Rebel Sutra [Mass Market Paperback]

Shariann Lewitt (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 15, 2001

The colony world of Maya is run by the Changed: a carefully inbred aristocracy clustered in their hillside city, high above Babelion and its wretched swarms of poor colonists. For generations now the Changed have been altering their own genes and their children's. They're smarter, faster, longer-lived, better with computersand acutely aware of their own superiority. What they don't admit is that they have become a separate species.

Every year, the Changed generously allow a handpicked group of human children to come up from Babelion and be tested alongside their own young. But the Changed know, as the humans do not, that it's a sham. The humans will always fail. They don't have the right genetic makeup, the years of intensive training, it takes to mesh properly with the computer system where the test takes place. Their best will never be enough. It's a subtle way of teaching them their place.

Then, one year, Arsen shows up: strong, smart, wildly charismatic, and not at all convinced of the superiority of the Changed. Still, he's nothing the system couldn't cope with--until he hooks up with Della, Changed born and bred, but every bit as rebellious as Arsen. She, too, doubts that the serenely self-absorbed Changed have all the answers. She even has ties to the Tinkers, the mysterious vaga-bond scientists who make Maya one of their stopping points.
What starts between Arsen and Della will tip their whole on its side, and start it rolling downhill . . .

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Maya is a world controlled by a self-perpetuating aristocracy, the Changed, who maintain their superiority by tinkering with the genes of their children. This long tradition of genetic manipulation and the brain patterning that goes with it allows the Changed to interface with the Exchange, a computer-based community of blended intelligences. Those who are merely human are denied such opportunities and are consigned to the squalor of the city of Babelion. When Arsen, a young man of Babelion, meets Della, a young Changed woman--both of whom, naturally, are strong, smart, and single-mindedly rebellious--the stage is set for a galloping SF adventure. Arsen, unfortunately, gets killed (in a series of events designed to showcase the natural evil of the Changed), though not before Della becomes pregnant. Their son is Anselm, who is destined to change the world.

Using multiple viewpoints (some of which work better than others), Lewitt (Memento Mori) shows us a young man who not only struggles to understand himself and his dual heritage but manages to lead a full-scale rebellion and discover, in passing, that Maya itself is a mere pawn in an Imperial power struggle. A healthy dose of philosophical and spiritual self-examination, spiced by a little romance and dollop of Hindu cosmology, leavens this otherwise traditional tale of the triumph of the human spirit over technological oppression. --Luc Duplessis --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

On the colony planet Maya, genetically altered humans known as the Changed rule a population of "normal" humans with a combination of blatant paternalism and cruel disdain. When a rebellious human boy and a Changed girl meet and produce a child, the result of their youthful passionDan exceptional youth known as AnselmDcontains within him the power to alter the world forever. The author of Memento Mori depicts a far-future world in which humans have split into different species caught in the age-old struggle for coexistence. This thoughtful blend of dystopian sf and old-fashioned romance belongs in most sf collections.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Tor Science Fiction; First Edition edition (July 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812571185
• ISBN-13: 978-0812571189
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,380,491 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One man's dream., June 25, 2001

By 

Alex (College Park, MD) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rebel Sutra (Hardcover)

Though few people suspect it, the forsaken colony world of Maya - "Illusion" - is aptly named. This frigid, volcanic world is dominated by a twin human settlement: the Mountain - a domed city of the genetically-altered Changed, worshipful of their deranged AI god - the Exchange; and Babelion - the slum city of the would-be wardens to the Changed - the petty, idling humans. What no one on Maya knows, however, is that they are not the only remaining colony - indeed, a whole interstellar Empire has sprung up and fractured while the denizens of Maya shared their delusion. Now the Empire is all but dead, usurped by the Pretender Emperor - and it is up to a hapless scientist to save the last Cloned Empress embryos to perpetuate the rightful bloodline. In clandestinely giving one of the cloned embryos life among the elitist Changed, Suu-Suu has made a fateful miscalculation - for though Della went power-mad without her training as Empress, her mixed-blood son - Anselm - was destined to uncover the true extent of Maya's illusion - even at the cost of chaos.

This sophisticatedly twisted melange of "Ender's Game" and "Fahrenheit 451" is passionately, exhaustively well-written. Shariann Lewitt has adopted an interesting internal structure - the book is told in two halves from two characters' perspectives. Della's story is presented first, in the form of a memoir. It begins at the finale - the revolution - and goes on essentially backwards through Della's time with the Tinkers (Suu-Suu's mysterious band of banished off-worlders) and her brief tryst with Arsen - the young revolutionary from Babelion - Anselm's father. Anselm's story is told in a more conventional fashion - it begins with his forced flight from the treacherous Mountain (the secret of his mixed-blood parentage is anathema to the Changed) and continues on through his time with Babelion's meandering, petty revolutionaries, his tutelage under the Hindu priests, and his final confrontation with his fate. Indeed, Anselm's story is a search for meaning and self-discovery, a quest for identity, a struggle against his own dehumanization and needless symbolism, his battle against those who would have (knowingly or not) made him a mundane pawn of the old . Ultimately, his is a search for truth.

The novel deftly interconnects its parts by having all stories told by knowing first-person narrators in the past tense - there are numerous internal redundancies, parallels, cases of deja vu, and so on. Lewitt interestingly infuses her tale with Hindu mythology and philosophy - and makes it perfectly accessible to the reader. Her voice as a writer has a tasteful twang of femininity - similar to LeGuin's but less labyrinthine. At times, "Rebel Sutra" had me literally spellbound in its clutches.

It does have several flaws, most obvious of them being the numerous allusions to Anselm's apparent homosexuality - which is fine in itself but doesn't quite fit with the story (did she retain this tendency from her participation in "Bending the Landscape", or vice versa?). Several characters are made deliberately flat only so they can add artificial depth to Anselm's dramatic struggle. The author enjoys making allusions to revelations given further on in the book - whcih frequently makes sense within the context of the story, though I hate being baited by lines such as "...but the actual reason for it being the way it is we didn't learn until much later."

Nonetheless, this is a powerful, excellently written work of fiction. Sorry to say it - but this is a "must-read."

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Embryos, Empresses, Environment, and Enhancements, April 28, 2002

By 

Patrick Shepherd "hyperpat" (San Jose, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Rebel Sutra (Mass Market Paperback)

Galactic empires have been a staple of SF for many, many years, but the one presented here is quite different. Based on the idea that there is just one individual properly suited to be Empress and one suited to be the Pretender to the throne, each individual is endlessly cloned and appropriately trained to fill their defined role. But in the latest triumph by the Pretender, Suu-Suu, one of the scientists charged with the keeping of the embryos of the Empress, flees to the forgotten colony world of Maya, long isolated from the Empire, taking the embryos with her. The world of Maya, ignorant of the happenings in the empire, has proceeded on its own development path, a colony world split into two factions of (nominally) normal humans and the Changed, people who have been genetically enhanced to interface with a computer AI. But all of this is just background, not really part of the main story line, a pity, I think, as the full development of this societal structure would have been extremely intriguing.

Against this background Lewitt places the story of Della, apparent member of the Changed who becomes infatuated with one of the 'lesser' humans, Arsen, and bears a child by him, Anselm. Arsen becomes the leader of an abortive revolt against the Changed, protesting the human's treatment by the Changed and their abysmal living conditions. When Arsen is executed for his part in the revolt, the stage is set for Della and her son to continue the fight, each in their own way.

During the course of their struggles, each of them journeys down a road of self-discovery, a slowly dawning awareness of the Empire and the role of Maya and the genetically enhanced humans in the larger picture. It is this journey that is main attraction of this book, leading Lewitt's characters and the reader into the realms of philosophical reality, personal identity, the influence of environment versus heredity, fate against free will, prejudice, and the influence of other's expectations on an individual's choice of actions. Della and Anselm are both well drawn believable people, even if neither is the paragon of virtue. However, most of the other characters are flat stick-figures, merely there as props for the action.

The story construction is somewhat odd, starting from Della's memoirs at the end of the revolution, changing in the middle to Anselm's point of view as the revolution is just beginning. This construction only partially works, as at times it allows the good use of foreshadowing, at others it spoils the suspense, leaving a certain level of confusion in its wake and leading to an odd, not-quite-there atmosphere.

The prose style is adequate, but at times more detailed descriptions of places and everyday happenings would have been helpful. I found myself floundering a couple of times trying to imagine a particular scene with too few signposts to direct me. The apparently complex structure of the Changed's society is merely hinted at, not fleshed out in great detail, so Della's position within and actions to control that society remain somewhat ambiguous and nebulous.

A very ambitious work, with potentially tremendous thematic concepts and ideas, enough for three books of this length, but not quite executed well enough to make the story vibrant and demanding.

2 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, September 30, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Rebel Sutra (Hardcover)

Pretty good read. A litle strange. I'd say definitely worth reading.