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Watchstar #1
Watchstar
Alone in the desert, Daiya is faced with dilemma that will determine her fate. If she can successfully resolve it she will join the Net of her village, but if she fails, her life will be spent with the feared Merged Ones. Confused and torn between worlds near and far, Daiya harbors a secret of her people, and must find a way to move beyond her discoveries to a safe place where she can survive.
238 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1980
11 people are currently reading
177 people want to read
About the author
Pamela Sargent
161 books207 followersPamela Sargent has won the Nebula Award, the Locus Award, and has been a finalist for the Hugo Award, the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, and the Sidewise Award for alternate history. In 2012, she was honored with the Pilgrim Award by the Science Fiction Research Association for lifetime achievement in science fiction scholarship. She is the author of the novels Cloned Lives, The Sudden Star, Watchstar, The Golden Space, The Alien Upstairs, Eye of the Comet, Homesmind, Alien Child, The Shore of Women, Venus of Dreams, Venus of Shadows, Child of Venus, Climb the Wind, and Ruler of the Sky. Her most recent short story collection is Thumbprints, published by Golden Gryphon Press, with an introduction by James Morrow. The Washington Post Book World has called her “one of the genre's best writers.”
In the 1970s, she edited the Women of Wonder series, the first collections of science fiction by women; her other anthologies include Bio-Futures and, with British writer Ian Watson as co-editor, Afterlives. Two anthologies, Women of Wonder, The Classic Years: Science Fiction by Women from the 1940s to the 1970s and Women of Wonder, The Contemporary Years: Science Fiction by Women from the 1970s to the 1990s, were published by Harcourt Brace in 1995; Publishers Weekly called these two books “essential reading for any serious sf fan.” Her most recent anthology is Conqueror Fantastic, out from DAW Books in 2004. Tor Books reissued her 1983 young adult novel Earthseed, selected as a Best Book for Young Adults by the American Library Association, and a sequel, Farseed, in early 2007. A third volume, Seed Seeker, was published in November of 2010 by Tor. Earthseed has been optioned by Paramount Pictures, with Melissa Rosenberg, scriptwriter for all of the Twilight films, writing the script and producing through her Tall Girls Productions.
A collection, Puss in D.C. and Other Stories, is out; her novel Season of the Cats is out in hardcover and will be available in paperback from Wildside Press. The Shore of Women has been optioned for development as a TV series by Super Deluxe Films, part of Turner Broadcasting.
Pamela Sargent lives in Albany, New York.
In the 1970s, she edited the Women of Wonder series, the first collections of science fiction by women; her other anthologies include Bio-Futures and, with British writer Ian Watson as co-editor, Afterlives. Two anthologies, Women of Wonder, The Classic Years: Science Fiction by Women from the 1940s to the 1970s and Women of Wonder, The Contemporary Years: Science Fiction by Women from the 1970s to the 1990s, were published by Harcourt Brace in 1995; Publishers Weekly called these two books “essential reading for any serious sf fan.” Her most recent anthology is Conqueror Fantastic, out from DAW Books in 2004. Tor Books reissued her 1983 young adult novel Earthseed, selected as a Best Book for Young Adults by the American Library Association, and a sequel, Farseed, in early 2007. A third volume, Seed Seeker, was published in November of 2010 by Tor. Earthseed has been optioned by Paramount Pictures, with Melissa Rosenberg, scriptwriter for all of the Twilight films, writing the script and producing through her Tall Girls Productions.
A collection, Puss in D.C. and Other Stories, is out; her novel Season of the Cats is out in hardcover and will be available in paperback from Wildside Press. The Shore of Women has been optioned for development as a TV series by Super Deluxe Films, part of Turner Broadcasting.
Pamela Sargent lives in Albany, New York.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
October 1, 2025
A strange, gorgeous, layered science fiction novel, Watchstar held me captive while I was reading and is still with me now a few fall mornings later. A novel that resists easy answers of all kinds, that seems to come from two alien worlds at once—the far future and the equally mysterious 1970s. A novel that sets up a series of false premises, then twists the knife again and again. That somehow renders the quotidian vast and the vast quotidian.
April 23, 2011
It's startling to come back to a book you read when you were 9 and discover that it has some eerily prescient science-fiction concepts. I don't know if this book could be published today, but if you can find a copy it's well worth a read.
I read this book repeatedly when I was 9 or 10 - it was the only science fiction book my grandmother had in the house, and whenever I stayed with her I would read it. I know I read it sometime around when I read Clan of the Cave Bear, because when I finally figured out what this book was (thanks, Ask Metafilter!), found it (thanks, Borderlands!) and read it again, I realized I had conflated some of the details of the two books in my mind.
[Side note: The strangest thing about the copy I found is that the handwriting on the back page is identical to my grandmother's, but I found it in a used bookstore over 3,100 miles away from where she'd lived.]
There are some ways in which the books are similar. Like Ayla, Daiya is a misfit in her village (although she is not born of a different species), with radical ideas that her tradition-bound elders reject. Like Ayla, Daiya has to go through a rite of passage to be accepted as an adult in her village. If you read the two back-to-back, you could see how a 10-year-old could conflate certain aspects.
Even if there are certain character and structural similarities, Watchstar is a very different books, and one that deals with concepts which seem to me to be as relevant today as they were 30 years ago. The book takes place post-technological singularity, and over the course of the novel Pamela Sargent shows several different potential paths for a post-technological society.
If it seems like I'm giving away a lot below, this is all in the first 30 or 40 pages. Sargent does a good job of painting the society, although I can't help but think that under a modern editor this book would have been 200 pages longer and had a lot more detail about the society in questions.
The society that has evolved is telepathic and telekinetic, agrarian and insular, with low population density. Adults communicate with each other exclusively by telepathy, can heal themselves with their psychic powers, can fly and lift objects and much more. However, all of this is treated in the book the same way walking or using a tool would be treated - it's just the way life is. There is no written language; knowledge is passed on through the Net, the psychic collective that everyone is a part of. People live in nuclear family units with many children, the children move out and start their own families, and once the parents become empty nesters, they enter the next phase of their evolution. Their selves begin to merge with this collective consciousness until they become completely one with everyone. Sounds like Glen Beck's worst nightmare of collectivism, right?
Oh, yeah, and the old and most enlightened people also have a lot of group sex - a way in which this book is very '70s. Another way this book is very '70s, which I appreciated, is that our heroine is not white, nor are the majority of the people in her village. They're a United Colors of Benetton mixture, which seems like it would fade after 2,000+ years of interbreeding, but I digress.
Some infants are born without this psychic ability; they're called solitaries. The solitaries are considered non-people and are euthanized shortly after their birth. For them to live would destroy the harmony of the village, say the elders. Objections to this or anything else rarely come up - to object to tradition, or to have a different idea, or to be alone, is to destroy what is harmonious about society.
Daiya is taught that her people once lived in a technological world. Then a miracle happened and people were able to communicate psychically. She's taught that many lost their minds and tore themselves apart or tormented those who could not communicate psychically. Finally, she's told, the enlightened psychics destroyed everyone who wasn't them, leveled the city and split off into small villages in order to preserve humanity.
This is science fiction - so of course you know a twist to that is coming.
Daiya goes into the desert to prepare for her ordeal, unnerved by the comet that has been hanging in the sky. She sees something odd, and investigates. She finds a young man who has come down from the sky in a shuttle to investigate her world. He lives on the comet, his people originally came from Earth, and their post-singularity evolution has been very different. And - oh yeah - he's a solitary.
I was surprised to realize that Daiya is 14 and the spaceboy she meets is 16; in my memory they were both adults. Not sure if you could do that today considering some of what happens to both of them.
Though some of the set decoration that surrounds the people in these two societies are a little on the '70s side, many of the concepts are very up to date and forward thinking. This book in general doesn't feel dated to me like many other science fiction books I read do (such as the earlier Darkover books, for example).
I didn't realize it when I was a kid, but this is the first book of a trilogy. Now I need to find the other two!
I read this book repeatedly when I was 9 or 10 - it was the only science fiction book my grandmother had in the house, and whenever I stayed with her I would read it. I know I read it sometime around when I read Clan of the Cave Bear, because when I finally figured out what this book was (thanks, Ask Metafilter!), found it (thanks, Borderlands!) and read it again, I realized I had conflated some of the details of the two books in my mind.
[Side note: The strangest thing about the copy I found is that the handwriting on the back page is identical to my grandmother's, but I found it in a used bookstore over 3,100 miles away from where she'd lived.]
There are some ways in which the books are similar. Like Ayla, Daiya is a misfit in her village (although she is not born of a different species), with radical ideas that her tradition-bound elders reject. Like Ayla, Daiya has to go through a rite of passage to be accepted as an adult in her village. If you read the two back-to-back, you could see how a 10-year-old could conflate certain aspects.
Even if there are certain character and structural similarities, Watchstar is a very different books, and one that deals with concepts which seem to me to be as relevant today as they were 30 years ago. The book takes place post-technological singularity, and over the course of the novel Pamela Sargent shows several different potential paths for a post-technological society.
If it seems like I'm giving away a lot below, this is all in the first 30 or 40 pages. Sargent does a good job of painting the society, although I can't help but think that under a modern editor this book would have been 200 pages longer and had a lot more detail about the society in questions.
The society that has evolved is telepathic and telekinetic, agrarian and insular, with low population density. Adults communicate with each other exclusively by telepathy, can heal themselves with their psychic powers, can fly and lift objects and much more. However, all of this is treated in the book the same way walking or using a tool would be treated - it's just the way life is. There is no written language; knowledge is passed on through the Net, the psychic collective that everyone is a part of. People live in nuclear family units with many children, the children move out and start their own families, and once the parents become empty nesters, they enter the next phase of their evolution. Their selves begin to merge with this collective consciousness until they become completely one with everyone. Sounds like Glen Beck's worst nightmare of collectivism, right?
Oh, yeah, and the old and most enlightened people also have a lot of group sex - a way in which this book is very '70s. Another way this book is very '70s, which I appreciated, is that our heroine is not white, nor are the majority of the people in her village. They're a United Colors of Benetton mixture, which seems like it would fade after 2,000+ years of interbreeding, but I digress.
Some infants are born without this psychic ability; they're called solitaries. The solitaries are considered non-people and are euthanized shortly after their birth. For them to live would destroy the harmony of the village, say the elders. Objections to this or anything else rarely come up - to object to tradition, or to have a different idea, or to be alone, is to destroy what is harmonious about society.
Daiya is taught that her people once lived in a technological world. Then a miracle happened and people were able to communicate psychically. She's taught that many lost their minds and tore themselves apart or tormented those who could not communicate psychically. Finally, she's told, the enlightened psychics destroyed everyone who wasn't them, leveled the city and split off into small villages in order to preserve humanity.
This is science fiction - so of course you know a twist to that is coming.
Daiya goes into the desert to prepare for her ordeal, unnerved by the comet that has been hanging in the sky. She sees something odd, and investigates. She finds a young man who has come down from the sky in a shuttle to investigate her world. He lives on the comet, his people originally came from Earth, and their post-singularity evolution has been very different. And - oh yeah - he's a solitary.
I was surprised to realize that Daiya is 14 and the spaceboy she meets is 16; in my memory they were both adults. Not sure if you could do that today considering some of what happens to both of them.
Though some of the set decoration that surrounds the people in these two societies are a little on the '70s side, many of the concepts are very up to date and forward thinking. This book in general doesn't feel dated to me like many other science fiction books I read do (such as the earlier Darkover books, for example).
I didn't realize it when I was a kid, but this is the first book of a trilogy. Now I need to find the other two!
March 12, 2010
This bk was.. fascinating.. I read it slowly.. so I didn't necessarily 'enjoy' it in the way I enjoy other fiction. I think of my childhood, when I started reading SF. I sometimes tell people that I learned my ethics from reading superhero comics - not from church. I have a similar relationship to SF.
Let's say I have the closest literary relationships to concrete poetry, language centered writing, OuLiPo, & SF. Of these 4, SF is the only one deeply rooted in my childhood. It's like a parent to me. It stimulated my thinking & still continues to do so. I've read 2 things by Sargent previously: "Venus of Dreams" & "The Sudden Star". I think I liked them ok but I don't really remember either of them. This one's different.
"Watchstar" is a pretty multi-leveled fable - it's easy to see it as an analog for growing up during the time I have. The anguish of the main character's growth is certainly something that I can identify w/. &, of course, there're no easy answers. I wonder what Sargent's personal history is? Was she raised, as I was, by 'religious' people whose 'stable' society was based around the destruction of scapegoats? Did she, personally, become such a scapegoat as a result of being a harbinger of change?
P47: "You are tempted by the evils in every human mind that would lead to anarchy and ruin if we gave in to them." Is this yet-another misuse of the word "anarchy"? It wd seem so. Or, perhaps, she's just presenting the mindset of the religious society - forever against free thinking as its primary enemy.
I'll definitely be reading more of Sargent &, in fact, I'm delighted to find that she's a GoodReads author! Hi Pamela!
Let's say I have the closest literary relationships to concrete poetry, language centered writing, OuLiPo, & SF. Of these 4, SF is the only one deeply rooted in my childhood. It's like a parent to me. It stimulated my thinking & still continues to do so. I've read 2 things by Sargent previously: "Venus of Dreams" & "The Sudden Star". I think I liked them ok but I don't really remember either of them. This one's different.
"Watchstar" is a pretty multi-leveled fable - it's easy to see it as an analog for growing up during the time I have. The anguish of the main character's growth is certainly something that I can identify w/. &, of course, there're no easy answers. I wonder what Sargent's personal history is? Was she raised, as I was, by 'religious' people whose 'stable' society was based around the destruction of scapegoats? Did she, personally, become such a scapegoat as a result of being a harbinger of change?
P47: "You are tempted by the evils in every human mind that would lead to anarchy and ruin if we gave in to them." Is this yet-another misuse of the word "anarchy"? It wd seem so. Or, perhaps, she's just presenting the mindset of the religious society - forever against free thinking as its primary enemy.
I'll definitely be reading more of Sargent &, in fact, I'm delighted to find that she's a GoodReads author! Hi Pamela!
March 14, 2020
Watchstar is an idea novel: the characters, the world(s), and the problems they face exist solely to make you consider big questions. In this instance, the questions are what it means to be human, the nature of human consciousness, and morality. How much you like Watchstar almost certainly depends on how much those topics intrigue you. As I find morality fascinating, but could take-or-leave anything to do with human nature/consciousness, it's only natural that Watchstar isn't a perfect fit for me. That said, it is a good book, and I'm looking forward to reading more by Pamela Sargent.
[I read old fantasy and sci-fi novels written by women authors in search of forgotten gems. See a full-length review at forfemfan.com]
[I read old fantasy and sci-fi novels written by women authors in search of forgotten gems. See a full-length review at forfemfan.com]
July 24, 2019
Pamela Sargent is the best scifi author that nobody has ever heard of. Every book hits me hard in the feels.
January 22, 2020
I have loved most of Pamela's Sargent's works whether that has been short stories, novels, or series. This is the first book of one of her older series, my copy says 1980 for the copyright. This story twists the gender alignment often common in science fiction of women more aligned with nature and men more aligned with technology but then it twists it again and again. I found that a close reading was needed to fully grasp what was happening compared to Sargent's other works I've read. I found our main character, Daiya, a challenge to connect with probably because what is going on with her people on Earth is not as it first appears. The horrors of her life is slowly revealed and then fully exposed when she meets a human descendant who has come back to visit the planet of origin.
Yet, as difficult as I found Daiya to relate to, I did feel an emotional investment that makes me want to read more.
Yet, as difficult as I found Daiya to relate to, I did feel an emotional investment that makes me want to read more.
April 26, 2021
I took a chance on this one, trusting the synopsis more than the reviews I found online. I should have went with the general consensus I got from the reviews. This book was strange and not in a good way.
January 1, 2018
Although the title of Pamela Sargent's 1980 novel Watchstar lacks exactitude, the story itself is worth reading almost 40 years from its publication. Sargent, for those who might not be familiar with the name, is among the pioneering female scifi authors. In addition to her novels and short stories, she collected anthologies of women's speculative fiction that put her in the class with Harlan Ellison's Dangerous Visions.
Watchstar is an inventive tale featuring a woman facing the ordeal of coming of age that only a few survive. She does survive due to the interference of a visitor from outer space--descendents of earth's past whose existence earth's current residents deny.
That event puts her protagonist in the middle of a conflict between those who hold onto the past--no matter the cost--versus those who give way to an unbridled future--no matter the cost.
Watchstar is not one of Sargent's best known novels, but it should be. It's scifi at its best--tackling issues facing our society even today--in a manner that will force you to think with characters you will care about.
Watchstar is an inventive tale featuring a woman facing the ordeal of coming of age that only a few survive. She does survive due to the interference of a visitor from outer space--descendents of earth's past whose existence earth's current residents deny.
That event puts her protagonist in the middle of a conflict between those who hold onto the past--no matter the cost--versus those who give way to an unbridled future--no matter the cost.
Watchstar is not one of Sargent's best known novels, but it should be. It's scifi at its best--tackling issues facing our society even today--in a manner that will force you to think with characters you will care about.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 16, 2020
I picked this book up at random in a Half-Price Books, not having heard of it or its author, and was surprised how good it was. It has really interesting ideas, and a very modern-seeming treatment of "shipminds," although referred to as cybernetic intelligences, a term which seems to have fallen into less use. I did notice that books had to be put into the e-reader device on something like microfiche—even if the contents were first transmitted by a solar-system-spanning information network.
August 31, 2023
This book was recommended to me at this place called "The Book Nook" in Colorado, and boy am I happy I grabbed it! I have not read many sci-fi books in my lifetime, but the cover was cool and wanted to give it a shot. Pamela Sargent is a fantastic writer with an even better imagination, to create this trilogy. It did take me about 20-some pages for the story to capture my excitement, but it's so worth it from there on out!
May 4, 2020
Review to Come
July 17, 2014
The second book in this series (Eye of the Comet) was the first book I remember reading as a child. It contributed a lot to my lifelong obsession with reading, and my love for science fiction.
I recently went back and re-read the trilogy. I was afraid they wouldn't hold up to my memories, but as it turns out, they were much better than I remember.
The stories are told simply, on a level that young people could enjoy, but as an adult I can now read between the lines and see the deeper social commentary and human character study, which elevate the books higher than mindless fiction. The series has much in common with another favorite of mine, the Giver series. Both describe dystopian futures with contrasting advanced/primitive cultures. Definitely worth the read.
I recently went back and re-read the trilogy. I was afraid they wouldn't hold up to my memories, but as it turns out, they were much better than I remember.
The stories are told simply, on a level that young people could enjoy, but as an adult I can now read between the lines and see the deeper social commentary and human character study, which elevate the books higher than mindless fiction. The series has much in common with another favorite of mine, the Giver series. Both describe dystopian futures with contrasting advanced/primitive cultures. Definitely worth the read.
April 6, 2013
I honestly don't remember this book beyond a vague impression. I read someone else's review and remembered a very little more; I didn't recognize the title but found it on a list I had made years ago of books I had read. Obviously it wasn't impressive enough then.
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June 23, 2020I probably would have *loved* this book as a nine year old. As an adult I found the constant telepathy a little dull and the story unsurprising.
January 26, 2012
While I remember the cover and probably bought this book through the Science Fiction Book Club, I don't recall the story.
July 12, 2015
Can't speak for how it would hold up now, but read this as a child: blew my little mind.
September 18, 2015
Great storytelling, keeps you turning those pages. For such an old book it didn't come across as dated.
March 24, 2020
Started, didn't finish. Didn't like the storyline.
May 17, 2021
Intéressante confrontation entre deux évolutions potentielles de l’Humanité. Rencontre de l’altérité, transhumanisme…
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May 27, 2009SF-Sar
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