Subject: Prograde Reviews--Sean Stewart:Nobody's Son

From: [email-masked] (Aaron V. Humphrey)
Date: Thu, 07 Apr 1994 06:54:25 GMT

Sean Stewart: Nobody's Son

A Prograde Review by Aaron V. Humphrey

Sean Stewart's a great writer.  If you haven't checked out his first novel
_Passion Play_, which should be available in the States by now, then do
so.  This novel is totally different, but still good.

In the first chapter, the protagonist, Shielder's Mark, removes the ancient
curse from the Ghostwood, for which the King has promised great reward. 
Mark is utterly lowborn, by the way, and not anyone's idea of a hero, but
he succeeds where others have failed perhaps _because_ of this.

In the second chapter, he goes to court to claim his reward--which, by this
point, he expects to be substantial.  He is smitten with the King's
youngest daughter, and asks for her hand, which is granted.

Sound like a fairy-tale so far?  Not a chance.  The King's youngest
daughter, Gail, is about as far from a fairy-tale princess as you can get
and still be the daughter of a King.  And Mark would be totally lost in the
intrigues of court, without the aid of Gail, her maid and confidante Lissa,
and the scholar Valerian(who is smitten with Lissa and sees Mark as a
possible in).

As Mark goes to take possession of his new Duchy of Borders, on the edge of
the former Ghostwood, he begins to realize all is not right.  So he sets
forth into the wood to finish what he started...

But a summary of the plot can't convey the deftness with which Stewart
handles all this.  The characters are all living, breathing and real,
especially Mark and Gail.  And Ghostwood seems to bring forth the darker
things everyone had thought were lost in the past...especially Mark's
unresolved feelings towards the father he never knew.

I saw Stewart at a convention, giving a talk about "Big 'A' Art and SF",
wherein he concluded that while mainstream literature is going more towards
the tiny incident, and the everyday occurrence, SF remains a haven for
huge, sweeping plots and clashes of archetype--and Star Wars, for instance,
a striking example of this strength.  In both this novel and _Passion
Play_, Stewart has shown he can reconcile this with a touch of realism and
still pull off a hell of a story.

Stewart's my choice for the John W. Campbell this year.  No question about
it.

%A Stewart, Sean
%T Nobody's Son
%I Maxwell Macmillan
%C Don Mills, Ontario
%D Copyright 1993
%G ISBN 0-02-954160-3
%P 233 pp.
%O Hardcover

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