Not too often does a book have my heart
pounding, my eyes racing across the text, concerned for the fate of
the protagonists, eager yet fearful to find out how the story will
unfold. Fall of Angels is one of those books – a gripping story
about the fate of a ship-wrecked crew on an unknown planet.
Unlike so many in the genre, however,
the crew encounters not some alien race, but a human civilization
that was the result of some previous colonization – a civilization
cut off from the colonizers for generations that has evolved back
into a relatively low-tech society.
The story becomes one of survival. The
crew must use what they have to construct a sustainable outpost,
learn the local customs, trade with the people to gain the supplies
they need, using their technology at first to create the things they
will need when their technology (and battery-stored power) wears out.
Modesitt doesn't wave his hands and
expect us to just accept that the crew will survive. He outlines the
struggles as they plant crops, learn to harvest the variety of local
food, build their shelter, determine where to obtain their heat,
encounter problems with sanitation, and even struggle with their
sometimes strained relationships as they adapt to a lifestyle none
knew before. Through the efforts of Nylan, the ship's engineer,
Modesitt takes us on a tour of the sorts if problems that plagued
human civilization for generations, nay, thousands of years prior to
our own period.
Although the survival efforts wind
throughout the story, this story is not about survival or aliens or
even magic: It is a classic tale of Good versus Evil, but told in a
new and compelling manner.
For the Evil that the crew (Angels to
the locals) encounter is not that of some malevolent individual bent
on world destruction or domination. Instead, the evil arises as a
result of fear, tradition, and subjugation.
The local civilization resembles many
in our past: Tradition-bound, xenophobic, and built upon male
dominance and female subjugation. Women are property, to be used,
abused, and cast off when no longer needed. The ship-wrecked crew
represents an affront to all three elements: They lack the
traditions, they are new, and most profoundly, they are egalitarian
(both the ship's captain and the head of the marine contingent are
women.) When the first marauding group of locals stops by to raid
their women and is wiped out, word spreads of the 'evil' Angels
amongst the locals, and the seeds for a show-down confrontation are
sown.
As the story unfolds, we get insights
into both groups. The antagonist is revealed to be thoughtful,
against the wars he feels compelled to wage, a family man: I started
wishing a different fate for him than what I expected might be. He
ends up being driven, again, not by evil desires, but by the evil
that exists in the society he is in.
Fall Of Angels is a tragedy – a
tragedy born of the fears of individuals. Modesitt shines a light on
the evil that arises when society values conformity over progress,
devalues some individuals (or entire classes of individuals), and
wages war to 'hold' something they have no use for.
This becomes the real value of the
story. Through elegant story-telling that sweeps us along, Modesitt
encourages us to think about our position in society and our
society's traditions and values: He clearly drives us to consider
that a society that values all individuals will be stronger than one
that discounts or abuses significant portions; and that those abuses
and lines of thinking will drive us to acts that are both detrimental
and evil.
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