After I read Sharon Shinn's Archangel trilogy, I thought it would be a lot of fun to write, or better yet draw, a story about angels and demons. One could have all sorts of fun with the various cultural differences and prejudices of the groups, not to mention have a great time with all those visually interesting components–feathers, wings, horns, and of course colors of feathers and hair and horns...

I may still yet do that, but Ms. Shinn has already written a book that deals with those themes. Heart of Gold revolves principly around three characters in a world in which roles are rigidly determined by sex and race. At the top of the heap are the biologically sophisticated, matriarchal, agarian Indigo who nevertheless interact with the technologically gifted, patriarchal Gulden; the third race, the Albinos, do not come into this story much, in much the way Asians do not enter racial discussions in Detroit.

The above is not as incendiary as it comes off on first reading, for make no mistake, this book's themes are about racial and sexual equality; one strongly suspects the author has read Hofstadter's essay^[1] ; she's certainly set up the two societies carefully. In Inrhio, the blueskin territory, women own land or inherit property, dominate business and politics—and are dreadful drivers because they are aggressive and weave through traffic. Men are married off to ally the great landowning families but cannot inherit or own land on their own; they are gently educated, usually in literature or philosophy, but not the sciences. They are not allowed to wear color, a woman's perogative. Male homosexuality is strictly taboo, though lesbian relationships are common.

In Geld, the golden lands, populated by golden people, by contrast, women cannot so much as buy fruit without a mandate from their husbands, fathers or (teenaged) sons. Families are multi-generational and extended, living in colorful houses; everyone (but especially the women) dress up. Honor is all. Women who run away, if caught, can be slaughtered or starved; widows with children who remarry are likely to have them killed, like the cubs of lionesses whose pride is invaded by a new male, to make room for new offspring. Gay male couples are perfectly commonplace but lesbians are abhorred.

Enter Nolan, a high-caste Indigo man so entranced by biology he applies in secret to work in a lab, in city; his mother reluctantly lets him go, for the head of the lab is a woman like herself of the aristocracy, the Higher Hundred; after all, it's only for a little while before he returns, marries the woman betrothed to him years before, settles down and rears his daughters. But by the time the book starts, Nolan has become fond of his job, its intellectual challanges and its financial freedom; and he doesn't know how to explain to his childhood sweetheart that his work centers around developing vaccines and antibiotics for the Gulden, whom even his liberal parent or sweet-natured fiancee see as little better than intelligent animals–to be treated politely, to be sure, but certainly not regarded as equals.

Even worse, how does he explain that his immediate boss, a gulden man of superb understanding, or his gulden and albino coworkers, are indeed just as bright (if not more so) than he; that, in the final analysis, Indigo culture is not the only, the one, the perfect way? But Nolan's mild discomfort is nothing to the seething irritation and claustrophobia Kitirini feels. Like Nolan, she is an aristocratic Indigo; unlike him, her mother died young, and her father, himself descended from a rebel, has raised her for much of her life in Gulden territory. Honorary niece of the Gulden leader, and blueskinned to boot, she's had unusual freedom for a woman in the Gulden culture.

Raised outside of Indigo lands by an anthropologist fascinated by Gulden culture (and equally appalled by the Indigo), her skin color putting her outside of the usual Gulden customs, hers is the outside view, for both blue and gold peoples. Nolan's is that of a flexibly mind person struggling against pervasive prejudice.

Finally there is Jax, son of the Gulden leader, fiery, masculine–and imprisoned for bombing Indigo institutions because he resents their encroachment upon his people, already pushed into the least arable and desirable lands. He is Kit's lover, her ideal of a real man, not one of these polite, vacuous, bloodless blueskins. Kit is not thrilled to be living at her Grandmother's, attempting to be a good little Indigo heiress of high rank in the Marriage Mart; but she has been exiled from Geld, and is at least permitted to visit her imprisoned lover and help out the neighborhood Gulden soup kitchen/women's shelter for runaway wives. Like Nolan, she's spinning her wheels and no real direction to move when the book starts.

Inevitably, her interest in the fate of the Indigo city's Gulden in general (and Jax in particular) and Nolan's fascination with Gulden immune systems cause their paths to cross; and their radically differing views (as well as that of several well drawn minor characters, most notably Nolan's high caste lesbian coworker, his gulden boss and the Gulden leader) of the two cultures allow the author to explore racial and sexual themes. Nolan's emotions–his now hidden, yet often visceral prejudice against Gulden, his horrified reaction to the Gulden treatment of women, and his dismay over his own options, limited by his sex–are particularly lucid.

Science fiction is often called poor (wo)man's philosophy; fantasy, an older genre, is perhaps more concerned with the depiction of people as they are–or at least the potential they have to be. The science in this book is certainly weak enough that one could make the argument for its being fantasy; and certainly the characters’ moral development and their all too believable failings are what ultimately drive the story. But there is whole host of modern themes touched in this book–gender and racial equality issues to be sure–but terrorism, biological warfare, prostitution and reproductive rights press their philosophical concerns upon the characters as well [in] this entertaining tale. Three stars.

27may2012: removed dead link which was never written, substituting a footnote instead; added summary and tags. Minor edits for grammar/clarity.

Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.

Sylvus Tarn