David Brin - Glory Season

PRAISE FOR GLORY SEASON

Glory Season is an imaginative and entertaining novel set in a world where women have decisively won the battle of the sexes. Fascinating.

The Philadelphia Inquirer

There is violence and death, pursuit and discovery, betrayal and maturation, immense enjoyment and final satisfaction, all in the service of a thoughtful approach to the question of intergender relations.

Analog Science, Fiction and Fact

Glory Season offers thrills, chills, political intrigue, and other good old scientifictional fun, along with yet another round in the battle of the sexes.

Locus

The tale of a young misfit forced into rebellion against a corrupt society and helping to overthrow it has been told many times before. Brin tells it as well as any and better than all but a handful.

Chicago Sun-Times

A considered and nuanced speculation rather than a stale battle-of-the-sexes tract. Brins prose echoes the influence of Asimov, Frank Herbert, and Aldous Huxley. His world is so painstakingly drawn and is splashed with such radiant and varied hues.

The Christian Science Monitor

MORE PRAISE FOR DAVID BRIN

Brilliantly conceived, intellectually supercharged -novels.

The Sacramento Bee

He is not only prolific, but thoughtful and highly original.

Daily Nelvs, Los Angeles

Brin is a natural storyteller.

The Orange County Register

[Brin] is notable for unquenchable optimism, focusing on the ability of humanity to overcome adversity.

Los Angeles Times Book Review

STARTIDE RISING
One hell of a novel Startide Rising has what SF readers want these days; intelligence, action and an epic scale.

Baird Searles, Isaac Asimovs Science Fiction Magazine

EARTH
Big, ambitious.

The New York Times Book Review

Boasts enough thrills, special effects and Intriguing speculation to put it at the head of the pack for next years Nebula and Hugo awards. Its a powerful, cautionary tale and deserves an audience well beyond the confines of science fiction fans.

San Francisco Chronicle

Bantam Spectra Books by David Brin

EARTH
GLORY SEASON
OTHERNESS
THE POSTMAN
THE PRACTICE EFFECT
STARTIDE RISING
SUNDIVER
THE UPLIFT WAR
BRIGHTNESS REEF
INFINITYS SHORE
HEAVENS REACH

By David Brin and Kevin Lenagh

CONTACTING ALIENS
An Illustrated Guide to
David Brins Uplift War

This edition contains the complete text
of the original hardcover edition.
NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED.

GLORY SEASON
A Bantam Spectra Book
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Bantam hardcover edition / June 1993
Bantam paperback edition / June 1994

All rights reserved.
Copyright 1993 by David Brin.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 9316605

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information address: Bantam Books.

eISBN: 978-0-307-57346-9

Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words Bantam Books and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.

v3.1

To Cheryl Ann
who rescued Maia from Flatland
and me from loneliness

We would have every path laid open to women. Were this done we would see crystallizations more pure and of more various beauty. We believe the divine energy would pervade nature to a degree unknown in the history of former ages, and that no discordant collision, but a ravishing harmony of the spheres, would ensue.

Margaret Fuller

T wenty-six months before her second birthday, Maia learned the true difference between winter and summer.

It wasnt simply the weather, or the way hot-season lightning storms used to crackle amid tall ships anchored in the harbor. Nor even the eye-tingling stab of Wengelso distinct from other stars.

The real difference was much more personal.

I cant play with you no more, her half sister, Sylvina, taunted one day. Cause you had a father!

Did n-not! Maia stammered, rocked by the slur, knowing that the word was vaguely nasty. Sylvies rebuff stung, as if a bitter glacier wind blew through the crche.

Did so! Had a father, dirty var!

Well then youre a var, too!

The other girl laughed harshly. Ha! Im pure Lamai, just like my sisters, mothers an grandmas. But youre a summer kid. That makes you U-neek. Var!

Dismayed, too choked to speak, Maia could only watch Sylvina toss her tawny locks and flounce away, joining a cluster of children varied in age but interchangeable in appearance. Some unspoken ritual of separation had taken place, dividing the room. In the better half, over near the glowing hearth, each girl was a miniature, perfect rendition of a Lamai mother. The same pale hair and strong jaw. The same trademark stance with chin defiantly upraised.

Here on this side, the two boys were being tutored in their corner as usual, unaware of any changes that would scarcely affect them, anyway. That left eight little girls like Maia, scattered near the icy panes. Some were light or dark, taller or thinner. One had freckles, another, curly hair. What they had in common were their differences.

Maia wondered, Was this what it meant to have a father? Everyone knew summer kids were rarer than winterlings, a fact that once made her proud, till it dawned on her that being special wasnt so lucky, after all.

She dimly recalled summertimes storms, the smell of static electricity and the drumbeat of heavy rain on Port Sangers corbeled roofs. Whenever the clouds parted, shimmering sky-curtains used to dance like gauzy giants across distant tundra slopes, far beyond the locked city gates. Now, winter constellations replaced summers gaudy show, glittering over a placid, frost-decked sea. Maia already knew these seasonal changes had to do with movements of Stratos round its sun. But she still hadnt figured out what that had to do with kids being born different, or the same.

Wait a minute!

Struck by a thought, Maia hurried to the cupboard where playthings were stacked. She grabbed a chipped hand mirror in both hands, and carried it to where another dark-haired girl her own age sat with several toy soldiers, arranging their swords and brushing their long hair. Maia held out the mirror, comparing her face to that of the other child.

I look just like you! she announced. Turning, she called to Sylvina. I cant be a var! See? Leie looks like me!

Triumph melted as the others laughed, not just the light-haired crowd, but all over the crche. Maia frowned at Leie. B-but you are like me. Look!