Customer Reviews

The Luck Of Brin's Five

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The planet Torin, whose single continent bears the same name, orbits one of the two stars that make up 70 Ophiuchi, 16-odd lightyears from Earth. Its sapient race, which calls itself Moruian, is humanoid, but marsupial, with little exterior sexual differentiation (even Moruians are likely to be unsure of the gender of a stranger, and often use the pronoun "it" interchangeably with "he" or "she") and eyes set more toward the sides of the head than frontward. Traditionally Moruians are organized in families called "fives," made up of three persons of breeding age (sometimes two males and a female, sometimes vice versa), an "ancient" (an older relative of the person who formed the Five and whose name it bears), and a Luck--someone who has "suffered some misfortune" by birth or accident, a dwarf, a hunchback, a cripple, deaf, blind, albino, mad or half-mad, scarred or maimed--plus minor children. Brin's Five is a female-led family of weavers--five adults and two youngsters, plus one still "in the pouch"--dwelling on the slopes of Hingstull Mountain in the far north of Torin continent. Their Luck, Odd-Eye, is dying, and they fear what may become of them if they can't find another. Then--a miracle! An object like a falling star crashes into the Warm Lake, and proves to be a metallic container in which a living being is trapped. He is Scott Gale, a Man, one of a four-person survey team from Earth, who has gone out alone in the team's small flyer and come to grief for his pains. Rescued and adopted by the Five, which marvels at his black hair and front-facing blue eyes, he becomes Diver or Garl, their Luck. But the fall of his skyship was seen by other eyes than theirs, and it is taken from the lake by a grandee and carried away. Scott wants to recover it if he can, and to return to his own people in the distant volcanic islands--which will mean either flying there or buying or chartering a boat. To do the latter he must have Moruian wealth--cloth or credits. When the Five discovers a wrecked Moruian glider, he sees a way to earn what he needs: enter the great Bird Clan air race held to observe the spring equinox. But caution is necessary, for the grandee Tiath Avran Pentroy knows that there was a living being in the aircraft, and is stirring up fear against him.

The story is told by Dorn, the 12-year-old eldest of Brin's Five, who describes the adventures of his family on its way from Hingstull to the Bird Clan grounds to the great city of Rintoul. Wilder isn't quite as skilled in "thinking like an alien" as C. J. Cherryh or K. D. Wentworth (see my reviews of Pride of Chanur and Black on Black), but she creates a fascinating species and society with a technology that's an intriguing mix of pastoralism, gliders and balloons, and the feared and mostly-hidden "fire-metal-magic" (steam power and electricity). The Bird Clan is a wonderful festival vividly described, Rintoul includes such wonders as "windows glazed in many panes...with stiffened rope between...," and Moruians have both a written and a woven script, many (including Brin's Five) being able to read both. This is the first volume in a trilogy and should find favor with any reader who enjoys tales of distant planets and well-imagined aliens.