Speaking Stones

Mictlan #2

by Stephen Leigh

Returning to the enigmatic planet first introduced in his compelling Dark Water's Embrace, Stephen Leigh thoughtfully examines issues of prejudice and race relations among the descendants of the world's marooned human survivors and its native inhabitants.

On the faraway planet Mictlan, a tiny human society has had to struggle with severe and often disturbing complications to adapt to their desolate surroundings. There were physical mutations and birth defects among them, then an uneasy coexistence with the Miccail, an indigenous tri-gendered intelligent species. Most startling of all was the evolution of a third human sex: the Sa, or midmale.

Now the fragile peace that governs the humans and the Miccail is shattered after a young human Sa child is kidnapped, igniting all the half-buried animosities smoldering between the two groups, as savagery and violence break out across the planet. The answer may lie in an imposing carved monolith—the Speaking Stone that contains the secrets of the ancient Miccail religion. Facing annihilation at the hands of its warring civilizations, the planet's only chance for survival hinges on deciphering the stone's cryptic hieroglyphs.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction

330 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published March 1, 1999

About the author

Stephen Leigh has been writing science fiction since he was in grade school. He sold his first story in 1975 and has been publishing regularly ever since then.

He has been nominated for and won several awards for his fiction over the years. He has written and published the occasional poems and non-fiction pieces, as well.

Steve teaches Creative Writing at Northern Kentucky University in the Greater Cincinnati area. He also plays music, and studies the Japanese martial art Aikido, in which he holds the rank of Sandan.

Stephen Leigh also writes as S.L. Farrell and Matthew Farrell.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leigh returns to Mictlan from Dark Water's Embrace, and we see how the human castaways are adapting and changing, and how they're Miccail are adapting to them. It's another thoughtful look at race relations and gender, especially the development of the third human sex. It's a little easier to follow than the first book, with fewer viewpoint characters, but it's still a meaty, thoughtful piece. I believe it would be necessary to have read the first book (preferably recently) before getting much from this one. It's a well-written and thought-provoking book with an interesting world peopled with sympathetic characters, but it's not one you can pick up and put down frequently without losing the thread. The ancient religious McGuffin of the mysterious stones is interesting, too.

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three and a half.

The synopsis is misleading, and honestly that's not a bad thing for the story overall.

No, translating the damn stones was not the silver bullet that could somehow magically solve several generations' worth of racial tensions. As a matter of fact, the people who were banking too much on translating the damn stones turned out to be making the problem worse, by resorting to increasingly desperate measures to try to get a god to come in to fix everything for them rather than trying to solve their own damn problems. The gods of Mictlan, though, seem more disposed to help those who help themselves: they'll point their chosen individuals in the right direction, but leave it up to them to figure out what they're supposed to be doing once they get there.

The solution turned out to be, first of all, a spectacular display that opened people's eyes to just how bad things could get if they continued to allow this to escalate, a few acts of good faith from individuals on both sides who didn't want to see any more people die, and—surprise!—a whole lot of hard work and effort that's going to be a work in progress for a very long time. Now, I'm hardly in a position to speak with any kind of authority on the subject of race relations, but I liked the way this was handled. I've seen a fair number of works where a single Heroic Sacrifice or the clearing up of a stupid misunderstanding is somehow enough to undo generations' worth of hatred and hurt, and it never fails to leave a bad taste in my mouth. This at least was portrayed with more nuance.

The downside is that a lot of the same old frustrations of the first book are still present in this one. The editing is not quite as bad this time around, but there are still far more errors than is acceptable for a professionally published book—and when you've built up a universe where not two but three gender pronouns are commonly in use, mixing up your pronouns via typos or Kindle transcription errors or what have you is the absolute last thing the readers need and causes all sorts of unnecessary confusion.

Another thing that wasn't as bad as the first book but still an issue is the too-damn-many points of view from characters we don't care about and are never going to meet again. At least this time it was clear that every entry was somehow relevant to the story, and did advance the plot, but there were still a couple of times where the writing would have been a lot stronger if a scene had been given to an established character as opposed to a one-off nobody.

In terms of plot, it was also an ongoing frustration that nobody could seem to find the spine to stand up to the damn Elder who carried on a campaign of abusive tyranny against anyone who didn't toe the party line and was driving the family and the community into the ground with her bigotry. That's more of a personal thing, though, and even if people did have their reasons for putting up with her it still drove me up the wall.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the discussion of the third gender, but the biology of the mutation made no sense. It stretches credulity too far that humans would rapidly ( < 10 generations) evolve drastic new life history traits and that our biology would come up with the same solution as that found by a species native to a different star system. Overall, this just wasn't a fantastic book. But it had some good ideas.

[Angela · Rating 2 out of 5]

The original dealt with the 3rd and 4th generation of a shipwrecked starship. Very few of the crew had survived. There was a high percentage of mutations and stillbirths, since something about the planet seem to be damaging DNA. They had done their best to ensure genetic diversity among their descendants, but one of the female crew had refused to reproduce, and had relationships with other women. She was condemned for this, and homosexual relationships had become a grievous sin among the colonists. In the first book, one crew member discovers that the natives of the planet, the Miccail, which they had thought extinct, had a third sex, called a Sa, which would mate with both other sexes, and 'clean up' the damaged DNA needed in order to breed true, and that this would explain her own 'mutation'. However, this practice was not looked upon favourably by the homophobic colonists.

In the second book, it is a couple of generations later, and the Sa have established a partnership with the native Sas and mate where they are wanted and needed. However, some colonists still cannot accept this solution to the problem of stillbirths and mutations. Nor can they accept the natives as equals. The growing human population needs room, and the natives are feeling pressured. Then a Sa child disappears, and the Sa Caitlin must investigate and keep the fragile peace between human, Sa, and Miccail. (Synopsis by AwesomeAud on Bookcrossing)

Color me disappointed.

Here, as in this novel's predecessor, Dark Water's Embrace, Stephen Leigh covers much the same territory as a favorite SF author, Sheri S. Tepper: sex roles, nature, bigotry, religion.

Leigh makes use once again of the multiple-viewpoint literary device of the previous novel, giving us differing perspectives of the same events. It's an interesting choice, and probably the only thing that intrigued me enough to finish the novel.

AwesomeAud's synopsis above is more than sufficient for getting the gist of the story. I have no complaints about the author's skill or imagination. His world is well-fleshed, his characters three-dimensional, his backstory well-presented; but, for whatever reason, my attention wasn't totally captured. It just felt like a "duty" read to me.

[Fayley · Rating 1 out of 5]

A few hundred years after humans are stranded on a planet with another species there is an incident inflaming inter-species relationships. The story follows a mutated human called a "mid-male" (intersexed human whose purpose is to sleep with men and women cleansing the sperm of mutations which are otherwise common on this planet) as "ke" (ie not he or she) tries to unravel the situation.

This rather clunkily written book is heavy with political and sexual agendas. Reading it I had the feeling that the writer had made up a story specifically to preach his own views on politics, race relations and sexual orientation. After the writer had finished expressing his views he wrapped up the climax of the whole book in a page or two with the old "and it all worked out in the end"! This is not a deep or thought provoking book, and was ultimately disappointing although it kept me reading hoping that the few bright moments would be repeated.

[Gobasso · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entertaining but not great. The society depicted is interesting but the story itself has been told many times before in better books.