"Ring of Swords"

[fiefoe]

For a sci-fi book, it was unusually easy to get into. Eleanor Arnason's focus on domesticity (all that tea/coffee making!) no doubt is part of the reason. It's also very easy to put down, which makes it good bedtime reading material.

• She still had the feeling that she was at a mad tea party. It was the combination of enormous distances and tiny sandwiches, and the little captain sitting quietly, almost sleepily. He was starting to look like a dormouse.
• Was that one of the prices of treason? she wondered. Bad tailoring? Being out of fashion?
• "But I have a firm grip on English. It won't be able to wriggle free."

The alien culture is like a fun-house mirror image of that of the earthlings. Maybe too much so.

• (One of the things I really like about the hwarhath is you can break almost any rule, so long as you are willing to commit suicide afterward. They feel that this keeps people from developing bad habits.)
• "You acted, as far as I can tell, out of honor and compassion, but your action was unnecessary and inappropriate. Does the fact that your action was unnecessary make it meaningless? ...How can I judge the behavior of an alien, a person from a culture that does not seem to have the first idea of what is decent?"
• I told the general that the humans might find it hard to take people wearing shorts seriously. So we had the Art Corps design space cadet uniforms. Very nicely done, I thought.
• "Fighting is a male skill. But the negotiations concern peace as well as war, and the skills of peace belong to women." How definite these people were! Anna couldn't imagine speaking like this with hardly a modifier or qualifier, especially after spending years writing academic papers.
• A frightening thought! What are men good for, if there are no enemies and no borders to protect? How are they going to spend their time? How are they going to feel self-respect?
• ... since the Goddess gave the small black box of morality to First Woman and First Man.
• And why bother? There was nothing on that planet that we needed, except an enemy, and they did not understand the rules of war.
• The hwarhath are not especially vindictive, and they don't have our idea of justice.  To them killing a criminal is like killing a dangerous animal.
• "They wanted a war that was big enough to keep the men busy and out of the women's fur. Far enough away so the home planet would not be threatened, but a reasonable commute."
• We are not - what is the word for eaters of one another? ...""Capitalists," said Anna. "Is that right?" Ettin Gwarha asked me. "In this context the right word is cannibal."

__ As on all journeys, she felt (for a time) outside her life. She was not the person who had left the research station, nor the person who would arrive. she could consider past and future with an equal mind.
__ Matsehar, I wanted to say, the universe is very large, and most of it is cold and dark and empty; it's not a good idea to be too picky about who you are going to love...There is no way I can help him, and one should never offer advice when angry.
__ Learning is the one certain source of pleasure, and the one consolation that never fails.

__ MI: Dangerous people. Eaters of rats and poisoners of socks.
__ those products of a badly considered insemination