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1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Gripping Medical Sci-Fi May 14, 2008
Reviewed by Robin Witte for RebeccasReads (5/08)
Sylvia Engdahl is an acclaimed writer of juvenile fiction who terminated a long hiatus from writing to publish the masterpiece "Stewards of the Flame." This science fiction novel follows a starship captain, Jesse Sanders, as he is stranded on a planet run by a dictatorial medical establishment that takes health to the extreme. Jesse becomes imprisoned in a hospital were medical personnel force treatment on him for alcoholism after he gets a little intoxicated at a local bar while on leave from his ship. Jesse manages to escape the grueling treatment of this hospital with help from some new-found friends. These friends however, have a lot of secrets and the reader sees Jesse transform as he begins to understand an underground movement on this planet that involves parapsychological and the freedom to die.
Engdahl does a fantastic and thorough job of researching the theory behind this novel and the detail that is revealed in paranormal states and higher consciousness is truly astounding. The explanations and dialogue lean heavily towards scientific theory and tend to be a little dry at times with the plot taking a backseat to the descriptions of how these characters can manipulate their own minds. This novel is concise enough to be an academic thesis on paranormal states and the training that reaching these states requires. Engdahl does provide enough of a futuristic love story between Jesse and one of his new friends to keep the reader interested in what will happen next and we do see that there is a lot more mystery surrounding what a mysterious organization means to do on this planet. Jesse is a revealed to be someone more than a stranded stranger on a planet and becomes someone with the possibilities of being a savior.
This novel is a unique look into a world that has too many similarities to our own world and does a fantastic job of making the reader think about how much power our government should really have over our health and medical decisions. Engdahl has taken an idea that is rarely written about and managed to create a suspenseful and thought provoking novel that seems so plausible that it sends chills up my spine. I highly recommend this science fiction masterpiece to individuals that enjoy fully delving into the realm of other possibilities and want to fully realize Engdahl's perceptions into the human mind. "Stewards of the Flame" is truly a masterpiece of parapsychological science fiction and manages to entertain the reader as it informs.
3 of 3 found the following review helpful:
Stewards of the Flame Dec 15, 2007
Undine is a planet not so very different from our own. People care about their health. Like us, they endeavor to extend the natural human lifespan by curing all types of disease (including mental and social illnesses). Undine has just taken the initiative to insure universal good health and long life.
Free health care, the annihilation of all forms of disease, virtual immortality, Undine might seem like a perfect world. However, Jesse Sanders, a starship captain, quickly finds out the hard way that looks can be deceiving. Jesse is arrested for alcoholism after having a few drinks while on leave. Part of his treatment involves extreme aversion therapy. Fortunately, he's one of the lucky ones, a secret faction of those who appose the government's methods rescues him and bring him into their group.
Stewards of the Flame combines contemporary concerns about health, social issues, and privacy with science fiction and parapsychology to create a powerful story. Are we really headed towards a world like Undine? Are there better alternatives to medications and suspended animation? Both the questions and the potential answers are fascinating.
3 of 3 found the following review helpful:
 tested by fire Dec 11, 2007
If you are new to the writing of Sylvia Engdahl, you might well experience Stewards of the Flame as overly-cerebral and somewhat daunting, or you could end up joining the ranks of her admirers in finding her work an inspiring and stimulating celebration of human good-will, intelligence, courage and love.
Stewards of the Flame requires you to pay attention. It isn't formulaic, nor is it flawless. Reading it is a bit like watching an Andrei Tarkovski movie... if you sit back expecting to get carried along for an easy ride, you will soon get left behind and lost. This is a book with high expectations, of its characters and its readers. You may not get very far with this book if you're not interested in carefully following through the logic of choices, where the personal is intensely political (in the widest sense).
The quality of (the possibility of) goodness in this book is somewhat like that found in the writing of Charles Williams, or Edgar Pangborn, and like the work of those authors, this is not flavour-of-the-month, style-driven writing. The `action' of the book is found mainly in the conversations and the thoughts of the characters. The characters struggle to know themselves and each other. Integrity and honesty are deeply challenged within the gloom of a "benign" dystopian society. The price of daring to hope for `something beyond' is ruthlessly demanded, and paid knowingly.
There are happy endings to Sylvia Engdahl's books (and there is happiness in the end of Stewards of the Flame) but it isn't the convenient, comfortable gratification of having your whims and superficial inclinations easily met. It is a profound happiness, because things have integrity, have been worked through until they are as they should be, and until the characters have committed themselves wholly to the course required by their hard-won and thoroughly-tested convictions.
4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
A veteran storyteller returns with new seriousness Nov 28, 2007
This novel is very different from Sylvia Engdahl's previous novels, which were, somewhat misleadingly, marketed as young adult fiction. yet fans of the earlier works, especially the Children of the Star trilogy, will find some commonalities. In both fictional universes, a man finds himself seemingly alone facing an unjust system. Unlike the trilogy, though, in STEWARDS the system is not revealed to be a benign oligarchy doing what it has to do in order to save mankind, but a malignant surveillance society intent on controlling people and depriving life of its spontaneity and hope by enforcing a state of mandatory 'health' on all people. Jesse Sanders, threatened with being another passive victim of this monitoring regime, becomes determined to resist this evil by any means possible.
STEWARDS also joins the earlier trilogy in seeing space colonization as humanity's only hope, although just what `space colonization' consists of is defined far more elliptically in the current novel, and in seeing ritual as an important way to strive towards this hope.
Readers may have certain procedural issues with the book: the love of Jesse and Carla seems to flower too early (although revelations about Carla's past later somewhat explain this), female minor characters like Kira and Michelle sometimes seem interchangeable, the crucial Zeb subplot is introduced without adequate preparation, and the character of Ian is under-sketched. This is important as ian is a crucial precedent and inspiration for Peter, the compassionate, self-abnegating leader of the group, dedicated to the paranormal, that Jesse, joins after he realizes the totalitarian nature of those who control the planet Undine. If certain expository sections had been trimmed, there would have been more room to fully develop these characters' identity and motivaton.
But these lapses are more than made up for by Engdahl's unmatched ability to combine intellectual speculation, moral forthrightness, and narrative suspense. The book does not require the reader to assume Engdahl's own positions on certain aspects of contemporary life; though the author makes clear her stands, the reader can enjoy the book as narrative without adopting them. And the end is both exciting and searingly moving. Readers who enjoy the more adult works of Robert A. Heinlein or C. S. Lewis should enjoy this novel, though its atmosphere is more stark and bitter than either. The novel is eminently readable, indeed hard to put down.
Fans of the earlier books, perhaps themselves grown older, will enjoy this new Engdahl novel in a different way; it also has the potential to bring this undervalued author the wide reading public her talent merits.
6 of 6 found the following review helpful:
Do health considerations trump all other human values??? Nov 27, 2007
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"We are not superhuman, but we're finding ways to develop what some would call superhuman powers...We're a vanguard...but we are also stewards of something in humankind that our civilization no longer fosters: the awareness that we are more than our bodies, that the human mind and spirit is a tangible force that is no less real for being nonphysical. This awareness is a flame that must not be allowed to die...We resist not because there's anything wrong with medical treatment where it's truly needed, but because the right to free choice is denied us--and even that isn't the main thing we're fighting against. The underlying issue is that our culture's attitude toward health is based on a distorted view of life."
This is what a respected member of a rebel health Group says to "offworlder" starship fleet officer Captain Jesse Sanders in this intriguing novel by established science fiction author Sylvia Engdahl. This is Engdahl's first adult science fiction novel.
Sanders is being treated at and is detained on a space colony where health considerations are elevated above all other human values. You're not even allowed to die on this world but instead you're placed in "stasis" in vaults where your heartbeat is artificially induced to continue...forever.
Sanders becomes a member of this rebel Group where he is taught paranormal powers. However, the dictatorial medical regime on this planet threatens to expose the Group. Eventually, Sanders, who has come to care about the Group members, must take responsibility for their lives and preserve their hopes for the future of humankind.
After the novel ends, Engdahl includes an interesting and brief after word section. She begins it with these ominous words:
"We are closer than you may think to the things described in this [novel]--both the good and the bad."
Engdahl continues: "The so-called 'paranormal' powers in this story are exaggerated only with respect to the characters' conscious control over them. These abilities, with the exception of [two of them], have been confirmed by a vast amount of scientific evidence, albeit evidence that is ignored by too many orthodox scientists."
Note that this novel is more than your standard science fiction novel. Yes it's set in the future on another planet yet I feel a general audience would appreciate what it has to say than just those with an extensive science fiction background.
For example, this novel inspires many thought provoking "what if" questions about modern orthodox medicine. Thus, it could be used to spark stimulating discussions on bioethics.
Be aware that the novel begins slowly and the reader has to have patience. This patience is rewarded as it gradually picks up speed and leads to an exciting conclusion.
Finally, Engdahl states that there will be a sequel to this novel. Personally, I can't wait to read it.
In conclusion, this is a different kind of science fiction novel about a future space colony in which the trend toward medicalization has been carried to its ultimate logical and frightening conclusion.
(first published 2007; 6 parts or 68 chapters; main narrative 455 pages; afterword; about the author)
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