e first encountered the steerswoman named Rowan and her quest across a seemingly magical world in the pages of The Steerswoman (1989). A sequel followed fairly swiftly in the form of The Outskirter's Secret (1992). (Both of these books are now available in an omnibus volume titled The Steerswoman's Road.) There came a long interval of silence on Kirstein's part until the release of The Lost Steersman (2003). But Kirstein seems to be fully back in the saddle now, judging by the swift appearance of the latest installment.
Rowan is a member of a knowledge-seeking and information-disseminating guild whose itinerant members bind together an ostensibly pre-technological world. The Inner Lands where the steerswomen travel constitute a safe and civilized realm dotted with cities and trade routes, while the Outskirts where they never venture are harsher lands populated by odd beasts and nomadic tribesmen with strict codes of behavior. A final factor in the cultural equation is the presence of a handful of wizards, who remain generally aloof from daily affairs, while retaining immense powers that allow them to dictate policy when they so desire. For many generations this stable scenario has allowed mankind to flourish. But now things have gone awry.
The first sign of a breakdown in the system is an odd piece of jewelry that comes into Rowan's hands. In the first book of the series, she determines that the jewelry was connected to the demise of one of the Guidestars, stable points of light in the night sky that serve to guide travelers. In the second book, Rowan and her new best friend, Bel, a woman warrior from the Outskirts, reached the source of the "jewels" and discovered a crashed Guidestar. The fact that this ostensibly "natural" object was actually manufactured opened the possibility that Rowan's world was not all it seemed. In fact, a master wizard named Slado seemed to be at the heart of a vast conspiracy. In the third volume, on the hunt for Slado, Rowan encountered a new sentient race.
In this new installment, Rowan and Bel are back in the Inner Lands in a seaside town named Donner. There they begin to piece together the local events of 40 years ago, when the Guidestar fell and Slado first rose to power. Questioning the townsfolk—answering a steerswoman's questions is compulsory, under pain of a lifetime ban from sharing in the guild's knowledge base—Rowan learns of a struggle for control between apprentice Slado and his master, Kieran. Apparently Slado killed Kieran, assumed his powers and began his ascent to world dominance. But where is Slado today, and what does he intend? The arrival of an old friend, Willam, promises to help provide some answers. Several books ago, Willam was a teen with magical propensities whom Rowan managed to apprentice to a friendly wizard named Corvus. Now an adult, Willam has left Corvus behind to function as a free agent. Rowan enlists his help to plunder the secrets of the current wizard of Donner, a pompous fellow named Jannick. But Jannick's lore is concealed in a house that has killed all previous intruders. Can Rowan, Willam and Bel penetrate Jannick's defenses and emerge with clues to Slado's plotting? Maybe, with the aid of Jannick's own dragons ...
Compassionate characterization
Rosemary Kirstein walks the tightrope between fantasy and science fiction in this series with precision and grace, producing a hybrid adventure that recalls both purely fantastical works such as Le Guin's Earthsea series and purely science-fictional titles like Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz (1960).
Right from the outset, Kirstein has been clever and scrupulous about planting clues that hint that not all is as it seems in her future. Although the books read on the surface as pure fantasy, they carefully leave themselves open to interpretation as post-apocalyptic SF. By the time of this fourth volume, this secret is out in the open, and even the non-wizardly characters themselves are starting to get the picture. New mysteries left unsolved by the book's end, involving astronomical photographs, further deepen the SF nature of the tale.
What Kirstein is doing is portraying how humanity's innate desire to unriddle the phenomenological universe will persist through all sorts of dark-ages setbacks. Rowan's adherence to the tenets of her guild make her a kind of proto-scientist, and thus a perfect exemplar of the SF mindset. Additionally, the books take on some of the qualities of a mystery novel, as Rowan and crew try to reconstruct old crimes and puzzle out active conspiracies. SF and the mystery genre have always been intimately linked, and Kirstein makes the most of their resonance.
But of course none of this would matter if the characters and their adventures were not compelling, and Kirstein satisfies in these areas as well. Rowan ages realistically during the course of her adventures (the books span six years of her life), and by this volume she's scarred and limping from her exploits. Bel is an excellent foil and contrast to Rowan, and Willam comes across as his own man as well. Kirstein's compassion for even minor characters is evident on every page, and her prose is measured and alluring without being overworked.
My only quibble is that this series seems in danger of being extended as long as that of Tubb's Dumarest in his quest for Earth. The events of the past two books, while intriguing on their own, have barely inched Rowan any closer to Slado's hideaway. It seems unlikely that a fifth book will be the climax, either, and I wonder how much longer poor battered Rowan (she's almost electrocuted in this volume) can go on!
