Gear, W. Michael. The Warriors of Spider. DAW, 1988. Spider Trilogy 1.
First, let me say to the squeamish that The Warriors of Spider is not an Adrian Tchaikovsky novel, so there are no actual spiders. Spider here is a tribal god, something like Anansi, a trickster whose prophets have limited precognition. The setting is a lost star colony with two ethnic groups, the Spider folk and the Santos. Both are raiding cultures whose warriors gain honor by taking scalps. Things change when the colony is rediscovered by a high-tech Earth ship, whose crew lacks the strong military tradition that has allowed the tribes to survive. The contact with the colony ultimately disrupts the entire interstellar culture. The Warriors of Spider is the first novel by W. Michael Gear, who has gone on to publish 60 novels and numerous works of nonfiction archaeology. In Warriors, he uses the conventions of planetary romance to poke gentle fun at the pretensions of his scientific colleagues while paying tribute to the strength of tribal cultures. 4 stars. ( )

The Directorate is stable. The government watches all of the planets of the directorate closely, monitoring and managing the appropriate resources. However, this stability has been effectively turned into stagnation.

An automated freighter picks up radio communication from an uncharted world. The Directorate sends an archaeologist team to investigate the new world, and finds the survivors of a crashed spaceship. The survivors over the past 600 years have populated much of the planet and built themselves up to firearms and a few cannons.

Their society is based on clans from the original spaceship, with active warring between the two largest surviving clans. Religion is a key factor in the differences between the clans. Horse stealing, raiding, and the acquisition of "wives" from other clans are results of their conflicts.

Gear has done an good job of creating interesting situations, as the naive archaeologists, making assumptions based on their own stagnant world, attempt to interact and digest the aggressive / confrontational world of the "Romanans".

Gear has created a universe with 4 competing groups / interests:

1) The Romanans, a primitive, aggressive world with a strong religion, and a strong morality (though different from morality that we are use to)
2) The Directorate, having the goal of ensuring the worlds they control remain stagnant and prosperous.
3) The Patrol, the military arm of the directorate, steeped in doctrine and tradition (yet attracted to the warrior ways of the Romanans
4) The archaeological team, broad thinkers living under the directorate, existing and supported by the Patrol, and tasked with learning about the Romanans.

All four have disparate goals, and conflict arises.

Add to the mix, the Romanans have Prophets, people with the ability to look at the possible paths into the future, seeing the results of actions. Gear has done an excellent job at taking an incredibly powerful ability and providing significant mystery and constraints around that ability.

Gear is also not afraid to have bad/permanent things happen to his main characters, and some of the things that happens directly relates to the religion / philosophy of the Romanans. It fits nicely.

This is the first book of the trilogy, and is arguably the best one.

Final Recommendation: Worth the read, purchase it if you can find it. ( )

scifi ( )

NIL