Customer Reviews

The Far Side of Evil

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Fiction doesn't have to be profound, just entertaining. But every once in a long while, a novel comes along that is both. Here, Sylvia Engdahl presents her "Critical Stage" argument for space exploration -- to wit, if we do not get out into space now, much further and longer than we have heretofore, then we may never get the opportunity again. As an advocate of space exploration and human life in the cosmos, I have explored this theme in my own non-fiction writings, noting how many cultures invented many things, only to see them languish (the Aztecs invented the wheel, to give but one example -- but they confined its use to just the toys of children). Engdahl had developed this idea years earlier, in The Far Side of Evil, but with all the tender flourishes and haunting interludes and personal verve of science fiction at its very best. The heroine, Elana (last seen in Enchantress from the Stars) is not very old. But the challenges she encounters echo from the very beginning to the ends of time, and speak to the very place of humanity in the universe, and what we need to do to attain and claim it. In age in which terrorism has threatened our ways of life in unexpected ways, Engdahl's probing story, and the recommendation it contains, are especially relevant. Originally published some three decades ago, this new edition, revised by the author's deft hand, is even better.

Ms. Engdahl's works are the rare sort that broaden or change philosophical mindsets while being great stories with characters the reader never forgets. That any of her works are out of print is a mystery. Whenever I have loaned anyone her books, they have devoured them in one sitting and begged for more. The Far Side of Evil is a realistic depiction of the emotions involved in individuals living in a world divided by ideology. The writing is a masterpiece of human psychology. More than that, it offers hope of a sane future for humanity presented with calm rationality and certainty. And even more than that, you can't help but laugh and cry with Elana, and feel, as she does, empathy for those whose emotions have pulled them in destructive ways yet who are not bad people, just mistaken. The people of Elana's world view compassion as a strength, unlike our still Youngling world with its emphasis on the hard exterior which is only an appearance of strength. I read this book for the first time when I was 12, and I still check it out from the library. My son read it and loved it as much as I do (though the Children of the Stars trilogy is his favorite)If only the publishers would sit up and take notice and reprint this book!

In this book, Elana is sent on a solo mission to observe a world called Toris, which is in the "critical stage". This is the stage when a sentient species has nuclear weapons, but not space colonies. THat means that they can destroy their planet, but don't have other colonies to live on if they do. If they (we; we're in the Critical Stage as I understand it) destroy their (our)planet, their species dies with it. Toris is in a cold war between two superpowers, the Neo-Statists and the Libertarians. The former have nuclear weapons. Presumably so do the latter. However, they have not even sent a satelite into orbit.

Sometimes Elana would be allowed to intervene: this time, she is only an observer, and she has only two things to concern herself with: information, and staying alive. With temporary amnesia and sickness, she is placed in a hospital in the control of the controlist Neo-Statists (who beleive that "anyone who believes himself independantly wise is insane". They also beleive that people have no worth except as part of the State. I am compelled to quote a Star Trek book: "Without all the 'ones', there would be no 'many'"). The amnesia is a good alibi for not knowing much about Torisian society, so she escapes most suspician. Then she finds a menial job and an appartment, which she shares with a young woman named Kari. Kari, it turns out, is in love with a man that Elana knows is also an "agent", a member of her Fedaration who chooses to go undercover on "Youngling" worlds. This man, Randil, is like Elana afraid for Toris, and wants to keep nuclear war from happening. Unlike her, he interferes. He gives the Neo-Statists a spaceship. Elana trys to destroy it, and is caught.

That's when the "dark" part of the book starts; it's a lot of sceens between Elana and a torturer. Elana is a very strong character; she doesn't hate him. He thinks she's a Libertarian agent; she finds that immensly funny. Actually, it's told in first person, as though she is in the prison, recounting the story of how she got there. When she runs out of "past" story, Elana goes on to describe how she and Kari convince Randil to destroy the ship himself.

Each character is well-defined and interesting. Elana doesn't describe appearances, which may bother some people. I don't mind it. There are only a few characters with important roles: Elana, Kari, Randil, and Commander Feric, the torturer who is as close to a villain as there is. If anyone but Elana were telling hte story he WOULD be the villain, but Elana just says that he's wrong. In just about everything. He never understood that Elana would never give in, because more was at stake (that world) than he could destroy to coerce her. I was very satisfied with his fate.

Randil is a positive character, even though he causes a lot of the trouble in the book. He is a bit naive, and he has less experiance than Elana. (He applies the similarity between the growth fo a species and the growth of a person too literally. Planetary civilizations have a childhood, adolescence, and adulthood; so do people. But people can want war even though worlds can't, and he assumes that no person can want war when there is an alternitive. He doesn't understand the reality of evil.)He makes a terrible mistake and pays for it, and he is a bit tragic, even before the end of the story, because you know (through Elana) that an agent and a Youngling who fall in love can't stay together.

Kari, who is in love with him and assumes that she will marry him, is the character who grows most in the course of this story. As it starts, she is insecure and pessimistic about the fate of Toris. (I understand that feeling very well.) She is kind and smart, but she has no confidance in herself. She's sympathetic to the Libertarians- but since that's against the law, she can't tell anyone. When she is arrested and tortured to influence Elana, Elana fakes that a drug has given her telepathic abilities, like the one that lets her not care about pain. (The principle sounds like shock- it's there, but it's not conected.) As Kari goes through terrible experiances (which I won't describe; suffice it to say that I found this in the YA section, but I'm not sure that all teens could deal with it), you'd expect her to be broken by the experiance. She isn't. She becomes stronger, until she is willing to die in the explosion that will destroy the spaceship. At the end, she has decided to enter the Resistance against the Neo-Statists. Kari is an ordinary person who becomes a hero in her own way, and she effected me as deeply as Elana and Randil did. Maybe she will live and maybe die, but she will have done the right thing, and made a difference.

Elana is the teller of the tale, as she told the very different story of "Enchantress From the Stars". She is deeply compassionate, kind, and likeable on a personal leval. I'd like to describe her further, but it is hard to do that with someone you see only through their own eyes. So I will describe her civilization instead. The Fedaration (not the UFP of Star Trek, though there is a similarity to the Prime Directive) is made up of mature species, which have grown out of war and superstition and hate. They believe in freedom; they are completely different from the Neo-Statists. The Service is a group of people from the Fedaration who pretend to be Younglings (people from species that haven't grown up yet) to either learn about them or avert disaster on Youngling worlds. Elana has been in the Service for a short time, since the events in "Enchantress". She questions many ideas in the rule of noninterferance, but ultimately decides that they're right. The fact that she does not believe in even her own people's ideals unquestioningly makes her very real. Elana is a very intelligent and thoughtful person, besides bravery. She makes hard choices: when she tries to destroy the ship, she knows that people will die. But she also knows that it's the lesser evil, and better than the destruction of Toris. Back to the Service: one of the requirements of the agents is the compassion that Elana shows. She mentions at one point that some people could harden themselves to suffering, but they aren't the kind of people who get into the Service.

The scientific/philosophical ideas of this book are facinating. The one I will mention is the idea that all sentient species go thorugh a childhood, when they are believe in magic and have low-level technology; an adolescance when they put that aside as superstician; and an adulthood, when they realize that science and magic are the same thing after all. Another element of philosophy in this book is Elana's statement htat the fall of empires is a law of nature, although it will come at the price of evil and suffering. But, as she says, "there are always people, ordinary people like Kari, who are willing to pay the price for freedom." It is very true.

This story is dark in the sense that the Neo-Statist government supresses freedom in the countries the rule. And horrible things happen to Kari and Elana, although Elana can deal with pain and helps Kari to do so. (She does it through telepathy. Since Kari doesn't believe in that, she tricks Kari into thinking that it's the effect of a drug. Torisian society has this idea that drugs can do anything.) It is not dark in the sense that Toris is saved (By diverting the government's attention from war to space. That's a neat idea that I think that we should take more heed of (maybe it wouldn't really work, but I hope so): That nuclear war can be avoided by diverting our attention to something "more important": space travel and space colonies), Elana and Kari both survive, and Elana knows that now that Toris is past the Critical Stage, it will survive, becoming a mature civilization like her own.

I suppose I should describe this edition in particular. I read a copy with a very inacurate cover, which shows Elana in rather conspicuous clothes outside a city that looks more advanced than the Torisians are described as being. There is a huge and very visible spaceship in the air overhead. But covers are nearly always innacurate (do cover artists even read the book?) so that is nothing against the edition. In the back is a note from the author, explaining that the Critical Stage is a real thing to her (and me) not a plot device. She also says that while the prequel was not meant to be taken literally, but this one is. She makes a rather valid point that at the moment, even given the ability, we probably wouldn't make a star empire like the ones in some fiction that go around conquouring worlds, and she doubts that we or anyone else would do so when we do have the ability. Finally, she states that what she meant by "out of the Critical Stage" was colonies, not jsut space probes and satilites. This edition was adapted a bit to make that clear.

A dark book, but wonderful. I would recomend it, but if you don't want to read a very dark book, the prequel "Enchantress from the Stars" is far less so and just as good.

This is a wonderful sequel to 'Enchantress from the Stars', telling about the further adventuers of Elena. As good as the first book. But please, why isn't it in print?

Elana has just graduated from the Federation Anthropological Service, a program run by a highly advanced civilization that is designed to observe `Youngling' planets and possibly intervene (without the citizens of the planet knowing they are doing so) if there is no other way to save its people. Immediately given an assignment to observe a planet on the brink of nuclear disaster, her fellow agent, Randil, is convinced he can save its people by doing the very thing Elana is sure will destroy it. Can she simply watch the planet destroy itself, or should she turn renegade like Randil, whose emotions have started controlling his head, and attempt to prevent disaster...or possibly make things worse?

This is a very mature book, with some rather dark sections in it that will make you cringe- and not only because it seems like those things could easily happen in our world. However, the reasons for what Elana does are well thought out, and the setting is described so that it feels like you're there. A wonderfully original plot, I'd give it four and half stars.

I read this book when it first was published, and recentlyfound it again when moving and going through books. Even thirty yearslater, it is still fresh, and gives a vivid picture of totalitarian society as seen by an outsider. The moral and ethical issues are interwoven with a touch of Sci Fi. It might be classified as 'young adult' but this adult enjoyed it once again!

In this book, Elana is sent on a solo mission to observe a world called Toris, which is in the "critical stage". This is the stage when a sentient species has nuclear weapons, but not space colonies. THat means that they can destroy their planet, but don't have other colonies to live on if they do. If they (we; we're in the Critical Stage as I understand it) destroy their (our)planet, their species dies with it. Toris is in a cold war between two superpowers, the Neo-Statists and the Libertarians. The former have nuclear weapons. Presumably so do the latter. However, they have not even sent a satelite into orbit.

Sometimes Elana would be allowed to intervene: this time, she is only an observer, and she has only two things to concern herself with: information, and staying alive. With temporary amnesia and sickness, she is placed in a hospital in the control of the controlist Neo-Statists (who beleive that "anyone who believes himself independantly wise is insane". They also beleive that people have no worth except as part of the State. I am compelled to quote a Star Trek book: "Without all the 'ones', there would be no 'many'"). The amnesia is a good alibi for not knowing much about Torisian society, so she escapes most suspician. Then she finds a menial job and an appartment, which she shares with a young woman named Kari. Kari, it turns out, is in love with a man that Elana knows is also an "agent", a member of her Fedaration who chooses to go undercover on "Youngling" worlds. This man, Randil, is like Elana afraid for Toris, and wants to keep nuclear war from happening. Unlike her, he interferes. He gives the Neo-Statists a spaceship. Elana trys to destroy it, and is caught.

That's when the "dark" part of the book starts; it's a lot of sceens between Elana and a torturer. Elana is a very strong character; she doesn't hate him. He thinks she's a Libertarian agent; she finds that immensly funny. Actually, it's told in first person, as though she is in the prison, recounting the story of how she got there. When she runs out of "past" story, Elana goes on to describe how she and Kari convince Randil to destroy the ship himself.

Each character is well-defined and interesting. Elana doesn't describe appearances, which may bother some people. I don't mind it. There are only a few characters with important roles: Elana, Kari, Randil, and Commander Feric, the torturer who is as close to a villain as there is. If anyone but Elana were telling hte story he WOULD be the villain, but Elana just says that he's wrong. In just about everything. He never understood that Elana would never give in, because more was at stake (that world) than he could destroy to coerce her. I was very satisfied with his fate.

Randil is a positive character, even though he causes a lot of the trouble in the book. He is a bit naive, and he has less experiance than Elana. (He applies the similarity between the growth fo a species and the growth of a person too literally. Planetary civilizations have a childhood, adolescence, and adulthood; so do people. But people can want war even though worlds can't, and he assumes that no person can want war when there is an alternitive. He doesn't understand the reality of evil.)He makes a terrible mistake and pays for it, and he is a bit tragic, even before the end of the story, because you know (through Elana) that an agent and a Youngling who fall in love can't stay together.

Kari, who is in love with him and assumes that she will marry him, is the character who grows most in the course of this story. As it starts, she is insecure and pessimistic about the fate of Toris. (I understand that feeling very well.) She is kind and smart, but she has no confidance in herself. She's sympathetic to the Libertarians- but since that's against the law, she can't tell anyone. When she is arrested and tortured to influence Elana, Elana fakes that a drug has given her telepathic abilities, like the one that lets her not care about pain. (The principle sounds like shock- it's there, but it's not conected.) As Kari goes through terrible experiances (which I won't describe; suffice it to say that I found this in the YA section, but I'm not sure that all teens could deal with it), you'd expect her to be broken by the experiance. She isn't. She becomes stronger, until she is willing to die in the explosion that will destroy the spaceship. At the end, she has decided to enter the Resistance against the Neo-Statists. Kari is an ordinary person who becomes a hero in her own way, and she effected me as deeply as Elana and Randil did. Maybe she will live and maybe die, but she will have done the right thing, and made a difference.

Elana is the teller of the tale, as she told the very different story of "Enchantress From the Stars". She is deeply compassionate, kind, and likeable on a personal leval. I'd like to describe her further, but it is hard to do that with someone you see only through their own eyes. So I will describe her civilization instead. The Fedaration (not the UFP of Star Trek, though there is a similarity to the Prime Directive) is made up of mature species, which have grown out of war and superstition and hate. They believe in freedom; they are completely different from the Neo-Statists. The Service is a group of people from the Fedaration who pretend to be Younglings (people from species that haven't grown up yet) to either learn about them or avert disaster on Youngling worlds. Elana has been in the Service for a short time, since the events in "Enchantress". She questions many ideas in the rule of noninterferance, but ultimately decides that they're right. The fact that she does not believe in even her own people's ideals unquestioningly makes her very real. Elana is a very intelligent and thoughtful person, besides bravery. She makes hard choices: when she tries to destroy the ship, she knows that people will die. But she also knows that it's the lesser evil, and better than the destruction of Toris. Back to the Service: one of the requirements of the agents is the compassion that Elana shows. She mentions at one point that some people could harden themselves to suffering, but they aren't the kind of people who get into the Service.

The scientific/philosophical ideas of this book are facinating. The one I will mention is the idea that all sentient species go thorugh a childhood, when they are believe in magic and have low-level technology; an adolescance when they put that aside as superstician; and an adulthood, when they realize that science and magic are the same thing after all. Another element of philosophy in this book is Elana's statement htat the fall of empires is a law of nature, although it will come at the price of evil and suffering. But, as she says, "there are always people, ordinary people like Kari, who are willing to pay the price for freedom." It is very true.

This story is dark in the sense that the Neo-Statist government supresses freedom in the countries the rule. And horrible things happen to Kari and Elana, although Elana can deal with pain and helps Kari to do so. (She does it through telepathy. Since Kari doesn't believe in that, she tricks Kari into thinking that it's the effect of a drug. Torisian society has this idea that drugs can do anything.) It is not dark in the sense that Toris is saved (By diverting the government's attention from war to space. That's a neat idea that I think that we should take more heed of (maybe it wouldn't really work, but I hope so): That nuclear war can be avoided by diverting our attention to something "more important": space travel and space colonies), Elana and Kari both survive, and Elana knows that now that Toris is past the Critical Stage, it will survive, becoming a mature civilization like her own.

I suppose I should describe this edition in particular. I read a copy with a very inacurate cover, which shows Elana in rather conspicuous clothes outside a city that looks more advanced than the Torisians are described as being. There is a huge and very visible spaceship in the air overhead. But covers are nearly always innacurate (do cover artists even read the book?) so that is nothing against the edition. In the back is a note from the author, explaining that the Critical Stage is a real thing to her (and me) not a plot device. She also says that while the prequel was not meant to be taken literally, but this one is. She makes a rather valid point that at the moment, even given the ability, we probably wouldn't make a star empire like the ones in some fiction that go around conquouring worlds, and she doubts that we or anyone else would do so when we do have the ability. Finally, she states that what she meant by "out of the Critical Stage" was colonies, not jsut space probes and satilites. This edition was adapted a bit to make that clear.

A dark book, but wonderful. I would recomend it, but if you don't want to read a very dark book, the prequel "Enchantress from the Stars" is far less so and just as good.

I have read this book, and thoroughly enjoyed it. It talks a lot about Engdahl's view on the progression of civilizations, and it gives such wholly-developed perspectives of people who share different opinions. It really provides such a solid foundation of beliefs on which the author constructed the book. It also makes us wonder just where we stand, as a species on a planet that may be one in millions. The statements it offers on the whole Critical Stage idea I found extremely sensible. Although there are people who believe that the idea of alien civilizations is completely far-fetched, it really is a narrow-minded assumption-after all, we are just one species on one planet in a whole universe of unexploration. I highly recommend this book.

Mind-blowing book!
Elana is such a gorgeous character for me because I can really look up to her. She was everything and more the hero is meant to be. In a few situations, she would have been completely justified in lashing out at others, but she always went for the greater good, and she didn't come across as snooty at all! Though Elana was much older in this book, I could still see the personality that I so loved in The Enchantress From the Stars. Randil and Kari were very well defined and interesting. It was possible to understand where they were coming from, and how their experiences had shaped them.
Characters: 5 Stars
Can I just say, it took every last ounce of will in my being not to skip ahead and read the end! Riveting from the very first pages, The Far Side of Evil is pure Sci-Fi while still exploring the contours of an oppressed society. Several unexpected twist and turns. To be cliche, I was on the edge of my seat till the last pages! I do wish the ending had been a little stronger, but it tied things up quite nicely while still leaving the reader room for imagination.
Plot: 5 Stars
This book posed so many philosophical questions that kept my mind working for some time after I finished. It reads more towards an older audience than The Enchantress From the Stars, but could possibly be classified as YA. The Far Side of Evil is written as a diary, in a style that left the future unknown. I loved it!
Style: 5 Stars

Rating: 5 Stars

The Far Side of Evil is an interesting counterpoint to some of the more blood-and-thunder space opera out there. The protagonist has dedication, integrity and a difficult mission to do. She does it despite hardship, without drama or angst. Highly recommended.