Golden Witchbreed

I love this book and its sequel Ancient Light. Beautifully written, for me this is Mary Gentle at her best. I first read these books in the 1980's and have since revisted them. I often wish that Gentle would revisit them too.

A huge journey across a vast alien world is a theme more consistent with fantasy than SF but Mary Gentle brings it off beautifully. Her aliens have a lot of 'classic' features but they still seem very fresh and real. She makes the journey emotional without ever making it sentimental, we are engaged by the envoy's travails but are still uplifted by them and personally, I found myself envious. The more she travels, the more about the history of the world we find. It's a fascinating journey, albeit a long one. If you enjoyed this, you might also like "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula Le Guin, which shares many features with this book.

I absolutely love this book. It's the kind of book that will suck you right in as soon as you start reading. Golden Witchbreed is complex in its construction, but easy to follow because of how information is doled out one piece at a time. The planet on which the story takes place seems to come to life in front of the reader. The author did an excellent job in that respect. Irregularities in grammar from the standard American English (as well as British English) crop up on a regular basis in this book, but in general they don't interfere with the reading. The front flap says something comparing Golden Witchbreed to Frank Herbert's Dune, but it's not a valid comparison because the world of Mary Gentle's book is so much more complex and vividly described than Dune ever was. A wonderful book for any Sci Fi fan, or anybody else, no matter what they generally read. The book pulled me in and I couldn't put it down. I think everyone else who takes the time to find Golden Witchbreed will have the same experience.

I've loved this book ever since it first appeared back in the 1980s. Mary Gentle keeps the suspense going well and her level of control is startling for a (then) tyro writer. At the time of its publication serious xeno-anthropological SF was unusual - we now have C J Cherryh's 'Foreigner' series and others - and even today the book stands out as one of the best of its kind. The sequel (Ancient Light), unusually, is spectacularly good, and is a remarkable deconstruction of all that was built up in Golden Witchbreed. I've been disappointed by several other books by Mary Gentle, but the recent novel "Ash " is a return to form.

This unfortunately out-of-print book came into my possession at an early age and is a great favorite of mine. It is a fascinating and convincing culture that Mary Gentle has created. If you can find this book it is well worth the read!