Roads of Heaven — (1985-1987) With Lisa Barnett. Publisher: THE MAGI HAD MASTERED THE NEW PHYSICS and harnessed the newly discovered power of the elemental harmonies — Alchemy. In doing so, they changed the facr of technology for all time. But it was pilots like Silence Leigh who conquered the starlanes. Silence herself dreamed of a ship — a ship of her own and a destiny removed from the Hegemony's oppression. But not untill she joined the crew of the Sun Treader did the dream take on reality... and a destiny never imagined became Silence's own as well.

Five-Twelfths of Heaven

The first volume of Melissa Scott's highly-regarded Roads of Heaven trilogy is an unusual SF novel in that it treats indistinguishable-from-magic science pretty much as if it were magic. It's the sort of thing that makes scientific purists (and guys like me) roll our eyes much of the time. If I have a pet peeve, it's when a "science" fiction story hits me with paranormal, unscientific concepts. If that's what you want to write, then just write paranormal fiction. Scott avoids the claptrap trap, however, by defining her ground rules — precisely how these arcane concepts work within her milieu — early on in her story and then assiduously following them. The end result is an imaginative, compelling story for which even hard SF devotees shouldn't have trouble suspending disbelief. Throw in a believable trio of protagonists, solid space opera action, and some surprising social relevance many years after its original publication, and you have a book, and a trilogy, worthy of rediscovery.

We open many centuries into the future. Humanity has spread out to the stars and lost touch with Earth. A new "physics" has been discovered by the mages of the oppressive Hegemony. It allows for faster-than-light travel via the manipulation of "harmonics" — spaceships are literally powered by sound. Silence Leigh, a rarity as a female pilot, navigates her ships not by plotting mathematical coordinates, but through interpreting symbols and "tuning" her vessel accordingly so that it passes successfully into "purgatory" (hyperspace) in an attempt to reach "heaven." "Heaven" and "hell" are terms that refer to other, non-material planes. The book's title actually refers to the velocity of her vessel, the Sun-Treader.

Why would Scott would bother making up something like this and is it, in fact, a self-indulgent way of cheating the science? Who cares? If SF isn't a literature that allows for even the most outlandish flights of imagination, then nothing is. As long as you obey your own rules, you're gold. Doubts about the story are assuaged as the novel progresses and the power of the magi plays an integral role in the storyline. Ultimately, it's all kind of neat: an effective way of blending SF and fantasy elements in the kind of space opera setting where hard science might clash too greatly. Still, Scott does tend to write her passages concerning the magecraft with a hard SF writer's slavish attention to detail. The resulting prolixity makes some of the novel's early chapters slow going.

Silence is on the planet Secasia, trying to avoid being defrauded of her inheritance following the death of her grandfather. Under the Hegemony, women have few rights (and on Secasia, even have to go veiled, an element that caught me as suprisingly relevant, as I began reading this book late in 2001 following the U.S. strikes against the Taliban in Afghanistan). But she is saved from her legal problems by off-worlder Denis Balthasar and his crewman, Chase Mago. Balthasar offers Silence an arrangement: Chase cannot get the proper documentation to travel deeply within Hegemon space. But, under the laws of Balthasar's home world of Delos, Silence can marry both men, enabling Chase to get his papers. (The LGBT subtext is intriguing in its subtlety.) In return for this purely-business arrangement, Silence gets the chance to leave her dead-end life and conniving relations on Secasia and find whatever piloting work she can on Delos, where they're more progressive about women pilots in general. She agrees, but soon learns to her alarm that Balthasar and Chase haven't told her everything that they are up to.

Scott's quasi-mystical concepts do invite comparison to, say, the Jedi Knights and other fantastical Lucas-y stuff-and-nonsense. Of course, Scott's storytelling has a level of adult sophistication beyond that of Lucas's escapist juvenilia. The strongest element here: a trio of excellent protagonists, none of whom is too arch, and all of whom, especially Silence, ring true as flawed but sympathetic and convincing people (though of the three Balthasar could have used much stronger development). Scott's writing is dense and rich in detail, its only notable flaw her aforementioned tendency toward heavy technical exposition. The tale is generally humorless, too — not that I'd have wanted obligatory scenes of inane comic relief, but it's all quite serious going and Scott doesn't allow us much in the way of lighthearted moments.

Still, Five-Twelfths of Heaven is most rewarding, and an impressive launch to what promises to be a top-flight trilogy. Space opera for grown-ups — that's my idea of heaven. —Thomas Martin Wagner
This review by Thomas M. Wagner is reprinted from his website SFReviews.net by special arrangement.

Silence in Solitude

Silence in Solitude smartly continues Melissa Scott's Roads of Heaven (Silence Leigh) trilogy, keeping the storyline fresh and invigorating by taking readers down unexpected new paths. This sophomore entry opens with Silence in training on the planet Solitudo Hermae to become the first female magus in history. Her sponsor, the magus Isambard, has agreed to train her in exchange for her taking him along once she discovers how to reach long-lost Earth.

Just to recap, Scott has developed an interesting, but sometimes too complex for its own good, notion of space travel utilizing metaphysical concepts. Spaceships are powered by "harmonics," and must be properly tuned like musical instruments so that they can leave the confines of the material universe and travel throughout "purgatory" (a concept similar to hyperspace). Though hard SF watchdogs will no doubt bristle, it's an imaginative way of dealing with such intractable scientific problems as the inability to fly FTL, and Scott has worked her quasi-magic out well enough that it's easily accepted within the context of her story.

Silence discovers that the only way to find Earth is to utilize an antique star map that Isambard says is in the possession of only one man, Adeben Kibbe, the satrap of the planet Inarime. This map will help them bypass a blockade that the outlying Rose Worlds have set against anyone looking for Earth. Luckily, Kibbe is hostile to the Hegemon, which has publicly humiliated him. But he may demand a high price for handing over his map. Learning the Hegemon's forces — on the hunt for a female pilot who might be a mage and looking for Earth — are on their way to Solitudo, Silence, her two husbands Denis Balthasar and Chase Mago, and Isambard flee to Inarime and meet Kibbe, who does indeed demand a rather large favor.

Kibbe's daughter Aili is being held hostage in a women's palace in the midst of a vast lake on Asterion, the Hegemon's home world, to compel Kibbe's continued good behavior. Kibbe, with the help of some anti-Hegemon members of the nobility, is planning an outright invasion of Asterion to take the throne. He wants Silence to infiltrate the women's palace disguised as a nobleman's daughter and liberate Aili before the raid begins. Having no real choice, Silence undertakes this side-quest, after some quick training in palace etiquette to smooth over her rough star-pilot's edges.

The first hundred pages of Silence in Solitude feel a bit tedious and weighed down, as Scott conveys the intricacies of her magecraft with eye-glazing detail. Happily, it picks up markedly once the rescue plot kicks in, becoming splendid space opera escapism. Turning Silence into something of a female Dominic Flandry this time was a surprising choice, but Scott keeps firm control of her trilogy's consistency, effectively building dramatic tension by hitting her heroine with the odd well-timed surprise. Most impressively, Scott understands how not to succumb to the temptation to pound the story's sociopolitical themes into her readers' heads with a sledgehammer. She is content to let the story take center stage, and the obvious contrasts between the Hegemony's oppressive authoritarianism and the liberated sexual and gender politics of its enemies remains subtextual, rather than overtly black-vs-white.

It was kind of a shame to see Denis and Chase Mago pushed to the back burner in this book, but Scott does devote needed time to building Silence's relationship with them, as what was at first a marriage of convenience starts to develop into a bond of real affection.

You leave Silence in Solitude eager for the final volume, which is exactly how series fiction should make you feel. This trilogy is one of the most worthwhile of its day, and one to track down.
—Thomas Martin Wagner
This review by Thomas M. Wagner is reprinted from his website SFReviews.net by special arrangement.

The Empress of Earth

I wish — oh, how I wish — I could say that Melissa Scott's Silence Leigh trilogy ends on its highest possible note. While The Empress of Earth does at long last offer the long-awaited payoff of the journey to Earth, that payoff may disappoint some readers. Some tedious and labored writing and a surprisingly conventional approach to space opera kept me from appreciating the book as well as I did its two prequels, particularly the rousing Silence in Solitude. The appeal of Scott's trio of lead characters is still solid, however. Readers who've made it this far will want to know Silence's destiny. And it's precisely that sort of character appeal that carries you over the novel's lulls.

Having finally won from the Satrap of Inarime, now the new Hegemon, the right to use his ancient portolan guide to find the long-lost star roads back to mother Earth, Silence Leigh and her two husbands Denis Balthasar and Chase Mago prepare to get underway. But a new condition has been added by the Hegemon. Princess Aili is the Hegemon's only legitimate child, and he needs a male heir to inherit the throne in order to shore up his own shaky rule, won in combat (and with Silence's help at that). So he has made a deal with other noble families in the Hegemony that the throne will pass to whomever either discovers the roads to Earth, or sponsors such a journey. It's a deal he knows he cannot lose, and he has named his eldest legitimate son as sponsor of Silence's upcoming journey. Silence and crew have no choice but to accept the sponsorship.

This wouldn't be such a big deal were it not for one wild card: Aili, who quite reasonably thinks she should inherit the throne, despite the Hegemony's innate cultural misogyny. Much to the shock of Silence and Chase, Denis sneaks Aili aboard their ship prior to getting underway, along with her husband, Colonel Marcinik. This is a disaster waiting to happen.

The roads to Earth have been blocked by a federation of planets called the Rose Worlds, using vast siege engines that mess up the harmonics central to the Magi's Art. Remember, Scott has invented an elaborate and imaginative metaphysical system of starflight. And though she has incorporated it into her stories in such a way that one can easily suspend disbelief (unless one is a strident hard-science purist, that is), Scott still feels the need to oversell it. Scenes depicting Silence piloting — in which Scott goes into excruciating detail infodumping extremely obscure magical symbology — make for some dull, interminable reading. I'd swear I probably qualify for Medicaid after slogging through chapter three. It simply isn't necessary for Scott to bury us under this much often-incomprehensible minutiae in order for us to believe the Art. It's doubly unnecessary if she wants her story to have exciting forward momentum, something I would argue is crucial to space opera. After all, in Star Trek, it was sufficient to invent "dilithium crystals" as the source of the Enterprise's fuel. They didn't need to detail every single chemical and molecular process that took place within the ship's engines. Just get our heroes to the freakin' planet already!

Anyway, after much prolixity, Silence finds the path to Earth. But it soon becomes clear the Rose Worlds have been onto them from the start and they've run into a trap. The story becomes far more interesting at this point. And it's high time, because we're halfway through the book. Forced to crash-land, Silence and crew must figure out not only how to escape, but also exactly what it is the Rose Worlders are up to, and why they have blocked access to Earth. And can this blockade be broken?

There's no denying Melissa Scott is a storyteller who respects her readers' intelligence, even if it means she writes with a heavy hand sometimes. She isn't for all tastes, but readers who don't mind a novel that takes its time will be more receptive to her style. I'll admit I'm going to miss Silence Leigh and her friends, and if Scott should ever choose to revisit them and bring us up to date on their further adventures, I'll be one of the first in line. —Thomas Martin Wagner
This review by Thomas M. Wagner is reprinted from his website SFReviews.net by special arrangement.