Orion Arm by Julian May

Originally published 1999; this edition 2000

Publisher: Voyager

M

(V, S, L, D)

Violence

Sexual References

Coarse Language

Drug Use

Representations

Gender:

As with the first novel in this series, first-person narration by the male protagonist. There are also anonymised interludes from the perspective of a male antagonist. Essentially identical to Perseus Spur.

Sex:

First appearance of non-vanilla, non-heterosexual is as degrading exploitation of prisoners for gratification of the privileged classes and each other. There are some incidental trans characters portrayed as grotesque and potentially victims of coercion. One character on the side of the heroes mentions in a throwaway line having previously been in a relationship with another woman. All other depictions of non-normative sexuality are as perversion or punishment.

Race & Ethnicity:

The characters of colour from the previous book return in reduced roles. One new character is from Eastern Europe.

Disability, Physical Diversity and Health:

The characters must deal with aliens of diminutive stature relative to humans, and spend time on one of their vessels. Coercive body modification including transgenderism used as threat, punishment and symbol of moral corruption.

Awards

None of note.

At least the worst of what is mentioned above had a relatively small presence in the story.

In a series like this it is normal, I believe, for the cast to expand and fill out over successive volumes. Here the focus contracts around the narrator / protagonist more tightly, meaning we see less of the characters I liked from the first volume and the new characters have reduced presence compared to last time.

I also dislike in mysteries getting anonymised snippets from the or a villain's perspective. The additional context gets in the way of my desire for 'pure' detection, where we have only information and perspectives available to the protagonists and they must work out what is happening, how and why, without our knowing for sure. In this case, because the last book left us with a strongly favoured suspect for a traitor, the anonymised perspective here made it pretty immediately clear to me which other person it actually was and spoiling what may have been meant to be a twist toward the end of the novel. I probably would have been surprised otherwise (because I'd not noticed a significant clue in the first book).

This would have been a satisfying end to the story except that all the outcomes promised on the first page of the first book had not yet happened, so I ordered a cheap copy of the final volume. This copy, along with the first volume, was picked up from a discount bin at a newsagent most of a decade ago.