The long-awaited sequel to C.S. Friedman's epic, In Conquest BornThe tribal Braxaná-created to become the ultimate warriors. The Azeans-raised to master the power of the mind. Two civilizations fighting an endless war over a long-forgotten cause. Now, after a century and a half, the legacy of their greatest military leaders threatens to tear apart both empires.
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Space opera with brains. -- Locus
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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36 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not up to her potential,
By
This review is from: The Wilding (Daw Book Collectors) (Hardcover)
From the high-fantasy Coldfire Trilogy, with one of speculative fictions most enduring anti-heroes, to In Conquest Born which introduced her readers to the universe of the Braxi and the Azea and their unending war, C.S. Friedman's talent has been blossoming before our eyes. But it was with her last novel, This Alien Shore, that Friedman joined the ranks of such legends as Frank Herbert and Vernor Vinge for the scope of her vision and the brilliance of her characters. As an author whose start was noteworthy and who has improved markedly with each new offering, it is only natural that science-fiction fans have been anxiously awaiting her newest novel, The Wilding. Unfortunately, such fans are destined for disappointment.
Abandoning the richly-textured and powerfully original universe of This Alien Shore, Friedman brings us back to the conflict between the Azea and the Braxi. However, in The Wilding this conflict is merely a back-drop against which the story of two girls is told: Zara and Rho, twins separated at birth. Although the separation itself was the result of a botched kidnapping, authorities on both sides of the conflict ignored opportunities to reunite the girls in order to study the effect environment had on mental development. It turns out that the twins had the genetic predisposition toward telepathy, a trait feared yet desired by each side in the conflict. By raising Zara in the telepath-hating Azea empire and allowing Rho to be raised by radical psychic separatists, both sides hoped to learn the secrets to unlocking, and eventually controlling, mental powers. Allowing atrocities in the name of science is certainly not new ground for Friedman. In This Alien Shore the protagonist Jamisia had her mind deliberately fractured by a corporate superpower which believed that the secrets of FTL [faster-than-light] travel lie somewhere in the unfathomable minds of individuals suffering from multiple-personality-disorder. In that previous work the stakes were huge, the goals laudable and the means monstrous. Jamisia was the ultimate hero-victim, simultaneously helpless and superhuman. The Wilding has no such saving grace. Neither Zara nor Rho is likely to resonate with the reader, and the triteness of their separated-at-birth scenario is hard to escape. The Braxin warrior Tathas is barely more compelling since his bloodlust and insatiable sexual appetites are already a Braxana male stereotype for anyone who is familiar with Friedman's earlier works. Only the Braxin female K'Teva, with her obsessive political ambitions and subtle machinations, rises to the level of Friedman's previous characters, and her part in the story is sadly peripheral. Even the epic struggle between the Azea and Braxin is trivialized in The Wilding. Whereas in previous works Friedman made a point of depicting the warmongering Braxin and the sophisticated and emotionally reserved Azea as equally sympathetic, here she has inexplicably chosen to take sides, with the Braxin cast as the villains and the Azean guardians of all that is good. Not only is this a notable departure from the precedent set in earlier novels, it makes for a much less interesting story. The occasional mediocre book is every author's due, and Friedman has certainly earned the continued attention of the science-fiction community. Let us hope that The Wilding is simply a misstep on the road of continued literary distinction and does not represent a detour into the pedestrian.
23 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not one of her best.,
By Asphalt Jungle Guide "njsurfer" (Leading Edge of Nowhere) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Wilding (Paperback)
For an author to return to a universe she created years (and several novels) ago requires some daring, and 'daring' really should be Friedman's middle name. She tackles thorny ethical issues and moral questions--and the consequences of the chosen answers--without flinching.
I'd been waiting years for this book. I'm sorry to say it did not live up to my expectations. "The Wilding" is the long-awaited sequel to her debut novel, "In Conquest Born". I was expecting a return to that universe, perhaps a return tothe characters whose ultimate fates were left dangling so tantalizingly. Instead, the story begins three generations after the conclusion of ICB, and introduces one of the most morally repulsive male characters ever to be passed off as a protagonist. (Gerald Tarrant wasn't a shining prince, either, but he never made light of rape, or taunted women with the threat of it.) Whatever high points this book had were quickly sunk by this repulsive, sickening man for whom we were supposed to empathize. Sadly, many of the most intriguing characters were killed off, the most promising plotlines and sub-plots never developed. The scientific theories (many of which are hot-topic debates in the real-world) are sound, and could well hold the attention of readers who wish to read about the mystery of twins living parallel lives, the long-term effects of war on a cultural psyche, and the truly nebulous definition of 'enemy.' One of Friedman's gifts is that she can take even minor characters and make them memorable, even if they appear only forthe purpose of being killed off a few pages later. Many authors, writing violent stories, downplay the fact that the "people" being killed are indeed people, with names, personalities, and hopes/ambitions/fears. Many people die in Friedman's books, but none of them die as strangers to the reader. In my opinion, this book would have been far more interesting if we'd been allowed to *learn* about the Diaspora, to *see* the effect of the Plague on the Braxanna, to see how the characters we spent so much time learning of in ICB became the figures of legend so briefly mentioned in "The Wilding." I would have loved to see more about the motivations of the half-blood, about the household of the mysterious supreme leader of the Braxanna, of the history of the Azeans, and the changes in its culture, away from telepathic development and genetics to...what it is in "The Wilding." (At the risk of spoilers, both sides of the Great War have diminished, greatly. It was sad, to see so much potential reduced to a few pages of exposition, when whole novels could have been produced from it.) This isn't a *bad* book. It has some unique characters--apart from the repulsive male lead--some interesting questions and conflicts. It is, by many measures, a good book. It is, however, a poor sequel to "In Conquest Born." I would have given this book a lot more leeway if there *hadn't* been an expanded, revised 'anniversary edition' of ICB released prior to this. The story universe, then, wasn't that far off then, so the clumsy fit with the previous work stands out much more sharply. If you are a completist, you will want to read "The Wilding." If you want to know what's happened in that story universe since ICB... it may leave you right back where you started.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Not as good as the first... but still good,
By Professor J (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Wilding (Daw Book Collectors) (Hardcover)
After 15 long years, C. S. Friedman has returned to the universe that put her on the map. <strong>In Conquest Born</strong> remains one of the only space opera series I've ever enjoyed, largely because of its focus on the fascinating cultures of her far-future humanity and the even more fascinating characters who embodied them. In this long-awaited sequel set 200 years after the first book, the Azean Empire and the Braxin Holding are still locked in their endless war. However, this time around the Great War takes second place to internal strife within both civilizations. The Azeans are still struggling in the aftermath of losing their greatest advantage against the Braxins: the psychics. This is in part fallout from Zatar's attack on their homeworld in the first novel, but also because his attack revealed the psychics' hidden agendas and made the Azeans realize they couldn't be trusted. So the psychics are now hunted throughout the galaxy, believed to be helpless and scattered -- but in truth they've regrouped and begun growing in strength. At the beginning of the novel a pair of infant twins are separated as psychics kidnap one of them (Rho) and leave the other (Zara) behind.
Meanwhile, the Braxin Holding has troubles of its own. The ruling Braxana tribe is on its last legs, weak enough that other tribes are actually beginning to contemplate rebellion. Tathas, leader of an outlawed tribe, is betrayed and captured by the Braxana. His only option is to undertake a ritual called "the Wilding", in which he goes in search of genetic material worthy to be added to the Braxana bloodlines. He decides to track down the psychics in the hope of finding the descendants of Anzha lyu Mitethe, the heroine from ICB. Zara grows up, living a normal and comfortable life in the Empire until without warning she begins to develop psychic powers. This forces her to flee before she can be imprisoned; she undertakes a desperate search to find the psychics so that they can help her learn to control her power. Tathas goes in search of the psychics as well, and coincidentally runs across Zara. Together they end up on a quest which takes them from primitive worlds to the galactic seats of power, ultimately working their way through conspiracies which threaten to destroy both empires. As before, this sequel is full of intrigue and awesome, galaxy-shaking events. The characters are briefly but thoroughly developed, each giving further insight into their respective cultures. Tathas was my favorite character, even though as a common Braxin he's essentially a brutal animalistic rapist and murderer. He had a wry, obnoxious streak which made for a nice contrast with the austere Braxana depicted in the first novel. Zara took awhile to grow on me, but I think this is in part because I've always liked the Braxins more than the Azeans. Both cultures have their pros and cons, but I respect the Braxins' honesty about their flaws over the Azeans' secrecy. Zara <em>did</em> grow on me once we met Rho, her sister who was raised by telepaths, and who came across as an equally brutal, less funny mirror of Tathas. Ultimately Zara and Rho seemed to epitomize the different sides of Azea -- Zara the kindhearted idealist, Rho the coldhearted assassin. Tathas too had his mirror -- K'teva, the half-Braxana woman he semi-loves (since Braxins don't admit to love), but she read to me as a bit of a cliche: the scheming seductress. It was good to see more strong Braxin women, but I just didn't find her as interesting or likeable as Ni'en, L'resh, or the poet (whose name I can't recall) from the first novel. This partially touches on what weakened this novel for me, in comparison with its predecessor. There were more prominent characters in this story, but none with the presence or power of Zatar or Anzha. ICB thrived on the love-hate relationship between these two larger-than-life characters; Wilding is by comparison a study of a bunch of very normal (for their respective societies) people. There's the hint of a romance between Tathas and Zara, but it never goes beyond a hint. Though this is perfectly plausible given their backgrounds, it's also a bit of an unsatisfying tease. At least with Zatar and Anzha we had consummation of a sort. But what really troubled me about this novel was the weakness of the intrigue. After ICB's complex, stunning conspiracies, the ones in this novel seemed transparent and simplistic. And some of the events in this novel were borderline implausible. K'teva uses the Black Death on a man, risking her own life and probably a huge amount of her fortune for what seems to be a very trivial reason. Tathas encounters a group of mercenaries and is accepted into their ranks with puzzling ease, for no clear benefit on their part to make it worth the risk. In ICB, no one did anything without a purpose; even the most random events turned out to be part of some character or another's master plan. In this novel, the characters -- even the Braxana -- seem to "wing it" a lot more. This is not to say I didn't enjoy The Wilding. For the second foray into the fascinating universe of ICB alone it was worth it. And I'd like to see another novel set in this universe, maybe a more direct sequel resolving some of the characters' issues from this book. The worst I can say about this book is that it's merely good, not groundbreaking like its predecessor. But for me, "good" means it's worth the hardcover price.
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