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mossfoot's review against another edition
4.0
Warp World is the first book in an ambitious series being put out by Canadian author Kristene Perron, and US author Joshua Simpson. Kristene is far more of an adventurer than I am and her work has appeared in a number of magazines, while this is Josh’s first published novel.
The two main characters are literally from two different worlds – neither of them ours. Ama is a seafaring woman in a mostly pre-industrial world where she has few rights and is being forced into a position to betray her own people. Seg is a from another world leading his very first scouting party, preparing for a tactical strike of Ama’s world to take resources back to his world – though not the kind of resources you’d ever expect invaders to be interested in.
Ama ends up being hired by a wealthy traveller for an extended journey, and it might well be the opportunity she’s looking for to earn enough money to get away from everyone forever and live her own life. The traveller, however, is Seg in disguise on a separate recon mission from the rest of his unit.
It’s not giving away anything to say that the story ultimately leads to the big raid, but getting there is far from easy (of course) on either world.
What impressed me most about this book is how it avoided having “the good guys” in it. Oh, there are good guys (and gals) but no side is on the path of virtue. The People of Seg’s world are nationalistic, ultra-orthadox, and have a serious master race complex going on which allows them to take slaves from all the worlds they travel to and treat them as sub-human. Ama’s people, the Kenda, are subjugated under the heel of an authoritarian, sexist, and religious elite. And despite being the downtrodden the Kenda aren’t saints, either, being just as sexist as the rest of them. So while you will side with and like individuals (or grow to) you don’t see any culture as being a paragon of virtue, or even close. And likewise there aren’t any convenient Empire of Ultimate Evil, either, just individuals who are scum, and a regime that – well, it’s no Utopia, sure, but there have been worse on our planet, let’s be honest.
And I don’t just mean you personally don’t agree with them (because you can disagree with Robert Heinlein’s views in Starship Troopers and still recognize that he’s trying to portray their culture as a positive thing), but even the authors are simply laying these cultures out there as things that exist, rather than proxies for someone’s ideals or warnings of where we might end up.
And that, when you think about it, isn’t all that common in Fantasy or SF.
Instead you have a situation of potential mutual convenience. Seg’s people need fuel (of a sort), Ama’s people want freedom. Eventually it seems they can work to achieve both their needs, but to do so has a cost. There’s nothing “clean” about the solutions provided, only ruthless, efficient, and necessary to reach the ends they both require.
But that’s not to say that morality isn’t at play. It’s in the works. Seg in time gets over his master-race mentality. But if you’re expecting “Dances with Warps” in which he goes native and joins to live with the primitives, you’re way off base. Seg’s mentor, Jarin, has plans for the young pupil to change their own dying world – assuming that he can survive.
I found Warp World to be a fun and entertaining read that managed to avoid a number of the cliches I had come to expect. As a fan of strong female characters I liked Ama a lot, and Seg, while he gives uptight a whole new meaning, is far from flat and uninteresting. He is a character destined for growth, and does so as the story develops. You realize quickly he’s a product of his world, and it will take time for him to break out of his shell.
The two main characters are literally from two different worlds – neither of them ours. Ama is a seafaring woman in a mostly pre-industrial world where she has few rights and is being forced into a position to betray her own people. Seg is a from another world leading his very first scouting party, preparing for a tactical strike of Ama’s world to take resources back to his world – though not the kind of resources you’d ever expect invaders to be interested in.
Ama ends up being hired by a wealthy traveller for an extended journey, and it might well be the opportunity she’s looking for to earn enough money to get away from everyone forever and live her own life. The traveller, however, is Seg in disguise on a separate recon mission from the rest of his unit.
It’s not giving away anything to say that the story ultimately leads to the big raid, but getting there is far from easy (of course) on either world.
What impressed me most about this book is how it avoided having “the good guys” in it. Oh, there are good guys (and gals) but no side is on the path of virtue. The People of Seg’s world are nationalistic, ultra-orthadox, and have a serious master race complex going on which allows them to take slaves from all the worlds they travel to and treat them as sub-human. Ama’s people, the Kenda, are subjugated under the heel of an authoritarian, sexist, and religious elite. And despite being the downtrodden the Kenda aren’t saints, either, being just as sexist as the rest of them. So while you will side with and like individuals (or grow to) you don’t see any culture as being a paragon of virtue, or even close. And likewise there aren’t any convenient Empire of Ultimate Evil, either, just individuals who are scum, and a regime that – well, it’s no Utopia, sure, but there have been worse on our planet, let’s be honest.
And I don’t just mean you personally don’t agree with them (because you can disagree with Robert Heinlein’s views in Starship Troopers and still recognize that he’s trying to portray their culture as a positive thing), but even the authors are simply laying these cultures out there as things that exist, rather than proxies for someone’s ideals or warnings of where we might end up.
And that, when you think about it, isn’t all that common in Fantasy or SF.
Instead you have a situation of potential mutual convenience. Seg’s people need fuel (of a sort), Ama’s people want freedom. Eventually it seems they can work to achieve both their needs, but to do so has a cost. There’s nothing “clean” about the solutions provided, only ruthless, efficient, and necessary to reach the ends they both require.
But that’s not to say that morality isn’t at play. It’s in the works. Seg in time gets over his master-race mentality. But if you’re expecting “Dances with Warps” in which he goes native and joins to live with the primitives, you’re way off base. Seg’s mentor, Jarin, has plans for the young pupil to change their own dying world – assuming that he can survive.
I found Warp World to be a fun and entertaining read that managed to avoid a number of the cliches I had come to expect. As a fan of strong female characters I liked Ama a lot, and Seg, while he gives uptight a whole new meaning, is far from flat and uninteresting. He is a character destined for growth, and does so as the story develops. You realize quickly he’s a product of his world, and it will take time for him to break out of his shell.
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