num_pages: 273
description: Several years ago, Suzy McKee Charnas impressed the SF world with her first novel, Walk to the End of the World, a story of the far future—when survivors of a nuclear holocaust have formed a feudal enclave in which women are enslaved animals. Now, in Motherlines, Charnas moves to another geographic location in the same future world and chronicles the adventures of Alldera, the escaped slave, among the plains-dwelling women of the motherline tribes.In one of the most striking and innovative leaps of the SF imagination ever, Charnas envisions a society of nomadic women who reproduce parthenogenetically, the descendants of pre-holocaust experimental subject. During the generations since the disaster, these women on horseback have developed a culture that is entirely new to the face of the Earth.Alldera, in her escape from the Holdfast, survives a terrible trek over the mountain ranges to the central plains, in search of the legendary community of escaped fems (slaves). More dead than alive, in advanced pregnancy, Alldera is discovered by sentries of the motherline tribes. They take her to their camp and restore her to health for her delivery. The motherline tribes know the community of “free fems,” which she seeks and after the baby is born they force Alldera to choose to live with that community.But Alldera finds that the “free fems” are just as hidebound and feudal as the Holdfast. She is really in the same situation she originally fled from, so she must leave the community. She wanders for a time with her friend, Daya, and then both return to live among the motherline tribes as tolerated foreigners.Charnas provides, through the story of Alldera’s wanderings, an intense and moving examination of two different future societies, two life-styles developed in extreme and telling detail.
language: English
title: Motherlines
titlecomplete: Motherlines (Holdfast Chronicles, #2)
genres: Gender, Fiction, Lesbian Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Science Fiction, Dystopia, Post Apocalyptic, Feminism, Fantasy, LGBT
ratings_count: 276
series: Holdfast Chronicles
awards: awardedAt: 788947200000
name: James Tiptree Jr. Award
category: Retrospective
publisher: Putnam Pub Group