Renegade, (Book 2) (Marq'ssan Cycle) [Paperback]

L. Timmel Duchamp (Author)

Book Description

Series: Marq'ssan Cycle | Publication Date: April 1, 2006

Renegade, the second of the five-novel Marq ssan Cycle, opens in August 2077 as the Pacific Northwest Free Zone, having survived the first year of its existence, faces both internal and external challenges. The US s Security Services has deployed a paramilitary covert action team to capture Kay Zeldin, Security s most wanted renegade, and destabilize the Zone s civil order. Nevertheless, Kay ventures outside the Free Zone to search for her spouse and dozens of other scientists who have disappeared, travelling through a war-torn American landscape she barely recognizes. When she encounters Security s formidable Elizabeth Weatherall, each woman risks all she has become in no-holds-barred, mortal combat.

Editorial Reviews

Review

I devoured every word of every page --Amy J. Ransom, SFRA Review, Oct/Nov/Dec 2006 --SFRA Review, Oct/Nov/Dec 2006

Not an easy or reassuring book, but a very intense one. Well worth seeking out. --Peter Heck, Asimov's SF

This second installment of Duchamp's (Alanya to Alanya) projected five-volume saga of postmodern society continues to establish the breakdown of familiar social structures and the transformation of human values from a self-serving model to one that is truly cooperative. Feminist in intent and meticulous in execution, this work of dystopian fiction belongs in most large sf or speculative fiction collections. --Library Journal

About the Author

L. Timmel Duchamp is the author of Love's Body, Dancing in Time, a collection of short fiction, The Grand Conversation: Essays, The Red Rose Rages (Bleeding), a short novel, and Alanya to Alanya, the first novel of the Marq'ssan Cycle. Her stories have appeared in a variety of venues, including Asimov's SF and the Full Spectrum, Leviathan, and Bending the Landscape anthology series, and she has been a finalist for the Nebula and Sturgeon awards and short-listed several times for the Tiptree Award. She has also published numerous critical essays in The New York Review of Science Fiction, Extrapolation, Foundation, and Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet.

Product Details

• Paperback: 616 pages
• Publisher: Aqueduct Press (April 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933500042
• ISBN-13: 978-1933500041
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,025,489 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Compelling political and psychological thriller, September 13, 2007

By 

Anastasia (Staten Island, NY) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Renegade, (Book 2) (Marq'ssan Cycle) (Paperback)

This is a tense, fascinating, extremely well-written, thought-provoking book. I suspected it would be brilliant from the endorsement by Samuel R. Delany, but I had no idea it would be such a page-turner. Although it is the 2nd entry in the Marq'ssan cycle, I read it and it works fine as a stand-alone. It only made me more curious to figure out the political structure of the world I've landed in and how it came about that way.

In the late 21st century, the U.S. is ruled by the Executive system - a complete social, political, and psychological (and possible biological, as you begin to wonder) division into two classes: executives and service-techs. It's a frightening paradigm, all the more shocking because it's no so removed from our reality in the present, only painted in more stark terms.

As I inferred, in the 1st book of the cycle, the aliens - Marq'ssan - landed, and deployed an EMP bomb, frying all electronic devices. Taking advantage of the ensuing chaos, the north-western section of the US around Seattle breaks off and becomes a Free Zone - an anarchistic society, purged of executives, money, and all forms of government. Decisions are made by consensus of committees formed exclusively of women (men tend to behave rudely at meetings, so they were banned), and streets patrolled by vigilante gangs of armed women. Along with the portrayal of just how such a society might survive, we're given glimpsed inside the life of an executive woman in the U.S., two very contrasting paradigms.

The story follows Kay Zeldin, former double agent for the Executives, turned traitor and currently living in the Free Zone. On the other side of the fence is Elizabeth Weatherall, one of the most powerful executives in the country, who had her own agenda for Kay. The most unsettling and powerful part of the book - I don't know if this is a spoiler, please let me know if it is, but I feel it is important to mention - depicts long-term continuous physical and psychological torture from the prisoner's point of view. Absolutely fascinating stuff. The ending floored me... devastating, although not surprising, and all too realistic.

It's a complex, adult book that delves into the politics of relations: sexual, professional, class, between the torturer and the victim, the government and the governed. It's a compelling, can't-tear-yourself-away-from-the-page book.

4.0 out of 5 stars The Saga Continues, March 17, 2011

By 

Sue Lange "Sue Lange" (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Renegade, (Book 2) (Marq'ssan Cycle) (Paperback)

In this second book of Duchamp's Marq'ssan Cycle, the world has started to recover from the Marq'ssan "blanket" dropped in the first book to discombobulate all radio and video transmission. In this book, Military and Security are at odds, Security itself is in a civil war, and pockets of organized anarchy (is that even possible?) called "free zones" exist the world over. Kay Zeldin, star of the first book (Alanya to Alanya) is in big trouble for revealing the secret goings on of Security.

There isn't as much blatant gender theory in this second book. Duchamp's philosophy, though, is exhibited albeit more subtly. This is especially so in the last half of the book which is taken up entirely with Zeldin's capture and psychological torture through deprivation, reward and punishment, and humiliation. The excruciating depiction of a human losing their sense of self is chilling and depressing. Humiliation and manipulation seem to be the theme of this book, and it is depicted not only between prisoner and warder, but between members of different castes, different genders, and different professions. The book is a veritable thought experiment on how our society has been put together using these two tools and asks the question what will happen if capitalism is taken to its extremes. The answer seems to be a return to Feudalism but with high tech methods of control.

The book does not yet give an overt opinion on whether this nouveau-Feudalism is good or bad. Certainly things are getting done: wheels are turning, people are getting fed. But it's not necessarily done in a pretty way. The exceptional humans--intelligent and forceful--are robotic and inhuman. Everyone else appears weak and ineffectual. The world outside the free zones is as inviting as 20th Century totalitarianism. The only hope for humanity seems to lie in anarchy. I give Duchamp credit for making the statement and inviting us to disagree. Of course we don't know yet exactly if that's what the statement is. The story's not done. Will the free zones survive? Will Security make peace with Military and work together to plunder the free zones? Time will tell in this series what conclusions Duchamp has actually come to.