Winter’s Orbit

When I was at Eastercon last year the name that seemed to be on everyone’s lips was Everina Maxwell. This was not someone whose work I was familiar with, but she was getting recommendations for good queer rep. She had two novels out already, and they were space opera. Clearly I had some reading to do.

Also she appears to be part of a writing group with Emily Tesh, and they gush over each other in the acknowledgements to their books. Tesh apparently had a significant amount of input to Winter’s Orbit, which is Maxwell’s debut novel.

Set against this, I tend to find books by women about gay men to be rather cringe-worthy. That gave me pause for thought, but I got through Winter’s Orbit with only minimal cringe. There are no lovingly detailed scenes of passionate sex, and no throbbing penises. There is a romance plot between the two main characters, but Maxwell has managed to find a way to fit that into the plot and provide a good justification for the confusion.

Kiem is a playboy prince of a stellar empire. At the start of the book he is told that he has to marry a nobleman from a colony planet because an important trade treaty depends on it. This Jainan had previously been married to Kiem’s cousin, Taam, but he had died in a flying accident and the whole diplomatic situation has been thrown into chaos.

Jainan, for his part, is aware that he’s just a tool in imperial politics and that, for the good of his people, he has to keep his new husband happy. Kiem’s public reputation is something of a drunken arsehole. Not offending his is going to be hard.

However, that’s just Kiem’s public persona. While he does enjoy playing the fool, he’s actually very tender-hearted and can’t bear the thought of poor Jainan being forced into a new marriage mere days after his previous husband has died. So the last thing that Kiem wants to do is force Jainan into anything, whereas Jainan is desperate to find out what he needs to do to make Kiem happy.

The possibilities for confusion are significant. I wish all romance plots were this cleverly thought out.

Meanwhile there is space opera to be done. It soon becomes obvious that Taam’s death was not an accident. The Internal Security service has Jainan as their prime suspect. The trade negotiations are in danger of falling apart. Both Kiem, who wants nothing to do with politics, and Jainan, who is an engineering nerd at heart, are completely out of their depth.

Two things need to happen by the end of the book. Firstly the romance plot needs to be resolved so that Kiem and Jainan can work together. Much of this happens in the middle of the book while the pair of them are stranded in snowy wastes, something I feel sure is a quiet nod to The Left Hand of Darkness. The other is that both our boys must learn to use their respective skills effectively to defeat the bad guys.

Fortunately help is at hand in the form of Kiem’s ultra-efficient personal aide, Bel. In much the same way as Alfred looks after Bruce Wayne, and Jarvis looks after Howard and Tony Stark, Bel is always two steps ahead of where Kiem needs to be, and has everything that he needs ready and waiting. She’s also not afraid to talk back to her employer, which is just what Kiem needs.

The gender politics of the world are quite interesting. Everyone seems to be able to choose the gender they want, with at least three options available. People signal their gender in different ways depending on local planetary custom. Amongst Kiem’s people it is done with jewelry. Neither clothing nor bodily shape is a reliable indicator. There is no mention of medical gender transition, and I get the impression that it doesn’t happen, so it is not a world that I would be comfortable in, but it is an interesting one.

That aside the worldbuilding is quite sketchy. There is clearly a whole galaxy outside of the little empire that Kiem’s people rule, with powers far greater than them. We don’t see much of it. One nice touch is that the animals on Kiem’s world have Earth-like names, but are nothing like the equivalent Earth animals. The thing that they call a ‘bear’ is a six-legged lizard. Kingfishers are dangerous raptors that have been hunted to extinction. This provides a nice air of alienation.

What impressed me most, however, were the characters. Aliette de Bodard, in her blurb for the book, says “It’s characters stayed with me long after I raced through the last chapters.” I feel very much the same about the book, and I’m actually rather sad that we don’t get to see more of Kiem, Jainan and Bel in Maxwell’s second novel, Ocean’s Echo. It is set in the same world though, so hopefully we’ll get more of that galactic civilization that we have only glimpsed for now.

Title: Winter's Orbit
By: Everina Maxwell
Publisher: Orbit
Purchase links:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Bookshop.org UK
See here for information about buying books though Salon Futura