An interesting tale of living on a world that is not suitable for you.
3 stars
A clever story by the author that starts off like a fantasy (a rural setting with ghostly authoritatian figures) but turns out to be rooted in SF once the various elements of the tale fall into place. The story starts with Handry getting into an accident that causes him to become an Outcast. But being an outcast means more than just being expelled from the village he has lived all his life; it also means he has a lot of trouble eating food that he used to eat, and even the animals reject him for smelling different.
As he wanders from village to village, stealing clothes and the little food he can eat, he ends up in a 'city' (basically a large village) that has a job for outcasts like him and is willing to pay for it with food that he can eat. At the end of the task, …
A clever story by the author that starts off like a fantasy (a rural setting with ghostly authoritatian figures) but turns out to be rooted in SF once the various elements of the tale fall into place. The story starts with Handry getting into an accident that causes him to become an Outcast. But being an outcast means more than just being expelled from the village he has lived all his life; it also means he has a lot of trouble eating food that he used to eat, and even the animals reject him for smelling different.
As he wanders from village to village, stealing clothes and the little food he can eat, he ends up in a 'city' (basically a large village) that has a job for outcasts like him and is willing to pay for it with food that he can eat. At the end of the task, he gets selected by a messianic-like outcast figure who leads him to a place that is literally from another world: a place where he can feel at home. He also learns about the history of how humans came to the planet and how they had to adapt themselves to live on what the world can provide. But in adapting, the humans have forgotten how to lead and now only follow the advice of computerised and ghostly Expert Systems (not a spoiler, as it's in the title).
A crisis develops when someone close to Handry is captured and the messianic figure reveals his plan that could devastate the villages but allow the outcasts to have their revenge. Now, Handry and the expert systems that are still running have to figure out a new way to work with the villages to give themselves a chance to improve their lives.
