Subject: "Courtship Rite" by Donald Kingsbury (a review)

From: [email-masked] (Gregory Turk)
Date: 30 May 91 18:06:10 GMT

Courtship Rite
		by Donald Kingsbury

	Copyright (c) 1991 Gregory Turk.

	(ugly bibliographic info given after review)

When I saw that the vote was in favor of creating rec.art.sf-reviews, I
decided that I would review an old favorite of mine, this book.  It is
likely that many reviews posted here will be of newer books, but perhaps we
can also suggest to each other older books and stories that might otherwise
slip from memory.

Before I begin, I will mention that my taste in SF runs slightly out of the
mainstream.  A couple of my favorite books are _Little, Big_ (John Crowley)
and _Dhalgren_ (Samuel Delany).  I don't care for Star Trek and I approach
with caution any book with the words "sword" or "dragon" in the title.  I
encourage other reviewers in this group to give the rest of us some ideas
about your tastes.  The purpose of a review is to help a reader decide
whether a given book or story will be to their liking.  How can a reviewer
do this without describing his or her tastes and biases?

Okay, the book.  No spoilers, trust me.

Let me begin now by saying that _Courtship Rite_ is very much a mainstream
SF book in comparison to the two books I mention above.  It is a book of
action and ideas rather than one of emotions.  The story takes place on a
world called Geta, and it focuses on a pivotal time in the history of the
Kaiel clan.  The leader of this clan has ordered the maran-Kaiel family to
woo and wed a particular woman for political reasons, an outsider to the
clan called Oelita, also know as the Gentle Heretic.  But the family (two
women and three men) already know who they want for their third wife, and it
is not the heretic.  Angry at the clan leader, the husband called Joesai
settled on an unusual way to court the heretic: through the Death Rite.
This woman must live through seven life-threatening trials before she is
again safe.  An odd courtship.

If I were a reader of this review, I would now be thinking uh-oh, one of
those books where all the characters have funny names and everyone runs
around in clans.  Yes, and it's also one of those books where there is a
quote beginning each chapter that is taken from the written history of the
planet.  You know, like _Dune_.  As much as I liked _Dune_, I found myself
snickering at more than a couple of Herbert's just a bit too serious chapter
headers.  However, I found that I enjoyed some of the quotes in _Courtship
Rite_ as much as the main plot.  You can check me on this.  When you are
browsing a copy of this book, read the header to chapter 17 that describes
oddities of some insects of the planet.  And try the start of chapter 30,
which tells why six is the best number of participants in a marriage.

This book is wonderfully rich in ideas.  The biology of the world is well
thought out, and it poses a puzzle that is fun to think through.  The
descriptions of the group marriage are fascinating, and I must confess that
the book makes such a marriage sound quite appealing to me.  The method of
political representation as practiced by the Kaiel clan sounds as reasonable
as any method of representation that I know.  This is speculative fiction at
it's best, where ideas about people and cultures are explored that could not
be presented through mainstream fiction.

No book is perfect, but the flaws of this book are slight.  The focus of
this book is Oelita, but the author becomes enamored with another female
character midway into the book and he lets the plot meander a bit before
returning to the central stream.  Also, I found the pace of technological
discoveries to be too rapid given the time span covered by the book.  Also,
be warned that _Courtship Rite_ is a book about cultures, not about personal
growth.  Don't expect the emotional depth that you will find in the works of
someone like Ursula LeGuin.  Ultimately, however, none of these problems
seriously detracted from my enjoyment of this book.

The next time you think about reading Book Seven of the Something-Or-Others
of Whatever, consider instead picking up _Courtship Rite_.  I think you'll
find it worth your while.

- Greg Turk ([email-masked])

%A Kingsbury, Donald
%T Courtship Rite
%I Pocket Books
%C New York
%D 1982
%G ISBN 0-671-46089-7
%P 409 pp.
%O paperback, US $3.95 (several years ago)