Enchantress from the Stars

I liked 2/3 of this book a lot! It really holds up well for being published about fifty years ago, and the questions it raises about ethics and human progress and how we show love are all really carefully explored. Even as an older reader coming to it for the first time, I found myself invested in Elana and Jarel and the ways in which they each had to grapple with what they were doing....and if you note I'm missing one of the three POV characters, it's because Georyn was really the only place where I felt like this book was lacking. I had such a clear and nuanced picture of the other two protagonists, and Georyn was two-dimensional both by comparison and taken alone. He was very heroic, of course, but that appeared to be his defining character trait, and there was very little sense of any individual flaw aside from his naivety as a member of the least technologically advanced culture. This book is still a very enjoyable read, however - and one I would recommend to any young reader!

A good, old-school YA science fiction book. This is the kind of thing that I wish I'd read when I was 12, because I would have LOVED it and probably read it over and over again. Without the nostalgia element now, I don't love it, but do recognize the quality of the story. It's a Newbury Honor Book, but definitely one that seems to have fallen through the cracks.

This book is about a woodcutter's son who, along with his brothers, decides that they're going to seek the king's favor by slaying a dragon that's been ravishing the countryside. Along the way they receive help from a magician called the Starwatcher, who sets three tasks for them to complete before he will give them what they need to defeat the dragon. This brings them to seek out the aid of a mysterious Lady, an Enchantress, who lives in a hut in the forest. She bestows magic items upon them so that they may complete the magician's tasks....

......Except that the dragon is really a forestry machine brought there from another planet by a colonizing empire. This Empire seeks out planets to take over, and this world (Andrecia) is one of them. They know that they're much more technologically advanced than the primitive native population, so setting up the planet as a colony and herding all of the native humans into a reservation shouldn't be too hard....

....Except that the Starwatcher and the Enchantress are actually ALSO from another planet, only their civilization is even MORE advanced than the Empire. They're so advanced that they have a peaceful society, and also have the ability to use telekinesis and telepathy. They're tasked with preventing civilizations like the Empire from meddling in the affairs of more primitive planets, while also preventing the Empire from knowing that there are much more advanced planets out there. If either the Andrecians or the Empire knew about the more advanced civilizations, it would potentially stunt their own societal development, so utmost secrecy is required. The Enchantress is really a girl named Elana, who stowed away on her father's ship when he came to Andrecia with two other crewmates with the plan to subtly discourage the Empire from taking over this world. There are some complications, so now Elana needs to play a role in their plans....which is to basically teach ESP skills (ie, magical spells) to a few of the natives so that when the conquering Empire sees the Andrecians levitating objects (with magic!), they'll hopefully freak out at this affront to their strictly-science-based understanding and leave the planet.

This book is told in three POVs: Georyn, the youngest woodcutter's son, Jael, an apprentice medical officer with the Empire, and Elana, the aforementioned mission stowaway. What the author did really well was change the way the three POVs are told. Georyn's reads like a fairy tale, because as far as he knows there is legitimately a dragon, an Enchantress, magical objects, etc. His part of the story is essentially a fantasy story (hence my fantasy tag for this one), and the writing has that old-school fantasy feel...almost Tolkien-ish? Meanwhile, Jael and Elana's have a more updated feel to the writing (although this book is from the 1970s, so it's not THAT modern), since they're both from "future" times. The switching back and forth between the styles is what makes this book for me.

Elana is a bit of an impulsive idiot at times, but she's also young and untrained. Her father spends quite a lot of time explaining things to her (and thus to the reader), but I guess that makes sense since he's basically field training her in the moment. She's apparently in a relationship with the third member of their party (Evrek), but it seems more like a platonic "I guess we'll get married someday since it's the most convenient thing" kind of relationship than a romance. He's barely involved in the story, so this component did feel a bit out of place.

The whole concept of this book is really interesting. Imagining how a medieval-ish superstitious culture would perceive technology that's more like our own culture (in a few years perhaps), and how a purely science-based culture might perceive a culture that's so far ahead it's come around again to embracing supernatural abilities....

If I were to compare this to another book, I'd say it reminds me most of "The Darkangel" trilogy, by Meredith Ann Pierce (though this book was written first). Both are books that initially seem like they're fantasy novels, but then as the layers get peeled back for the reader, it becomes clear that it's a science-fiction story. To the character within the book, everything happening is because of magical reasons, but in truth what we're dealing with is interplanetary travel.

As I said, this book was written in the 1970s, so some aspects definitely have a dated feel. I don't know if today's teens will appreciate this kind of book or not. The old-school writing style (and the OLD old-school writing style of Georyn's POV) might turn off teens who are used to action-packed and romance-heavy fantasy trilogies. This is definitely a book that spends a lot of time with character development, and (in the vein of mid-century sci-fi) a lot of time discussing ethical and philosophical matters.

This was my first time re-reading this book, having only read it once 10+ years ago. I own a copy, and decided it was time to re-read and decide if I want to keep it. After reading it now, I honestly wavered back and forth on whether to keep it. There are copies available at other libraries (my own copy is the one retired from my library), so it's not like it will be unavailable to me if I pass along this copy. I want my personal library to be books that I plan to read over and over, and I'm not sure yet if that will be the case with this one. If I'd read it around the time I first read the Darkangel trilogy, I would probably love it the same way since the styles are so similar. I think that even though I didn't *love* this one, I still really admire what the author has created here.....Hm. I guess I'll hold onto my copy for now and think about it.

Read as a youth, and remembered as a short story until I ran into Cheryl's review (thanks again!) Picked it up from the library and took out the book for a second spin.

The overarching structure is quite clever: the tripartite narrative of a medieval native of a planet, an advanced alien invader, and another, far more advanced alien -- the titular Enchantress -- who is trying to get the second group of aliens to give up their attempt to settle the planet while not letting either group know who she really is.

Unfortunately, the creativity of the structure wasn't matched by the creativity of the content. This was serviceable at best, and also full of a whole bunch of tropes with which, as a child, I was perfectly fine, but now find annoying: everybody chock full of psychic powers that just need a special push to come out, wuv, Trek-y Prime Directives, etc.

Interesting to read after such a long delay. Past Me and Present Me got to have a great chat about each others' literary tastes. There's a sequel - also read when I was young - but I think I will leave it be.

What I won't leave be is Engdahl 's website. It's remarkably content-rich; she's very active for an author in her mid-eighties.

This is a young adult (YA) science fiction novel by American writer Sylvia Engdahl. The story is about a Elana, a young woman from a peaceful space-going civilization that monitors developing planets to ensure that other technologically advanced peoples do not interfere with their progress. She stows away on a ship to accompany her father and Evrek, her betrothed, who are on a mission to Andrecia, a planet in the medieval stage invaded by an expanding alien imperial force. She pretends to be an enchantress in order to train a woodcutter and his brother in psychokinesis so they can convince the Imperial Exploration Corps to leave peacefully.

The basic plot has promise, but told from three points of view – Elana the heroine, Georyn the woodcutter, and Jarel the Imperial Medical Officer, it gives far too much detail about everything, killing off any suspense and turning action sequences into slow motion. Elana’s relationship with her father is not realistic – she stows away on a dangerous mission and apart from some weak argument, there’s almost no conflict between them. Immediately he gives her mission-critical tasks, although she’s had no training and is not authorised to participate. And when Elana falls in love with Georyn, you’d think that Evrek would show at least a little jealousy, but he doesn’t seem particularly bothered. For a science-fiction novel, the vague descriptions of technology are not convincing, and its lessons in morality feel a little too preachy rather than an integrated part of the narrative.

Originally published in 1970, this book was runner-up for the Newbery Award the following year. I read it because I was in the mood for some sci-fi. It was written in simple, uncomplicated language and I got through it quickly. I’m clearly not the target audience but I felt the book did not live up to its potential. Exact score 2.5.

I don't really like sci-fi, but this was pretty good.

While reading, it occurred to me that the Younglings are like what we used to be back in the middle ages.
The Imperials are like what we are now - advanced, but not incredibly. Just enough to amaze people in the middle ages if they could see what we have.
And the Service people (Elana's kind) are like what we might be in the future.

Overall, pretty interesting.

I really enjoyed this older YA SF, and will again when it comes up in the Newbery club in the Children's Books group. Sure, there was an awful lot of discussion and not a whole heck of a lot of action, but that's fine by me because I do read SF for the 'what if' exploration of ideas.

Definitely a good fit, as it happens, for fans of Star Trek, with its exploration of a 'prime directive' and for fans of Star Wars, with a mysterious 'force' (in this case, telepathy and psychokinesis). But more than that. Also, it's appropriate that Lois Lowry, author of The Giver, would write the intro. to the reprint - Engdahl's perspective & voice have much in common with Lowry's.... and fans of her Newbery winning SF would probably like this, too.

Should generate a good discussion in the club... would probably lead to even richer conversations in a teen reading group.

Only a couple of quotes, because most of the book isn't pithy. This first can be read as defense of faith, or of belief in magic, or even as encouragement to do science... what context will you enjoy?

"Why, if nobody believed anything except what they understood, how limited we'd be!"

And consider, do you agree with Georyn?

"For it is better to know of what exists than not to know. I would rather be helpless than blind...."

Discussion is this month so I have reread it. I think I appreciated it more, but enjoyed it a tiny bit less, this time. No matter; I still recommend it. And the sequel, too!

Why I even bothered to finish this, I don't know. I guess I kept hoping it would get better, but it didn't. It is written in three different points of view: Elana's, Georyn's, and Jarel's. Elana's parts are in first person, and the other two are in third person. It seemed like anytime something would happen, it would be described three times, from each point of view, and I don't think that was necessary. Repetition discourages readers, and overall I thought it slowed everything down.

Now the characters. Elana can't get it into her head that not everything is her fault. Personally, I thought she was very annoying, and after a while you get tired of reading what's going on in her mind. Georyn was supposed to be the "love interest", but really, you don't get to know him well enough to care whether or not he ends up with Elana. (Really, more dialog between them would've helped with that. There was hardly any, or at least not as much as I should like.) He thinks Elana is virtually faultless and holds her in such awe because she is the "Enchantress", and she is depicted in that way in Georyn's POV parts. Nobody is going to want to care about a person who is like that, let's just be real. Yes, towards the end, he realizes that she's not exactly everything he once believed, but it hardly matters by that point. He trusted her blindly throughout the whole thing, and sorry, but I have little tolerance for that, especially since he was supposed to be the wisest of his brothers. I won't bother talking about Jarel; he had the fewest parts in his own POV, and I was indifferent to him.

But I don't want this review to discourage anyone from reading it and finding out for yourself if you like it or not, because many people seem to enjoy it, and that's great. It brings up some very good points, but I thought they could've been expressed more powerfully by deeper characters and a better POV system.

It felt like a dragged on fairy tail with a lot of sci fi in it.