The Sardonyx Net [Paperback]

Elizabeth A. Lynn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 27, 2001

In a far future universe ruled with slavery and drugs, a Starcaptain turned slave discovers that rebellion is the highest form of love.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Delightfully complicated...an excellent novel. -- Locus

Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Ace; First Edition edition (February 27, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0441008143
• ISBN-13: 978-0441008148
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,466,721 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fun and sexy -- a hidden guilty pleasure, April 30, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Sardonyx Net (Hardcover)

Lynn wrote this book when the punk culture was nowhere near as "old" as it is now, but I was rummaging around in some old books and found it, and discovered that it could be considered modern today.

The story includes "hypers" who are the space-faring subsegment of society, who hang out in hip, trendy bars that exclude non-hypers. Hypers are not necessarily outlaws, but Dana, a hyper with his own starship, ekes out a marginal living by smuggling. He picks the wrong cargo, and falls into the hands of a ruthless slaver named Zed Yago. Zed is also a sexual sadist that satisfies himself with Dana before giving him ("I don't own slaves") to his sister. The planet they live on is one big desert (see Dune) that has an economy based on legal slavery.

Lynn makes no apologies for this, or anything else that happens to Dana. Dana spends very little time feeling sorry for himself, and of course the story is about his attempts to escape this fix.

It is also more about sexual expression in a setting that allows exploration that would not be plausible in a less extreme setting. Although I felt that Lynn could have gone deeper into this, perhaps she arrived at a better balance between action and introspection than I would have. Good fun, in any case.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An insufficiently-known classic, August 14, 2004

By 

Michael K. Smith (South Louisiana) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Sardonyx Net (Paperback)

I first read this affecting novel twenty years ago and large parts of it have stayed with me every since. It's long out of print, but I hunted until I found a copy -- and I know now, again, why I remembered it so well. Lynn is known mostly for her high-concept fantasy, but this one is "what if" science fiction of the best sort. It's sometime in the unknown future and humans have colonized dozens of worlds, aided by the discovery of the "Hype" -- a parallel hyperspace route between stars, navigated by starcaptains, latter-day bravos with their own traditions and culture. The four worlds of the Sardonyx Sector got together a few generations ago to set up a prison world called Chabad, not unlike Britain shipping off its felons to Australia. But now Chabad is a colony world, too, with its own exports, and nearly everything is powered by the slave labor of the convicts. Lynn is careful to make her version of slavery as humane as possible: After their sentence is up, slaves are freed, their property is returned to them, and they can either leave Chabad or become free citizens. They're depersonalized, but not tortured. If they have useful skills, and if their owners are sensitive people, they may experience something like contentment. But they aren't free. And many, perhaps most, slaves are kept dosed on a tranquilizing euphoric drug called dorazine to keep them controllable. Of the Four Families that run Chabad, the slave system is in the care of Family Yago, and especially of Domna Rhani Yago, head of the family, and her brother, Zed, who is both a Senior Medic and Commander of the "Net," the toroidal starship that collects the prisoners from the other worlds of the sector and brings them to the slave auction on Chabad. Add an interplanetary antidrug police force trying to keep dorazine from being brought to Chabad, and all the elements are present for a complex, involving plot. But the real focus is on the personalities of Rhani, a reasonable, fair-minded woman who has been blinded by her upbringing and position, and of Zed, a sexual psychopath and thoroughgoing, self-aware sadist. And, finally, of Dana Ikoro, young starcaptain trying to bring off his first successful dorazine smuggling run, who gets caught and falls afoul of Zed before becoming Rhani Yago's slave-pilot -- and confidant, and lover. And there are more than a dozen other carefully-drawn characters in the supporting cast, all of which makes this a thoroughly fascinating book. I've read other reviews by readers -- probably much younger ones -- that have been knee-jerk dismissive of this novel because it seems to approve of slavery, . . . which it doesn't. Lynn seeks only to examine the possible effects of its use, which she does very effectively. Those other reviewers seem to adhere to absolutist standards of ethics and morality and seem not to understand that history (even when it's future history) is what happens, not what *should* happen. Both attitudes are foolish. But then, most long-time science fiction readers learn early to become tolerant ethical relativists.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Why doesn't she write more sci-fi?!, July 16, 2001

By 

ronaron (US) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Sardonyx Net (Paperback)

This story is old (I think I was just a little kid when it was first published) but it sure doesn't seem like it. This futuristic tale is still futuristic, not dated in the least, and that's a timelessness that all storytellers should strive for. The basic premise of the book, drug enhanced slavery, is okay, but it's so much thin air without the involvement of the characters, my favorites being Dana and that sado-masochistic, pain/fun lovin' villian you love to hate to love, Zed Yago. The deep-space-faring hypers are so cool, it makes you want to dress up (or down) in leather and mesh, toss some glitter in your hair and cruise down to your neighborhood space bar. What gets me is that the only sci-fi Elizabeth A. Lynn has written is this book and "A Different Light." Of the handful of books she's written at all over the past 25 years, most of them are fantasy. I have no problem with fantasy, most of the books I own are of the genre, but her hip, stylish brand of science-fiction is one that I can get into, one that isn't so glaringly technical that my eyes roll back into my head, one that doesn't sacrifice story and style to teach you how to go about building a warp drive. Her two sci-fi stories are connected in many ways, and seem to take place in the same universe, with the sub-space highway of the Hyper being part of both. She could build on this if she wanted to, and if she does, I'll be there with glitter and eyeliner.