Book Review: Shining Steel

Book Review: 'Shining Steel' by Lawrence Watt-Evans

5 / 5 stars

‘Shining Steel’ (216 pp.) was published by Avon Books in June, 1986. The striking cover illustration is by Carl Lundgren. It is one of several novels by Watt-Evens loosely organized into the so-called ‘Shining Steel’ series.

Since 1980, Watt-Evans (b. 1954) has been a prolific author of original sci-fi and fantasy novels, as well as novels for franchise properties such as ‘Aliens’ and ‘Star Trek’. 

‘Shining’ is set on the planet of Godsworld, colonized centuries ago by a starship carrying Christian Fundamentalists anxious to escape the turmoil afflicting Earth. 

The descendants of these colonists have turned the planet into a patchwork of sects, all constantly warring with each other over obscure questions of doctrine. Since technology on Godsworld has regressed to that of the of 19th century, battles are conducted with edged weapons, and those few firearms for which there is sufficient ammunition are deployed with deliberation and care.

The novel’s protagonist is John Mercy-of-Christ, a model of Christian rectitude and the military commander of the True Word and Flesh sect. In the opening chapters, John leads an attack on a village known to support heretics. John expects a quick victory, followed by the requisite execution of those enemy survivors who refuse to convert to the True Word sect, and the rape and enslavement of their women, actions considered justifiable by the martial codes governing the sectarian conflicts on Godsworld.

However, John and his troops encounter the unthinkable: the villagers are equipped with advanced weapons, weapons that can change the balance of power on Godsworld. John learns that the weapons were obtained from a new faction on Godsworld: The People of Heaven.

The Heaveners, as they are called, not only have advanced weapons, but an astonishing variety of material goods never before seen by anyone on Godsworld. It seems the Heaveners have formed an alliance with an offworld entity, the Bechtel-Rand corporation. Indeed, after centuries of isolation, a resurgent Federation is contacting long-lost colony worlds and auctioning development rights to those worlds to corporate entities. Godsworld has, in essence, been turned into the modern-day equivalent of a trading post.

John struggles to cope with the changed reality of life on Godsworld, life now dictated by corporate administrators who are indifferent, even amused, by the theological conflicts of its inhabitants. But although John is not an educated man, he is willing to alter his doctrinal rigidity when circumstances dictate it prudent to do so. And John realizes that there may be a way to turn the tables on the planet’s new corporate masters……….  

In 1980s sci-fi, it wasn’t unusual to have Christian Fundamentalists as villains; for example, they control the near-future Earth in John Shirley’s ‘Eclipse’ (1985), and visit cruel punishments on hapless villagers in Lester Neil Smith's 'The Crystal Empire' (1986). The first half of ‘Shining Steel’ has considerable fun in depicting John Mercy-of-Christ as a hapless scripture-quoting rube, whose devotion to dogma has left him ill-prepared to deal with a technologically advanced society indifferent to religion.

However, the second half of the novel diverts from a mocking treatment of Christian Fundamentalism and instead takes a more subtle and nuanced path: is the secular Corporation, with its single-minded focus on profit and economic exploitation, any better a substitute for religious zealotry ? 

‘Shining Steel’ s allegorical nods to the real-world exploitation of Third World countries and cultures, by those of the mercenary First World, gives the novel a depth that is adeptly conveyed by Watt-Evans’s clear and crisp prose style.

I finished ‘Shining Steel’ comfortably convinced that this novel deserves a five-star rating. Readers looking for a treatment of the conflict between Religion and Science that is more imaginative than most will find much to like here.