I'm low on clever openers this week.
When Ofelia's colony is recalled from its planet, she hides and stays behind. They are not that interested in one old woman, and she is glad to see her demanding family and neighbors go. She has the planet to herself until, years later, another colonization attempt is made, one that disastrously finds intelligent native life. Now the natives are curious about where that original human colony might be.
Ofelia's story happens in four social contexts: with the colony and her family; after the colony, alone; after the second colonization attempt, with the natives; and once humans make third contact with the planet. It creates a sort of full circle.
She is a surprisingly spry septuagenarian. Fortunate too: of all the things that could go wrong when no one is there to help or save you, none of them do. No disease, no accidents, no predators.
Ofelia has a Heinlein-esque streak in her misanthropy. She just wants all these bothersome people and aliens to let her be. Or maybe "curmudgeonly old person" is a natural character archetype, just not usually the protagonist.
Ofelia is a rather unusual protagonist. You do not see many 70+ women starring in science fiction. She shares only strong self-reliance with those Heinlein heroes, instead succeeding through nurturing, care, and the home. We usually see heroes on a journey who will use violence to get the MacGuffin. She does share in that Heinlein anti-authoritarian streak, but at no point does a stand-in for the author have existentially unlikely sex.
Our first section of the story establishes Ofelia in relation to other characters, also showing why she will be happy to get away from them. We then spend the greater part of the story alone with her, watching her work past her self-imposed limitations to live in freedom with no one to judge or command her. The themes are personal, not political.
The writing is good, and Ofelia is an enjoyable character. We lack grand explanations and theories, instead focusing on pragmatics and details. It is a story about people, not ideas.
Her psyche and society are plagued with potentially problematic attitudes. If a science fiction story is not dystopian, it usually is past things like overt sexism, or perhaps it uses anti-alien prejudice as a metaphor. Ofelia's people seem to be from a Latin country where feminism never caught on over the centuries. The third contact group suggests that her culture is not atypical. While outer space has room for all kinds, it is hard to picture a space-faring culture with prejudices that seemed outdated a generation ago.
The science is also potentially problematic. While it is a colony, the technology level is rather low for space-farers, except for a convenient power source that never breaks down on an old woman who could not repair it. Some things exceed the speed of light, others not. Maybe that tech is just really expensive. It has a bit of that Firefly feel, and you wonder about the economics of the situation.
The economics are similar. Why would a corporation want a colony (with no manufacturing base or information science contributions)? What could anyone make that would be worth shipping between solar systems? After you read the ending, pause and think of the time frame, scale of operation, and costs involved in setting up that denouement. No.
The natives are likable, but I am concerned that they are too perfect. Is there any way in which they are not better than humans, either as a species or as individuals presented? The contrast is made explicitly at a few points. From intelligence to government structure to politeness, they seem to be biologically hard-wired to better fulfill every human ideal than humans do. Naivete seems to be their only flaw, and that is overcome in spades.
We have an enjoyable cast with Ofelia and the natives. The natives are only annoying to the extent that they resemble humans, and that is a fixable problem. We can enjoy Ofelia alone, especially in comparison to the departed humans. We do much the same with the quickly learning aliens, compared to humanity or their initial attempts to relate. The returning humans just look worse from every angle. You are not made uncomfortable for rooting against your species.
Ofelia gets to be a bit more nuanced, with problems and mistakes. She is strongly self-critical and points out those problems for the reader. This helps to create roundness of character in what might otherwise be a book of caricatures.
Characters drive the plot more than events do. The high points are character traits not crowning moments of awesome.
If seeing first contact between a female hermit and a race of inquisitive owlbears sounds good, this book is for you. If you need laser swords or an Asimovian theory of psychohistory, this will not fulfill your needs.
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Excuse me, we ask one unarmed and unarmored character, did you just take an infant from its nesting mother, said mother being surrounded by its fellow large members of a predator species, and throttle it? That quite likely tops the stupidity of abusing prisoners at a supervillain prison (because those guys never escape nor are prone to vengeance, right).
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