. Williams might seem politically incorrect in India itself, but in the West her satirical commentary on twenty-first-century religious wars is unhappily prescient. John Mort
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Spectra (March 26, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553583778
• ISBN-13: 978-0553583779
• Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 0.6 x 7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,534,036 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Empire of Red Tape, September 7, 2002

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lb136 "lb136" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Empire of Bones (Mass Market Paperback)

Liz Williams' fine "Empire of Bones" would probably be filed under "political science sf," and indeed it begins as if it's going to be a typical example of the naive and sentimental "downtrodden proletarian human meets the benevolent alien genre." Thankfully it quickly turns into something quite different. Set about 50 years from now it tells the story of Jaya Nihalani, an Untouchable and a freedom fighter (she's modeled after India's 20th-century "bandit queen" Poulhan Devi) who is wasting away from a mysterious disease in an Indian hospital. When she overhears her doctor talking to her arch-enemy, the army officer who put down her rebellion (he would have been perfectly happy under the Raj, and maybe Williams patterned him after the infamous British General Dyer), Jaya escapes from the hospital and quickly gets transported to the alien nano-techie "depth ship." Yep, the aliens have colonized us and now they've come to see if we're ready for prime time, and only Jaya . . . etc. etc.

But quickly events take an unexpected turn, the POVs (and the settings) become multiple (Williams' depiction of the culture of the aliens, at least as hierarchical as Jaya's own, is especially fascinating), and the story becomes bitter and cynical (readers of Williams' previous novel, "The Ghost Sister," will hardly be surprised at this turn). The two main alien characters turn out to be neither moral nor immoral (they're neither the all wise and beneveloent Spielberg creations nor the "bug eyed monsters" of early-20th-century lore), but merely bureaucratic schemers, more concerned with their personal advancement and with "office politics" than with the fate of the humans who they've created in the first place. There are some great set-pieces: at one point a movie star (she's from Bollywood, not Hollywood--the Americans are always off stage here), who is to appear in a biopic of Jaya's life, arrives at Jaya's hangout on a cloned mammoth with her own private army (complete with a helicopter): she is led to think it's up to her to save the world (not hardly). Like the book itself, it's a great conception.

It's bitter, sardonic, and a fast read. Political it may be, but it owes far more to Jonathan Swift than to Ursula LeGuin. You'll remember it a while.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Even Better than Ghost Sister, April 27, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Empire of Bones (Mass Market Paperback)

Liz Williams is simply one of the best science fiction writers on the contemporary scene. Like her excellent previous novel, The Ghost Sister, Empire of Bones emerges from a fascinating premise that is meticulously developed in a gripping story populated with rich characters, both alien and human. And she writes beautiful, direct prose that is evocative without being ostentatious. Few science fiction authors can pull all of this off, but Williams is batting 1000 so far. I am already eagerly awaiting her next book.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars fast-paced science fiction thriller, March 31, 2002

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Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Empire of Bones (Mass Market Paperback)

In 2030 India, Hindu Fundamentalists take control of the government and reinstate the caste system. Riots erupt as the Untouchables try to reverse the political and social systems, but their caste and only their caste, are struck down by a deadly plague. This disease gives credence to the belief that the Untouchables are beneath the notice of the other, higher castes.

Jaya Nihalani, an Untouchable, has fought against the government for much of her life and is regarded as a terrorist. When a mutated form of the plague strikes she is turned into a Receiver, able to communicate with a ship manned by those who seeded our planet millennium ago. Now Earth has evolved enough to be absorbed into the Rasatran Empire and Jaya must make sure that the assimilation goes well or Earth will be destroyed.

EMPIRE OF BONES is a fast-paced science fiction thriller that shows what could happen when First Contact occurs. The homeworld of Rasatra's politics, culture and social structure is crafted in such intricate detail it feels as if Liz Williams is a native social anthropologist. Yet the talented writer never slows down the action while providing characters, both human and alien, that are believable and understandable inside the strong plot. All this makes for a great novel and easy conversion into an excellent movie.

Harriet Klausner