Conference noted::sf

1215.0. "Michael P. Kube-McDowell's Exile" by JVERNE::KLAES (Be Here Now) Wed Mar 23 1994 16:59

Article: 534
From: Humphrey Aaron V <dg-rtp!amisk.cs.ualberta.ca!aaron>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews
Subject: Prograde Reviews--Michael P. Kube-McDowell:Exile
Date: Tue, 22 Mar 1994 15:48:02 GMT
Organization: not specified
 
Michael P. Kube-McDowell: Exile
 
A Prograde Review by Aaron V. Humphrey
 
Michael P. Kube-McDowell is a very much overlooked author of hard SF. 
I admit that I'm saying this only on the strength of two books--this
one and his last, _The Quiet Pools_--and one novelette, "Slac //", but
I feel confident the rest of his work will hold up.  (And I'm not just
saying this because I know him from Fidonet.  Really.) 
 
It's perhaps unfortunate that I read this book so close to Orson Scott
Card's _The Memory of Earth_, because the cultures share some
nontrivial similarities, mostly having to do with women being able to
own property and men not. 
 
It takes a bit of time into the book before we find out more about the
history of the colony(and before the main character discovers his
world to be a colony), so I won't spoil much of it here.  Civilization
on the planet is confined to a single city--and indeed, most of the
inhabitants believe that city, and the river that flows through it, to
be all that really exists, and certainly all that is habitable.  Exile
is considered worse than death. 
 
The book is divided into two threads, the 'present'(done in first
person) and the 'past', done in third person.  In the latter, one man,
Kedar Nan, has stumbled across early records from the era of
colonization, and he is running a semi-underground school to discuss
and disseminate this information.  The main character, Meer Fas, runs
across him by chance, and gets absorbed into this circle, although he
is always somewhat of an outsider.  The school is galvanized by the
arrival of a starship, its attempts to communicate with the city, and
its eventual silencing.  They are arrested(except for Meer, who
escapes fortuitously)and sentenced to death or exile.  Meer himself,
drafted into 'jury duty', passes a sentence of exile on Kedar, rather
than have Kedar's own son forced to kill his father. 
 
In the 'present', Meer received a message from a colony of exiles
living outside the city, that Kedar Nan is dead and has requested Meer
return his body to the city for burial.  After some deliberation, Meer
goes, to find Kedar Nan not dead after all, but very close to death. 
He discovers that the world outside the city is not dead after all,
although the sun's radiation is less than healthy for extended exposure. 
 
He returns with Kedar Nan, who dies near the city.  At this point,
Meer is suddenly insired to carry on Kedar Nan's fight against the
oppressors who rule the city.  He rallies the exiles, sneaks into the
city, gathers his allies, and takes over.  Yes, the ending _is_ a bit
rushed.  It takes the last three chapters, after Kedar Nan's death,
which is somewhat of a shock after the leisurely pace through the rest
of the book--and that's with two chapters of present to one of past. 
I surmise that Kube-McDowell was trying to put more emphasis on the
spiritual journey of Meer than the physical plot, but I think he could
have struck a better balance. 
 
Apart from that, it's a great book.  I highly recommend it, and
Kube-McDowell's other work.
 
%A Kube-McDowell, Michael P.
%T Exile
%I Ace
%C New York
%D May 1992
%G ISBN 0-441-22212-9
%P 289 pp.
%O Paperback, US$4.99, Can$5.99
 
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