The Outskirter's Secret

by Rosemary Kirstein

Book Overview

Determined to learn the truth about the Guidestars--two points of light that hang motionless in the sky--Rowan sets out into the Outskirts, where barbarian tribes and the land itself could destroy... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345368851
• ISBN13: 9780345368850
• Release Date: October 1992
• Publisher: Del Rey Books
• Length: 342 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 4.2" x 6.9"

Customer Reviews

Adventure with Intelligence

Another original and exciting story of the female, swashbuckling scholar. The author has done her research and knows her subject: from a clever sword fight test to uncover the true identity of an opponent to interesting contrasts of the moral/social considerations of nomads as opposed to that of village dwellers (there is a core element of agreement, or there would be no basis of understanding). If possible, read "The Steerswoman" first.

Lose yourself in the Outskirts!

The Outskirts is a fascinating world described wonderfully through the steerswoman's natural inclination to quesiton and investigate. This book has it all...magic, mystery, intrigue, love, war, adventure. I look forward to next summer when I can read the next book in the series.

Kirstein's Secret

One of the major disappointments of the genre is the apparent abandonment of Rowan and Bel in the Outskirts. There was a sequel planned - I can find references to Ms. Kirstein's reading portions of it at science fiction conventions - but it doesn't seem to have ever been published. This book and its prequel, "The Steerswoman," are among my treasured paperbacks.At the risk of giving spoilers, imagine a world that's nearly uninhabitable by man, filled with plants and animals inimical to earthkind. Now imagine a program for the terraforming of that world, a program that will take centuries if not millenia, involving first infrared bombardment by satellite and the burning of the borderlands, then sowing a genetically engineered plant that serves as a transition to earth life, and then a succession of increasingly earth-like plants. After hundreds or thousands of years, in the areas treated first, the land is pretty much indistinguishable from earth; at the borders, life is strange and harsh. Most of the planet is apparently unchanged. Different peoples and cultures inhabit the various zones as the millenia-long terraforming proceeds. To make things stranger still, those with knowledge have made themselves sorcerers and wizards, wielding technology when and how it suits them, quarreling among themselves and extirpating those who would try to recover science and technology. Most residents in this world are technologically ignorant, unknowingly held in that state by the technocractic wizards.The sorcerers grudgingly tolerate a band of Socratean scholars, the Steerswomen, who have re-developed principles of logic and serve as explorers, historians and cartographers. They mingle with the people of this world, operating by two rules: they will answer any question you ask, provided that you answer the questions they ask you. If you refuse to answer a Steerswoman's question, they shun you. It works pretty well...But the wizards have their schemes, and as Rowan the Steerswoman struggles to understand them with the help of Bel, an outskirter, a member of one of the tribes on the fringe of the terraforming, the importance of understanding the schemes is increasingly urgent. Because one of the wizards is willing to use the infrared/burning tool in the satellite system to burn terraformed lands, and it is a terrifying weapon. The same wizard has caused one of the satellites to crash, at what jeopardy to the terraforming product we don't yet know. It is fascinating to watch Rowan struggle to understand the issues and her situation, to see her begin to grasp that the world she knows is not the world on which earthkind evolved. With her, we are ignorant as to the wizards' motives, but we can understand better than her the risks their actions are creating. Add to this meticulously crafted world and plot the vivid characters of Bel and Rowan, the logically consistent and believable cultures her world has spawned, and you have a wonderful story .... that is incomplete.

Two out of three?

I have read both of Rosemary Kirstein's books and enjoyed them enormously. She has created wonderful characters out of which an exciting story naturally develops. She has also imagined a world which at first sight looks fantastical and at second seems to be based on very sound science (Rowan's deduction of the notion of how to get something into orbit is fascinating).What troubles me about these books is that they are plainly part of a larger book which is unfinished. Many questions remain to be answered at the end of Outskirter's Secrets...and the main one *I* have is: what happened to Rosemary Kirstein? Why are two books of a (possible) trilogy all of her work we have to enjoy?What happened next?Inga

Intriguing mix of fantasy and science fiction.

Well developed characters in an interesting and plausible setting. The plot and pacing never lag, I read it in one sittting. My only regret is that the previous book in the series "The Steerswoman" seems to be out of print, and the much needed sequel does not appear to have been printed yet!