The Conqueror's Child is the fourth book in Suzy McKee Charnas's Holdfast series. Like a smith at the forge, Charnas hammers out a neorustic dystopia where the individuals become myths and the once-barbarous relations between men and women begin to be resolved.

Previously in the series, the fem-slave Alldera escapes the men-cities into the grassland wilderness where she is adopted by the Riding Women. These genetically altered nomads are devoid of males, reproducing without them and producing only female children. They are also deadly with the bow and lance. With their help, Alldera invades the men-cities and frees the fems.

Conqueror's Child begins here, with Sorrel, Alldera's daughter. Rape-conceived during Alldera's slave-days but born and raised free among the Riding Women, Sorrel yearns for a relationship with her hero-mother. For years Alldera kept Sorrel safe, far way, while she built a new society in the former men-cities.

Though safe, Sorrel feels herself a misfit--a conqueror's daughter ignorant of battle. She bonds with a fellow misfit, an orphaned child of another escaped slave--a male child. Because he is shunned by the unisex horsewomen, Sorrel adopts him, resolving to find him a better life. With the child, Sorrel rides out for the cities where fems now rule and men still live.

But there's danger in reunions. Sorrel will not only meet her mother but also two of her rapists. Either could be Sorrel's father, and either could betray her.

The appeal of Conqueror's Child spans genres. Readers of both science fiction and women's studies will find it a powerful read in which institutionalized violence is examined through its very personal effects. However, though Charnas's skill lies in crafting the epic, characterization sometimes falls short, especially with minor personas who seem somewhat interchangeable. Regardless, Charnas's works belong among the SF luminaries for her even-handed examination of relationships and sexuality--themes negligently ignored for much of SF's history. --Tamara Hladik


From Publishers Weekly
When Charnass dystopian novel Walk to the End of the World appeared in 1974, followed by similar work by Joanna Russ, Marge Piercy and Alice Sheldon, SF found itself in the middle of an angry feminist revolution. Charnas continued her exploration of the world of the Holdfast and the Riding Women in Motherlines (1978) and The Furies. Now she brings her classic series to a conclusion in the tale of Sorrel, daughter of Alldera, the woman who in the earlier novels escaped slavery, then raised a female army to return and destroy the misogynistic evil of her homeland. Sorrel has grown up strong among the Riding Women, but is embittered by her mothers abandonment. Traveling across the mountains with her adopted son, she discovers that the women of the Holdfast have largely mirrored the evil theyd previously fled, holding their men as slaves, using them for procreation and as beasts of burden. Some want to change this, Alldera among them, but the prospects for reform are endangered by the return of a charismatic, unscrupulous man known as the Sunbear, who may be Sorrels father via his long-ago rape of Alldera. Avoiding clichs and easy answers, Charnas brings this powerful series to a fitting end. There is much of the darkness and pain found in the previous books, but there is also hope as it becomes clear that, within limits, some of the women and men are ready to at least think about living together in peace. The year is less than half over, but this potent, thoughtful novel by a talented writer at the top of her form clearly counts as one of the best SF novels of 1999. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Charnas concludes her celebrated dystopian series, the Holdfast Chronicles, in a tale that picks up where The Furies (1994) left off. She focuses on Sorrel, the leader Alldera's daughter, born of rape and raised in the all-women realm of the Grasslands. Sensitive to the plight of outsiders, Sorrel is the only one who cares for the orphaned son of an escaped slave. When it seems likely that the boy will die of neglect, she takes him and runs away, only to become embroiled in dangerous rivalries and preparations for war. There is a great deal of story here--many characters and a dramatic, post apocalyptically medieval plot rich in intrigue--but Charnas is primarily engaged in elucidating certain key facets of human nature. No matter how extreme a culture's beliefs, she seems to suggest, no matter how harsh an exile, or how inevitable the specter of war, no one can escape the basics. Mothers will love their children; men and women need each other; and people will find a way to acknowledge powers greater than themselves. Donna Seaman


From Kirkus Reviews
Book IV of the Holdfast Chronicles, most recently The Furies (1994). Long ago the world collapsed from pollution, ecological disaster, and war. To preserve the species, Holdfasts were created, run by men with women kept as slaves. Outside the Holdfasts, the Riding Women of the Grasslands can reproduce by inducing their bodies to produce clones. But the Free Fems, ragged bands of women who've freed themselves from the Holdfasts, depend on men to reproduce; such children that they have are mostly the result of rape. Alldera Conqueror, leader of the Free Fems, must somehow defeat or learn how to coexist with the slave-taker Servan D Layo, feared by all as the DarkDreamer, and his band of cunning, ruthless marauders, who drug themselves with ``manna'' and then blame their appalling behavior on the drug. Ironically, D Layo's lover, the more reasonable Eykar Bek, is the father (by rape) of Sorrel, Alldera's daughter. Sorrel, fostered with the Riding Women and feeling disowned and unwanted, adopts the orphan boy Veree and rides off on her own. She encounters a band of Free Fems and, since the Fems forbid males to ride and kill those they find, passes Veree off as a girl. Despite betrayals and other setbacks, Sorrel slowly builds her own life beyond the shadow of her famous mother, but the intractable problem remains: how to deal with the brutal but necessary men? McKee's saga is well handled, immediate and involving; but ideas that once were innovative, now seem familiar and unsurprising. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Book Description
25 years after the landmark publication of Walk to the End of the World, Suzy McKee Charnas has completed her epic tale of the Holdfast.

The Fems were slaves of the men in the Holdfast. When Alldera escaped her slavery, she led a band of rebels to build a world where women rule. Now Sorrel, Alldera's daughter, joins her mother. She brings with her a young boy she has adopted.

The Conqueror's Child completes an epic history of life and love and the war between men and women which will stand for generations to come.



About the Author
Suzy McKee Charnas is the author of over a dozen works of science fiction, fantasy, and horror, including the Holdfast series from Tor Books and the Sorcery Hall series of books for young adults. She is the winner of the Hugo Award (for her short story "Boobs") and has won the James Tiptree, Jr. Award twice, once retrospectively for the first two Holdfast books and then for The Conqueror's Child, final volume of the Holdfast series. Her most recent book is My Father's Ghost, a narrative nonfiction work about her father's old age. She adapted her novel, The Vampire Tapestry, for the stage in the late 1990s.

She was born and brought up in New York City, the setting for the Sorcery Hall books, and she currently lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The Fems were slaves of the men in the Holdfast, until Alldera Conqueror led a band of rebels to overthrow the rule of men and build a world where women rule. Now Sorrel, Alldera's blood daughter, is coming over the hills from the camps of the Riding Women to join her mother, to claim a mother's attention and love. She brings with her a young boy she has adopted. She is desperately protective of this child: she has to be. In the world she left behind, men are aliens - and in the world her mother conquered, they are slaves.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

When Charnass dystopian novel Walk to the End of the World appeared in 1974, followed by similar work by Joanna Russ, Marge Piercy and Alice Sheldon, SF found itself in the middle of an angry feminist revolution. Charnas continued her exploration of the world of the Holdfast and the Riding Women in Motherlines (1978) and The Furies. Now she brings her classic series to a conclusion in the tale of Sorrel, daughter of Alldera, the woman who in the earlier novels escaped slavery, then raised a female army to return and destroy the misogynistic evil of her homeland. Sorrel has grown up strong among the Riding Women, but is embittered by her mothers abandonment. Traveling across the mountains with her adopted son, she discovers that the women of the Holdfast have largely mirrored the evil theyd previously fled, holding their men as slaves, using them for procreation and as beasts of burden. Some want to change this, Alldera among them, but the prospects for reform are endangered by the return of a charismatic, unscrupulous man known as the Sunbear, who may be Sorrels father via his long-ago rape of Alldera. Avoiding clichs and easy answers, Charnas brings this powerful series to a fitting end. There is much of the darkness and pain found in the previous books, but there is also hope as it becomes clear that, within limits, some of the women and men are ready to at least think about living together in peace. The year is less than half over, but this potent, thoughtful novel by a talented writer at the top of her form clearly counts as one of the best SF novels of 1999. (June)

Kirkus Reviews

Book IV of the Holdfast Chronicles, most recently The Furies (1994). Long ago the world collapsed from pollution, ecological disaster, and war. To preserve the species, Holdfasts were created, run by men with women kept as slaves. Outside the Holdfasts, the Riding Women of the Grasslands can reproduce by inducing their bodies to produce clones. But the Free Fems, ragged bands of women who've freed themselves from the Holdfasts, depend on men to reproduce; such children that they have are mostly the result of rape. Alldera Conqueror, leader of the Free Fems, must somehow defeat or learn how to coexist with the slave-taker Servan D Layo, feared by all as the DarkDreamer, and his band of cunning, ruthless marauders, who drug themselves with "manna" and then blame their appalling behavior on the drug. Ironically, D Layo's lover, the more reasonable Eykar Bek, is the father (by rape) of Sorrel, Alldera's daughter. Sorrel, fostered with the Riding Women and feeling disowned and unwanted, adopts the orphan boy Veree and rides off on her own. She encounters a band of Free Fems and, since the Fems forbid males to ride and kill those they find, passes Veree off as a girl. Despite betrayals and other setbacks, Sorrel slowly builds her own life beyond the shadow of her famous mother, but the intractable problem remains: how to deal with the brutal but necessary men? McKee's saga is well handled, immediate and involving; but ideas that once were innovative, now seem familiar and unsurprising.