Morbid Romantic

Book Review & Personal Blog

About Sylvia Engdahl

Sylvia Engdahl is best known as the author of highly-acclaimed Young Adult science fiction novels, one of which was a Newbery Honor book and a finalist for the 2002 Book Sense Book of the Year in the Rediscovery category. However, her trilogy Children of the Star, originally written for teens, was republished as adult SF, and she is now writing fiction only for adults.

Engdahl is a strong advocate of space colonization and has maintained a widely-read space section of her website for many years. She lives in Eugene, Oregon, and currently works as a freelance editor of nonfiction anthologies.

For more information about Sylvia Engdahl, visit her website here. If you would like to read up more about Stewards of the Flame, visit the book website here.

About Stewards of the Flame

When burned-out starship captain Jesse Sanders is seized by a dictatorial medical regime and detained on the colony planet Undine, he has no idea that he is about to be plunged into a bewildering new life that will involve ordeals and joys beyond anything he has ever imagined, as well as the love of a woman with powers that seem superhuman. Still less does he suspect that he must soon take responsibility for the lives of people he has come to care about and the preservation of their hopes for the future of humankind.

This controversial novel—winner of a bronze medal in the 2008 Independent Publisher (IPPY) book awards—deals with government-imposed health care, with end-of-life issues, and with the so-called paranormal powers of the human mind. Despite being set in the distant future on another world, it’s not intended just for science fiction fans. Blogcritics said, “The story is compelling, and drew me in from the first few pages. . . . Stewards of the Flame is a thought-provoking novel that may make you question the authority and direction of modern Western medical practices. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading genre fiction with some substance to it.”

Guest Post with Sylvia Engdahl

I’ve always had ideas about the future, and about humankind’s relation to the universe, that I wanted very much to express. More often than not, my view of such issues contrasts with prevailing views. I’m inspired mainly by the wish to explore them, but I want to do it through the thoughts and feelings of characters who have to deal with them, rather than in the abstract. It’s generally hard for me to think of events — action — through which the characters can confront them; I’ve come up with story ideas during only a few short periods of my life. But when I do get a plot idea, then I’m completely absorbed in the story until it is finished.

I don’t write, or even read, typical science fiction. My novels are not action/adventure stories, and they focus neither on strange environments nor on the details of hypothetical technologies. They’re about characters portrayed like real people of today. Stewards of the Flame is set on a world colonized in the distant future by settlers from Earth. Its problems are more like today’s problems, extended just a little beyond today’s reality, than how the distant future will really be. But the story required a separate planet with a history of prior generations, and interstellar travel isn’t going to occur for centuries considering that we’re still dragging our feet on colonizing Mars, so I had no choice about its placement in time. In many ways the novel appeals more to readers of mainstream fiction than science fiction fans, but there is just no way to market a book about the future on another planet as mainstream; no matter what I say about it, it gets an SF genre label, making it hard for readers not looking for that genre to find. I hate the “genre” concept, but that’s another topic. . . .

I combined two issues I wanted to explore in fiction when writing Stewards of the Flame. In the first place, what might be the logical conclusion of today’s trend toward government control of health care? My own feeling is that it could end in the takeover of the government (at least in a small colony) by medical authorities, depriving the citizens of their personal freedom. The people of the story live under what is essentially a dictatorship, but it wasn’t imposed on the population by force — they voted it in through misguided placement of health issues above all other values. The protagonists can’t aim to overthrow it because it was established democratically, so they oppose it in another way, which involves the development of “paranormal” mind powers. I don’t think of such powers as weird or supernatural. To me, they represent the future evolution of humankind. My view of the future is less pessimistic than the one common today, and I’m impatient with fiction that suggests we’re not progressing. That, more than anything, impels me to create fiction of my own.

Title: Hex in High Heels¹
Author(s): Linda Wisdom
Genre: Fiction – Paranormal Romance
Finished: October 13, 2009
Rating: 3 Stars

Hex in High Heels was my introduction to the world of Linda Wisdom and Blair Fitzpatrick. Though it is book four in the series, I decided to start from book four and then see how the series struck me, if it was something I would be in to. As it seems to be, the books are all loosely connected with the same characters reoccurring, but different ones taking the starring roles. So, though the series was new to me, I hoped that I wouldn’t have to know too much about Blair and her life previously to enjoy Hex in High Heels.

Blair Fitzpatrick is a witch who just so happens to run her own vintage store and has a thing for a were-collie carpenter named Jake Harrison. The drama is hot enough between the two of them as they work out mutual feelings for each other that could soon blossom to something more. Yet, it is never enough to simply have relationship drama. No. There is always more. Jake’s family ad former pack come to town looking to buy some land from Blair and ease in close to. This pack is made up of wolves, far stronger than the mere collie that Jake becomes. The worst part is that the alpha of the pack is Jake’s brother, working in tandem with their vicious mother, who wants him dead!

Blair is as determined to keep Jake as the pack is to have him and see him dead. Good thing for the pair of them that Blair is as powerful a witch as she is. Does make it any easier that some trouble making elves are also causing Blair a considerable amount of distress.

This book was a lot of fun, for sure. Throughout the story, even in times of drama and distress, the story was infused with humor. At the same time, the characters were not all lighthearted parody’s of magical creatures and things. There was a really great balance to the story, to the drama versus the humor. I really liked Blair and rooted for her the whole time, though of course we all know that the good guys generally win in the end.

I did, however, feel like I may have gotten more out of the cameos made by other characters if I had read the previous novels. A few times, characters were brought in or things were alluded to that I had no idea about and could only assume they happened in one of the previous books. Suffice to say I am going to put the other books on my wish list and get them one by one. If they are anything like Hex in High Heels, I know I am going to enjoy them immensely.

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1. The following book was provided to me for free in exchange for this review. [↩]