Isles of the Forsaken

4 stars, Metaphorosis reviews

Summary
Harg Ismol has retired from the so-called ‘Native Navy', made up of subjugated islanders. He's going home at last after years of succeeding as a disregarded minority in Inning culture. But at home, he finds things are much more complicated than he expected, and that he can't just sit by and let someone else solve problems for once.

Review
Having now sorted out my confusion of Gilmans and reviewed a Charlotte Perkins Gilman book, my thoughts turned to the other Gilman – Carolyn Ives Gilman, and I found to my pleasure that I had an unread book of hers in my collection.

I first encountered this Gilman over 20 years ago – perhaps in 1998 or 1999 – through her book Halfway Human, which I found provocative, thoughtful, and well written. Unfortunately, she seems not to write often, and I didn't find any more of her books until 2016, when I picked up this book, first published in 2011. I wish now that I'd picked up the sequel as well, since it appears no longer available in ebook form, though the paperback can still be found.

Isles of the Forsaken is a complex and political novel. Within the world, there are a moderate number of factions to keep track, though it's not really difficult. Metaphorically, it's clearly a commentary on colonialism, subjugation, and respect for other ways of life. The subjugated islanders in question know that there are forces and values in the world invisible to the colonizers, who insist on the worth of their regimented law and order.

Gilman has a nice touch with the characters, making them engaging and relatively credible, each with foibles, strengths, and weaknesses. They're a little more sparsely drawn than I'd have preferred, some standing more clearly as symbols and archetypes than fully developed characters, and I wish she'd filled them in a bit. Generally, the story proceeds well, but for my taste, it crosses the line from time to time into excessively pointed, verging on (indirectly) preachy.

I found the locals' magic beliefs a little vague and hard to come to grips with. I filled in gaps with what little I know of island cultures, which seemed a likely source, but I felt that, when seeing from the story islanders' perspective, we could have gotten a little more information. That was especially so when, late in the book, the story took a sudden and unheralded turn to the bizarre. It was clearly intended as a surprise, but without a better grasp on the identified world, I found it to be more tacked on than integral, especially as the book ends without explaining it.

Despite all the above, I am quite interested to read the next book, and perturbed to find it's not available in e-form, especially given the minimal cost of keeping ebooks. Hopefully a local library can come to my rescue (or maybe not, after a quick look).

Overall, well written and enjoyable, if a bit message-heavy.