Cherith
May 24th 2004, 04:58 AM
I read this some months ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. It's a Science-Fiction/Romance-like novel. (I picked it up at the dollar store thinking it was about Islam...; FetchBook Comparison Pricing (http://www.fetchbook.info/compare.do?search=0441007430) where you can buy the book for less than a dollar!)
Here's a blurb about the book from SciFi.com (http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue108/books.html) (where it was rated as their "A" pick):
Zahra IbSada has a life of rare privilege. On a world where women are rarely taught to read, she has slipped through a gap in Irustan's strict religious laws to become a medicant, a doctor and surgeon. Her devoted husband Qadir is respectable, intelligent and even gentle. Zahra's career widens what would otherwise be her very limited contact with society, and when the time comes to take an apprentice, she can choose from the brightest girls the colony has to offer.
It is her apprentice's arrival that changes everything for Zahra in Louise Marley's The Terrorists of Irustan. Childless by choice, Zahra finds that her relationship with the brilliant and energetic Ishi erodes her carefully nurtured detachment from the world. On Irustan, women are veiled and hidden from everyone but the men of their household. They are forbidden upon pain of death to travel unescorted, to use a wavephone or even to visit with friends more than twice a month. Upon reaching sexual maturity, they are ceded by their fathers to become the wives of strangers, men who are usually 30 years older than their brides.
Even before Ishi comes into her life, Zahra is rebellious, struggling with Qadir to be allowed to treat prostitutes in her clinic. As she and the child become close, she finds it harder and harder to live within Irustan's restrictions. Then danger threatens when a close friend's husband agrees to marry her daughter to a brutal mine worker. Torn between her duty as a healer and her friend's plight, and all too able to envision Ishi falling prey to a similar fate, Zahra must decide if she will cross the line from minor rule-breaking to open revolution.
A world where fanaticism reigns
Marley is unflinching in her portrayal of the repressive and unjust society on Irustan. There are no pulled punches here--Zahra's patients bleed both physically and spiritually, and readers bleed with them. But The Terrorists of Irustan is realism in the best sense of the word--it is neither one-sided nor simplistic. The characters in this novel are drawn with precision, and each has made a different accommodation to the Irustani regime. Qadir, for example, is motivated at times by his responsibilities, at others by his love for Zahra. His actions run the spectrum from villainous to heroic.
The Terrorists of Irustan also boasts vivid imagery, meticulous medical writing and complex relationships, with plenty of terror and suspense thrown in. The pace is as measured as slow poison. Despite its dark tone, the novel entertains while informing. Readers who like happy or tidy endings will not appreciate this one. Nor will those who strongly dislike feminist SF, though The Terrorists of Irustan avoids most of the pitfalls of the sub-genre. Perhaps its only weakness is that, in basing Irustan's culture on civilizations far from North America, Marley is giving readers a chance to distance themselves from the day-to-day horror of Zahra's life.
The Terrorists of Irustan is set apart from other books of its type by an understanding that people are as enmeshed in their societies as Zahra is hidden in her concealing veil. Marley shows readers a world where women collaborate in their own oppression, and where it is life-threatening for even the men to talk of change. Totalitarianism is so absolute that fighting it seems impossible, and it is so diffuse that Zahra and her friends despair of even identifying a target.
Fight they do, however, and though Zahra IbSada pays a high price for her revolution, readers will appreciate the payoff.
This is absolutely super. It is not a happy book, though, or in any way light entertainment. -- A.M.
Here's a blurb about the book from SciFi.com (http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue108/books.html) (where it was rated as their "A" pick):
Zahra IbSada has a life of rare privilege. On a world where women are rarely taught to read, she has slipped through a gap in Irustan's strict religious laws to become a medicant, a doctor and surgeon. Her devoted husband Qadir is respectable, intelligent and even gentle. Zahra's career widens what would otherwise be her very limited contact with society, and when the time comes to take an apprentice, she can choose from the brightest girls the colony has to offer.
It is her apprentice's arrival that changes everything for Zahra in Louise Marley's The Terrorists of Irustan. Childless by choice, Zahra finds that her relationship with the brilliant and energetic Ishi erodes her carefully nurtured detachment from the world. On Irustan, women are veiled and hidden from everyone but the men of their household. They are forbidden upon pain of death to travel unescorted, to use a wavephone or even to visit with friends more than twice a month. Upon reaching sexual maturity, they are ceded by their fathers to become the wives of strangers, men who are usually 30 years older than their brides.
Even before Ishi comes into her life, Zahra is rebellious, struggling with Qadir to be allowed to treat prostitutes in her clinic. As she and the child become close, she finds it harder and harder to live within Irustan's restrictions. Then danger threatens when a close friend's husband agrees to marry her daughter to a brutal mine worker. Torn between her duty as a healer and her friend's plight, and all too able to envision Ishi falling prey to a similar fate, Zahra must decide if she will cross the line from minor rule-breaking to open revolution.
A world where fanaticism reigns
Marley is unflinching in her portrayal of the repressive and unjust society on Irustan. There are no pulled punches here--Zahra's patients bleed both physically and spiritually, and readers bleed with them. But The Terrorists of Irustan is realism in the best sense of the word--it is neither one-sided nor simplistic. The characters in this novel are drawn with precision, and each has made a different accommodation to the Irustani regime. Qadir, for example, is motivated at times by his responsibilities, at others by his love for Zahra. His actions run the spectrum from villainous to heroic.
The Terrorists of Irustan also boasts vivid imagery, meticulous medical writing and complex relationships, with plenty of terror and suspense thrown in. The pace is as measured as slow poison. Despite its dark tone, the novel entertains while informing. Readers who like happy or tidy endings will not appreciate this one. Nor will those who strongly dislike feminist SF, though The Terrorists of Irustan avoids most of the pitfalls of the sub-genre. Perhaps its only weakness is that, in basing Irustan's culture on civilizations far from North America, Marley is giving readers a chance to distance themselves from the day-to-day horror of Zahra's life.
The Terrorists of Irustan is set apart from other books of its type by an understanding that people are as enmeshed in their societies as Zahra is hidden in her concealing veil. Marley shows readers a world where women collaborate in their own oppression, and where it is life-threatening for even the men to talk of change. Totalitarianism is so absolute that fighting it seems impossible, and it is so diffuse that Zahra and her friends despair of even identifying a target.
Fight they do, however, and though Zahra IbSada pays a high price for her revolution, readers will appreciate the payoff.
This is absolutely super. It is not a happy book, though, or in any way light entertainment. -- A.M.