Lina RatherRezensionen

Magic midwives and monster babies.

Interesting premise but there was a lack of intrigue and the slow pace made it a bit ho hum.

Hands down one of my new favorite sci-fi stories! "Sisters" is such a thoughtful and complex look at beliefs, humanity, and the choices people choose to make, all written in beautiful yet compact prose. I'm so impressed with this world Rather has woven together and would adore to see more stories set here! An absolute 5-star read, and I would definitely recommend this to anyone who loves stories of women in space and cozy sci-fi.

The second in the series about the Sisters of St. Rita. It’s necessary to have read the first book, as this picks up after the events of that one and no time is wasted on filling in the reader on those past events. After finishing the two novellas in this series, I see a comparison with Becky Chambers’ Wayfarers series, but rather darker. There is more evil, though most characters are essentially good, and even most of the villains are depicted as redeemable, and characters find hope, or at least comfort or meaning, even in the direst of situations. Humanity is shown as capable of great evil but also great good, it’s very suspenseful near the end, but it’s ultimately a comforting read.

Decent, if Unoriginal Scifi

I don't have a huge amount to say about this other than it is written and performed to a good standard, especially for genre fiction included in the Audible library. It's a bit of a hodge podge of various scifi concepts from other properties combined with some skill, but little originality or deep interest. I'm intrigued about the universe, but probably not enough to pick up the second book unless it is added to the catalogue or I can get it from the library.

If you were being reductive you could say, what if Shepherd Book and the rest of the crew from Firefly were all Catholic nuns on a ship from Farscape essentially doing the storyline from Serenity.

Lina Rather packs a lot into her slim novellas, including well-drawn characters that you come to care a lot about. This is a tale of cosmic horror, the monstrous conceptions of the title, witnessed by apprentice midwife Sarah, who has been hired by architect Chistopher Wren’s wife Faith. It brought to mind The Dress Lodger by Sheri Holman, but set in 1675 London rather than 1831 London. The two novels share a feminist concern with the raw deal women of little means have historically been handed, as well as malformed babies and the men who take advantage of them. The denouement moved maybe a bit too quickly—I would have really enjoyed more detail. But if Lina Rather ever decides to write a novel that’s twice the length of the two I’ve read, or even twice the length of the two of them together, I’m there for it—it will surely be magnificent.½

"Let us do what we know to be right," sister Lucia said. " If we die, we will know we died doing good works, and that is all any of us have asked of this life."

Sisters of the Vast Black, by Lina Rather, follows nuns traveling aboard a living spaceship that can mate and produce baby spaceships. Yes, you heard that right. And these nuns also happen to be in the business of fighting evil, even when it means going against the word of the Catholic Church itself.

Note to reader: No, this novella is not the least bit campy.

As mentioned, Lina Rather’s debut novella follows a crew of sisters from the Order of Saint Rita as they journey through space, responding to calls for help from newly established colonies (and I idea I absolutely love). The cast of characters includes the enigmatic Reverend Mother, whose vow of silence keeps her mysterious past shrouded, the pragmatic Sister Faustina, the pious Sister Lucia, and Sister Gemma, who pines for a life outside the Order. Each character is fascinating in her own right but Sister Gemma to me is the glue of this story. Her role has led her to specialize in the living ship and its functions, and who has been researching whether the ship’s immunity to diseases can be used to help humans, but who is currently wrestling with the contradiction between her faith, her commitment to the order, and her growing affection for a woman outside the community of faithful (the Catholicism of the future has, it seems, finally gotten over the idea that queer relationships are inherently sinful).

This is an intensely personal and focused novella that is focused on the individual sisters. The story’s heart lies in the sisters’ community formed within the flesh walls of their spaceship and in their struggles in remaining faithful to themselves, each other, and the Church as they learn that bodies and souls in their care- and those of the galactic diaspora -are in danger. And its not some aliens from beyond but from Earth's own Central Governance and the Church itself.

This is a warm and forgiving, and intimate novel with an explosive, nail-biting and all too relevant conclusion for 2020. Sisters of The Vast Black explores the relationships between faith, imperialism, and love and gives us a glimpse of what our spacefaring future could look like (maybe minus the giant space ship slugs!).

This was a book I needed to read right now, when our planet seems so filled with existential angst and panic. I need to read about a group of flawed nuns trying to do some good in the universe, trying to love others, trying to helps others in their time of illness. I needed to read about human kindness.

This book could not be more highly recommended. I want to purchase a copy and reread it over and over again.

I hope there are more stories set within this universe.

This is a slim novella that is jam-packed with characters and drama. A group of nuns whose convent is a space-faring sea slug (which brought to mind Moya of Farscape, though less sentient and no empathic Pilot) travel among far-flung colony planets, rendering aid and performing sacraments as needed, after a great war that defeated Earth Central Governance (the opposite outcome of the war against the Alliance in Firefly). The religious dilemmas of the nuns brought to mind Canticle for Liebowitz a bit too, though in 155 pages, it has nowhere the scope and breadth of that novel. Though it uses some familiar space opera and other science fictional pieces, they’re recombined in a way that’s fresh and thoughtful, and the characters are interesting individuals, which is a lot to accomplish in such a short book. I’m definitely planning to read the second book in this series.

The premise of A Season of Monstrous Conceptions appealed to me, but the book simply isn't substantial enough to fill the promise of its premise. It has wonderful elements: a setting in 17th Century London; a bisexual apprentice midwife wife with unclearly defined otherworldly powers; Christopher Wren and the rebuilding of London after the great fire; and those monstrous conceptions of the title—babies with too many eyes, too much hair, scales, tails, the wrong number of limbs.

At 160 pages, this book moved quickly, too quickly, with not nearly enough detail. Readers were told all those elements were there, but never allowed to sink into them sufficiently to feel as if they were experiencing them. I left it feeling as if I'd read a preliminary sketch that was never fully realized as the novel it might have been. I makes for a fun evening's reading, but doesn't have the kind of riches that call for rereading.

I received a free electronic review topic of this title from the publisher via NetGalley; the opinions are my own.

I enjoyed this, but liked it less than Sisters of the Vast Black. To a great extent that's because this book felt a little more meandering, a little less cohesive—I've got to imagine that Lina Rather is banking on this being the middle book in an eventual trilogy, because the A plot and B plot don't really interact and Sisters of the Forsaken Stars doesn't so much "have an ending" as "end." I did like Rather's continuing emphasis on community, however, and her grappling with questions of humanity and the personal vs political and the responsibilities of myth making.½

It took me some time to get back to this future world in which living ships forge the vast interstellar distances and work as “traveling convents” for the nuns aboard, bringing help and comfort to those in need, but after the first few pages I felt again comfortable in this universe.

The sisters of the order of Saint Rita are dealing with the aftermath of the events from Sisters of the Vast Black, at the end of which they suffered heavy losses, both human and non-human, considering the death of their living ship-convent, named Our Lady of Impossible Constellations. Presently the nuns are traveling on a new ship, but it’s still a youngling so it needs constant care and nutrients, and since they broke any ties with the Church and Earth government funds are scarce and they have to keep a low profile and make do with what they can scrounge along the way.

Much of the story in Forsaken Stars hinges around these difficulties and the even greater threat of discovery: the nuns’ actions in revealing Earth’s responsibility in the deadly plague hitting rebellious colonies have turned them into a sort of heroic figures, taken as example and inspiration by those who are eager to shake off the yoke of Earth Governance, and they are constantly debating about how to travel the thin line separating their mission of help to those in need from the danger of becoming figureheads. The uncertainty weighing on the sisters is further enhanced by the arrival of two new people: Kristen, a young postulant asking to join the convent and Eris, the long-lost sister of Ewostatewos: the former represents the unknown factor that might unsettle the fragile balance aboard the ship, the latter is like an unwelcome spotlight shining on them because she is clearly on the run, and therefore a wanted individual.

Unlike the first book in the series, Forsaken Stars seems a little less…cohesive, for want of a better word, somewhat meandering at times, but with hindsight I can see how this uncertainty in plot is a mirror for the uncertainty plaguing the nuns who have lost their support system and have to forge a completely new way of doing things - and surviving - which might take some time before it’s ironed out into the precise mechanism it used to be with Our Lady of Impossible Constellations. Moreover, the nuns are dealing with the emotional fallout of their losses - even though not all of them are due to death, since former Sister Gemma left the convent to join her lover Vauca, an engineer on the deadship (i.e. a conventional construct) Cheng I Sao, where they try to nurture the failed shiplings in the hope of creating something new when they are not viable as future liveships.

If the plot feels a little meandering, what remains steady and strong is the sense of community among the nuns, particularly where external forces are trying to change (or co-opt) them or when personal issues threaten to intrude on their concept of faith, which here seems to be more oriented toward belief in the rightness of good works rather than adherence to dogma - and here I have to say that I appreciated how these nuns’ faith stands on the willingness to do good, to help the needy and, if possible, prevent the cruelty humans enjoy inflicting each other.

There are a few passing references to the difference between these space-faring nuns and the ones living on planets and conducting a more traditional monastic life of prayer and contemplation, references that I interpreted as respect for the kind of hands-on approach exhibited by the protagonists. It must also be said that physical distance from the Church - even before the nuns cut their ties with it and Earth - already prompted the nuns to find their own way to deal with spiritual matters, showing how doctrine cannot remain unchanged when the conditions for its applicability change due to the unpredictability of life away from humanity’s home planet.

Where the start of this second installment shows the nuns in a state of flux, the dramatic events happening toward the end of the book bring it out of the perceived middle-book syndrome and point toward a road fraught with dangers, yes, but also with great possibilities: while the short form of this novella suffers from a certain lack of development that cries out for a longer narrative span, it also leaves ample room for the expansion of the story in many possible directions. It will be interesting to see where it will lead us next….

Good book, and my comments are basically the same as for its predecessor: an enjoyable read, occasional difficulty following POV shifts (in the audiobook narration), good character development, loved the concept of the live ships, loved the culture where queer relationships are normal, loved the examination of how religious orders can evolve in a non-hierarchical way. A bit underwhelming, for me, but still a worthwhile read.

This one took a little while to get going for me, but once I got locked in, I liked the book quite a lot. I did sometimes have trouble following the point-of-view changes in the audiobook, as very little changed about the narration or speech patterns. The idea of space-faring living ships is not new, but I appreciated the implementation here. And of course, the themes around evangelizing and religious abuse were completely believable.

This book reminded me of [b:The First Sister|52378525|The First Sister (The First Sister Trilogy, #1)|Linden A. Lewis|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1584211465l/52378525._SY75_.jpg|71431861], and even some recent historical novels such as [b:Matrix|57185348|Matrix|Lauren Groff|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1617287438l/57185348._SY75_.jpg|87447766] and [b:The Rebel Nun|55016744|The Rebel Nun|Marj Charlier|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1598675402l/55016744._SY75_.jpg|85798680].

A good follow-up to Sisters of the Vast Black with more exploration of what it means to be separated from an organized structure, to be truly independent. The climax was a little awkward for me, which dropped the rating a bit. I did prefer the first book, but still enjoyed this one as a quick read.

An excellent first work for a new author, Sisters of the Vast Black takes an interesting approach to how religion might adapt to a far future. Lina Rather brilliantly tackles the concept of a living ship, doing more show than tell but still telling just enough to ground its concept in some sense of reality. I'm really looking forward to reading more by Rather, as her sense of building a great story in a grand world really speaks to one of my great interests in sci-fi.

The Reverend Mother harbours a secret. But then, so do the other sisters of the Our Lady of Impossible Constellations.

For such a short book, this novella is loaded with characters and world-building. It's rich in detail and (mostly) leisurely in pace. A quick read that will leave you with warm feelings and a hunger for more.

I know four stars is a good rating for a book that I didn't enjoy all that much, but I feel like it's not the book's fault. This was well written, but not original ouside of the setting.

I feel like I would have really liked this if this was one of the first sci-fi books I read, but at this point in my reading journey, this just felt like an iteration of a story I've read a dozen times before.

However, I would recommend this to any fantasy reader who's intimidated by sci-fi but wanting to broaden their horizons.

Liked the story and the characters well enough, but the use and exploitation of the living ships somewhat squicked me. Will keep reading the series, though.

A worthy successor to the first in the series up to the point where

SPOILER

in one scene the away team are trapped in the University of St. Ofra by the forces of the Central Governance and in the next they have somehow returned to their ship - but how?.

Nuns in space, travelling in a genetically modified sea slug. What's not to like?

How’s this for a high-concept premise? A convent of nuns dressed in traditional black is housed in the belly of a large, spacefaring slug. One of the nuns has taken a vow of silence as a penance. Another is having a vocational crisis over her attraction to a female crewmember on another ship. The ship provokes a theological debate among the nuns when it wants to mate with another ship. A new, much-to-conservative pope has assigned a new priest to supervise the convent. It is all more fun than it sounds, once you stir in a plague, a battle in space, and a pregnant spaceship. 4 stars.

"We are meant to be obedient, Sister. Even when we don't understand. It was in those vows you seem to care so little for. And if you wanted a religion where men and women of the religious life had the same level of authority, you should have been a Lutheran."

'Sisters Of The Forsaken Stars' continues the story that was started in ‘Sisters Of The Vast Black’, a book that Lina Rather described as being about ‘Nuns living in a giant slug in outer-space’.

When we met the Sisters of the Order of Saint Rita in the first book, they were a small community of nuns travelling in their convent, Our Lady of Impossible Constellations, a vast, genetically engineered mollusc called a Liveship, to tend to the sick and carry out marriages and baptisms in the outer reaches of mankind’s colonies in the stars. By the end of the book, some dark secrets about the sisters had been revealed and they’d managed to entangle themselves in a brutal covert struggle between Earth and its colonies. The ending was action-packed, explosive and surprising.

One way to write a sequel to a book like that is to ramp up the violence and the struggle and lead towards an even more explosive ending with even bigger consequences for humanity.

Lina Rather went a different way. She'd been writing about nuns in space, not Marines in space. The women in her story have chosen to live a religious life of service to others. Whatever their background before they joined the Order of Saint Rita, they are now women who bring peace and solace, not women who challenge governments and lead revolutions. Yet their actions have turned them into a legend that the Earth government wants to suppress and that some of the Colonists want to turn into a rallying cry of the revolution. So Lina Rather goes for the personal rather than the big-picture political. She explores how the Sisters find a path that allows them to honour their faith, to support each other and to minister to those who need them without either being killed or turned into a weapon.

The strength of the novella lies in its ability fully to imagine the reactions of the Sisters, a disparate group of women from many backgrounds and with different views on faith and responsibility but who have chosen to live as a community with a duty to serve God by ministering to others.

No one has any easy answers. Faith is tested. Trust is hard to gain. Threats keep multiplying and options keep narrowing.

I loved watching how these women thought through their problems and worked hard to maintain themselves as a community.

The story and the ending were lower-key than the first book but no less powerful for that. I hope there'll be a third book in the series. If there is, I'll be there, rooting for the Sisters in the Liveship.
½

Sisters of the Forsaken Stars is a remarkable follow-up to Lina Rather's previous novella, Sisters of the Vast Black. I have a soft spot for stories that engage with the tensions one so often encounters in the intersections of religious faith, moral requirements, obligations to institutions, and personal dreams, desires, beliefs, and aspirations. Both novellas do so beautifully, Sisters of the Forsaken Stars building on and expanding the foundations laid in its predecessor.

If much of Sisters of the Vast Black’s focus was largely on individual choices, Sisters of the Forsaken Stars zooms out to place more consideration on the consequences choices made by both individuals and groups can have not only on those groups and individuals but on the futures of whole societies. The stakes grow ever greater for these spacefaring nuns and all the people they encounter, but Rather’s writing remains eloquently personal.

There are a lot of reasons I would recommend this novella. First of all, it is a pleasure to read, written in clear, unfussy prose that largely stays out of the story’s way without becoming dull. Its themes are immensely engaging, their particular combination of faith and queerness making for a truly captivating read. This is a deeply moving story, and the kind of thought-provoking that will keep readers thinking long after the last page is turned.

I received a free e-ARC of this title from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my review.

One of the best books of the year.

Nuns in space! In their living spaceship, the very human and lovable sisters travel from planet to planet performing basic religious services. When their spaceship shows signs of pursing its own desires, they are faced with questions as to the nature of their home. Then they receive a surprising message from the head of the Church. Finally, after responding to a distress call from colonists, they stumble into a sinister government plot. Action, adventure, nuns. What's not to love.

I have reviewed other top reads for the year at https://medium.com/erica-online/id-hate-for-you-to-miss-these-books-be9186cd6800

The only thing disappointing about this book is the fact that it is a novella rather than a full-length novel -- because I loved the concepts, characters and execution. I would have loved spending more time with the characters, learning more about each one's background and internal life, and exploring the universe more deeply.

This is a complete, resolved story, but it also leaves a door open to further adventures.