The Expert System’s Champion
{5/5} “Suddenly the Bandage-Men were fighting their beasts and taking their outcasts. And passing word from one village to another, and though that seemed the least of what we do, ten years has shown me it’s actually the biggest change of all. As the Order grows and prospers, villages will become more and more used to being able to speak to one another at will.”
The Expert System’s Champion by Adrian Tchaikovsky, published in 2021
Handry is the leader of the Order of Cain or, as the villagers call them, the Bandage-Men. Melory, his sister, interprets the voices of the ancestors for them. When they go to villages, people who have been cast out are welcome to join them. Then a woman comes who has within her a new expert system, a Champion who will fight Handry — but Handry suggests they talk first.
This is a novella, the sequel to The Expert System’s Brother. It takes place 10 years later, and we also get flashbacks to when humans first arrived on the planet.
It’s about a potential war with mysterious creatures, and finding out more about how the humans who came to this planet made a deal with what they found here.
It’s about two groups who each made a different choice to survive.
It’s reminiscent of Scavengers Reign.
I’ve read 8 books by Tchaikovksy.