Sharon Shinn: Archangel
Archangel
Author: Sharon Shinn
Genre: Romantic Science Fantasy
Pages: 400
Final Thoughts: Highly enjoyable, engaging, and intriguing.
I've known about Archangel and its sequels for some time, in that rather amorphous way you know about an author's backlist but just haven't gotten around to investigating more thoroughly. I was intrigued by the fact that the books are set in a fantasy place called Samaria and quite clearly deal with angels and, one would suspect, also mortal humans. Given the blurbs I'd read, it was pretty clear that there was a lot of influence, at least in naming, from the ancient Hebrew culture.
And yet I hesitated to pick them up. Maybe because I've thoroughly enjoyed all of Ms. Shinn's other books that I've picked up, and I didn't want to be disappointed despite the good reviews and steady following for the Samaria books. Maybe it's because when something treads so close to my own faith, I'm always more wary of approaching it--not because I object to differing beliefs or portrayals in my fiction, but because I'm committed to thinking and responding intelligently to those beliefs and portrayals. And sometimes one must honestly judge oneself unfit to think and respond well.
So I haven't read them. The time hasn't been right.
Then someone recommended Archangel when I was trolling for books to read for school, and I thought it was about time. Pseudo-Hebrew names and places, and a story dealing with whether God is real paralleled my own work enough that it seemed a good idea, and I'm glad I relented at last. What a fantastic, fascinating concept she explores.
Fair warning, folks, this is an entry for school, so it is full of spoilers. If you don't want the story ruined, don't clicky-clicky on the cut. You won't like it if you do, so don't even tempt yourself. Proceed at your own spoilerific peril.
The cover copy does a better job of setting up the story than I ever would, so I'll steal it here:
And so it came to pass . . . Through science, faith, and force of will, the Harmonics carved out for themselves a society that they conceived of as perfect. Diverse people held together by respect for each other and the prospect of swift punishment if they disobeyed their laws. Fertile land that embraced a variety of climates and seasons. Angels to guard the mortals and mystics to guard the forbidden knowledge. Jehovah to watch over them all . . .
Generations later, the armed starship Jehovah still looms over the planet of Samaria, programmed to unleash its arsenal if peace is not sustained. But an age of corruption has come to the land, threatening that peace and placing the Samarians in grave danger. Their only hope lies in the crowning of a new Archangel. The oracles have chosen for this honor the angel named Gabriel, and further decreed that he must first wed a mortal woman named Rachel.
It is his destiny and hers. And Gabriel is certain that she will greet the news of her betrothal with enthusiasm, and a devotion to duty equal to his own.
Rachel, however, has other ideas . . . .
Yeah. Feel free to read through that again, because there's a lot there and I'm going to talk about most of it.
We'll start with the genre mix.
Fantasy
Look! Angels! Oracles! The world in peril! "Their only hope"! Destiny! It's a fantasy!!
Romance
Ooh, duty-bound hero on his way to save the world is matched with what must be a fiesty woman, if she "has other ideas". Sounds like a classic romance story brewing.
Science Fiction
Ah, it's a society "conceived of as perfect" by some unknown group (humans? aliens?) called the Harmonics . . . who naturally left an armed starship in place to keep the peace on their perfect planet. Mmmm. Armed starship. Which is conveniently named for an earth God, setting up a spiritual conundrum for those poor simple minded fantasy-world-dwellers. No, wait, they're science-fiction-world-dwellers, who are never that gullible! I'm so confused.
Okay, I'll stop being facetious now.
The most interesting thing, to me, is that there is essentially no mention of any of the SF elements in the actual text. I mean, one can interpret that the oracles "commune" with the God (called Jovah) via what are essentially computer terminals, and certainly the "Kiss" implanted on each person's right arm that lets the God know they are still alive is a derivation of the SF base, but aside from sideways references, this really could be a fantasy-romance. I was a little bit disappointed in that, because I think some very neat things could have happened (though I'm given to understand it is further explored in one or more of the other Samaria books).
On the other hand, I almost felt like the discussions on faith amongst the characters were tainted for me as a reader by the knowledge that essentially Jovah was Jehovah, the armed starship. The saving grace, for me, was that the relationship was never explicitly stated, so that God might have been effecting some or all of the answered prayers; also, the characters' struggles with faith and doubt, in ignorance of the starship's very existence, were the genuine article. In particular, Rachel's discussion with Josiah (one of the oracles) on the night before the Gloria was extremely well-done. I can only aspire to ask and answer such questions so well in my own writing.
Raphael was a proper villain, neither so horrible he was unbelievable nor so unthreatening that he didn't fit the role. He was a perfect balance of ambition, madness, vengefulness, and charm (which eventually became creepy and horrifying as we learned about his actions). As Archangel and leader of the planet's prayers, his disenchantment and complete lack of belief was shocking and saddening - but all too common among religious leaders. That he killed any of his underlings who didn't agree with him in the end was horrific. He had to die, but I was glad it was Jovah's wrath that struck him down rather than either Gabriel or Rachel, or any of the angels.
A small thing, perhaps, but noteworthy: there truly were no war-like weapons in the story, except the fire-cannons Raphael and his companions unearthed and learned to use in the end. No mention of swords or guns or anything larger than an axe for chopping wood or a carving knife. Of course, one must assume that the slavers had some sort of weapon they used against the Edori, but that's not the focus, and the angels are never armed. I thought that was appropriate for what is supposed to be a supremely peaceful society even if it has fallen into corruption in recent years. And weapons are the sort of thing that would be easy to add to the story without realizing how much that would undermine the premise of a harmony-based world.
From a romance standpoint, having read plenty of romances lately, I really liked the pairing of Gabriel and Rachel from the beginning. Gabriel has such a clear vision of what needs to be done and such conviction that his plan is the right one, and Rachel has learned to keep from being run over roughshod by people her entire life aside from being a pretty sharp tack herself. Great foils for one another.
Unfortunately, I felt like the romantic plot faltered a bit at the end. I think it's aggravated by the fact that I felt like it (the romantic plot) got cut off short at the end, but it centers on the fact that I really felt like Gabriel learned to accommodate Rachel but there was very little reciprocal change on her part. In fact, I felt rather cheated by the end scene at Hagar's Tooth. I loved that Gabriel walked up (The builder of the house hated angels and placed spikes around the property so that they couldn't land, and had to talk up the mountain trail instead. Angels hate to walk.), but I really wanted Rachel to have cleared at least some of the spikes near the house so that he could fly in from then on or, you know - something welcoming. She's returning his love, after all, but it just felt very incomplete. I'm not sure how to say it better. Suffice to say that I identified more with Gabriel toward the end than with Rachel, and I really wanted to connect with them both equally. And although I know Sharon often closes a story at the beginning of a romance's healthy stage, I would have liked to see Gabriel and Rachel interact together in a healthy way, or at least better than they did through the majority of the book.
Some smaller notes:
- Until I got used to it, the narrative skipping back in time and "catching up" when we switched from Rachel's POV to Gabriel's was a little disconcerting - I still think it could have been handled a bit better, but in the end it worked well enough.
- I LOVE the idea of real live angels interacting on an everyday level with humans, and I might have to play more with the idea myself at this point. We shall see.
- I'm glad Rachel wasn't going to let Semorrah be destroyed, even before Josiah and Gabriel spoke with her.
In the end, a highly enjoyable read, despite my few beefs and small hang-ups. Sharon Shinn writes the sort of stories that are possible to put down between chapters, but which are so fully involving that within half a page you've re-entered the magic of her world and are engrossed again. Her prose, as always, is clear, concise, and beautiful.
I have to admit I'm a little disappointed to find that none of the other Samaria books tell more of Gabriel and Rachel's story, even in passing, but I'm sure I'll get past that easily enough.
Book #61