Oct 212015
Locus: Dickinson has taken the gender concerns of Delany, and Delany’s attention to economic/vocational matters and colonialism/imperialism, all set in a pre-technological milieu, and conflated them with some of the aforementioned Cherryh-esque literary/thematic tactics to create a truly fine and distinctively individual fantasy novel that delivers action and philosophy, economics and warfare, love and hatred, in equal measures. His voice, however originally influenced, rings out strong and clear as a new addition to the chorus of fantasists.
The conclusion to the rebellion leaves her in a highly unanticipated situation, as Dickinson masterfully inverts almost all of the reader’s expectations.