Wright, Helen S.: Matter of Oaths, A

I put Helen S. Wright’s A Matter of Oaths on my look-for list thanks to this LJ recommendation, and found it recently in our local speciality shop. I didn’t like it as well as the recommender, but found it interesting regardless.

Over five thousand years in the future, a war between two immortal emperors is partly limited by a web of oaths between the emperors, the Guild that controls FTL travel, and the members of the Guild. As part of this structure, Oath-breakers are identity-wiped. Except that one officer’s identity-wipe seems to be unraveling, much to the interest of the canny old commander of his new ship and other less savory individuals.

While this is indeed nicely SFnal, I found myself inordinately distracted by the plot’s dependence on two whopping huge coincidences. I think that one of these was not actually necessary to the plot, as opposed to the angst quotient; but the other is necessary, and unfortunately I can’t see any way to categorize it other than “whopping huge coincidence.” This was large enough and close enough to the end that even the nifty last-page reveal couldn’t keep me from feeling dissatisfied.

The other thing I noted about this book is its fanfic-compatible feel: I immediately imagined exploring certain aspects of the book through fanfic—other people’s, that is, as I have no creative talent whatsoever. I don’t think this would affect the reading experience of non-fanfic readers, but it may be an additional point of interest to certain of my audience.