With only a few words, she creates a scene full of life, sights, sounds, action, and anticipation. This book comes alive in all the senses, evoking its world so well that the images were still clear in my mind fourteen months later, when I reread the book for this review. The historical background gains richness in the detail, from the clothing worn in the Sun King's court, to the gardens of Versailles, to one of the most realistic descriptions I've read of what it is like to ride sidesaddle.

At times I would have liked to see the prose style varied more. The sentences tended to have the same grammatical structure, which every now and then created a choppy quality. In a work of this high caliber, such effects become noticeable. However, this is a minor point. Overall, the story shimmers.

The Court of the Sun King

The characters in The Moon and Sun are well-layered, with complex personalities, neither paragons nor villains, but genuine people. It is no easy feat to make such characters credible when they are so different from the folk we encounter in our daily existence. But then, one aspect of science fiction is the creation of beings unlike any we know -- which could just as well apply to the members of the Sun King's court as to the denizens of another planet.

Beneath its glistening elegance, The Moon and the Sun quietly comments on how appearance, politics, personal status, and wealth affect our world view. Is the Sun King truly the towering figure everyone perceives? In fact, Louis XIV was only 5'5", small even for his time, balding, and with gout. He wore high-heeled shoes and a wig to compensate. Is Marie-Joseph the stunning beauty everyone claims? Or is she a normally attractive person whose stature as Yves's sister and a favorite of the King "enhances" her appearance. Power, it seems, equates to beauty in women and height in men.

With her protagonist, McIntyre delicately dismantles stereotypes. Marie-Josephe has no desire for her sexual power, but nevertheless it is there. She is not so much ravishing as she is desirable for her position of favor with Louis XIV, who treats her like a daughter. That status translates into her having sexual appeal to other members of the court. In our more traditional literature, women with sexualized "power" often end up unhappy, disturbed, or dead. I found it refreshing that Marie-Josephe is well-adjusted and pleasant. Not only is she still alive at the end of the book, she can look forward to a fulfilling life.

I enjoyed the engaging romance between Marie-Josephe and Count Lucien. Like much of the best romance fiction, it also provides social commentary. In this case, it had an unusual twist I wasn't aware of until well into the book. It finally dawned on me that Lucien was different from the usual romantic hero. On my second read through, I realized the signs had all been there, obvious once I knew. But on my first read through, it changed my entire perception of Lucien -- and then forced me to ask myself why. He remained the same character. With gentle grace, the book challenged me to examine my own preconceptions.

Often when I read stories that include social commentary, the commentary is so obvious that, although I may find it illuminating, it feels a bit like a lecture. This isn't necessarily a drawback; exposition is a literary device I enjoy for its own sake, as in a work such as Mona Clee's notable science fiction novel Overshoot. But the beauty of The Moon and the Sun is that I never saw it coming. The point was suddenly, simply, made. This is a superb example of what it means to show rather than tell a story.

One of the book's most powerful aspects, for me, is also one of its most subtle. After Marie-Josephe is bled by a doctor, the wound becomes infected. Lucien gives her a salve he hopes will help her heal. As an aside, Scherzad takes Marie-Josephe's wrist and covers the wound with her saliva. When the wrist heals, almost miraculously, Marie-Josephe and Lucien attribute it to his salve. However, the implication left for the reader is that the sea woman's saliva contained an antibiotic. Scherzad did have a measure of what the King sought, not immortality, but the ability to heal. That very ability was lost to almost everyone because they were too busy trying to take from Scherzad to comprehend that she might have had something she was willing to give if they treated her with the dignity due all men and women, whether human or of the sea.

In fact, the theme of opportunities squandered, because of arrogance, weaves throughout the book. The King's nephew, the Duke de Chartres, is a talented chemist and longs to pursue his interest in science. His position forbids him from such work, but he persists despite his lack of supporters. Marie-Josephe is one of the few people who recognizes his talent. Chartres squanders her respect because he can only relate to her in sexually aggressive terms, even though he knows she may be able to help him. The portrayal of how Louis's court reacts to those who represent the "other," whether it is the sea people, Marie-Josephe, or Count Lucien, offers much to think about in our own world.

The relationship between the King's brother, Monsieur Philippe, and the Chevalier de Lorraine is also well done. Monsieur could have been an unsympathetic character given that he spends most of his time making himself look beautiful. However, McIntyre makes him appealing. I'm not sure how she manages it; Monsieur doesn't do much, he is censured by many of the court members, and he probably survives only because he is the King's brother. Yet I liked him a great deal. In one passage, Monsieur's wife tells Marie-Josephe she wishes Monsieur would love someone worthy of him. Marie-Josephe believes the Duchess refers to herself, but the reader knows she means Lorraine. It illuminates Monsieur's character, that a woman as strong as his wife, the Duchess of d'Orleans and Princess Palatine, sees him in such a manner.

McIntyre does a crackling good job with Lorraine, who is the closest any character comes to being a villain. He exhibits just the right balance of sensuality, lack of conscience, charm, and cruelty to make him a devilishly effective antagonist, willing to "love" whoever will advance his status, whether it is Marie-Josephe or Monsieur.

The effect McIntyre achieves here is much harder than she makes it look. The story is told through the view of the naïve, convent-raised Marie-Josephe, who has no clue about the relationship between Monsieur and Lorraine. Yet the reader knows right away. The clever unfolding of the triangle involving Marie-Josephe, Lorraine, and Monsieur is blunted a bit because the cast of characters at the start of the book gives away Lorraine's relationship to Monsieur. However, McIntyre writes so well that it doesn't matter.

I should give a spoiler warning here myself: I'm about to reveal the end of the book. Readers who would prefer not to know should skip to the last paragraph of the review.

In her portrayal of the Sun King, McIntyre achieves an complex balance of traits: arrogance, intelligence, conceit, and compassion. At one point he expresses his disappointment that Yves couldn't find him an appropriately beautiful sea monster to look upon, as if nature itself should bend to make his life pleasant. In the end of the book, Yves, Lucien, and Marie-Josephe betray his trust so they can save the life of the sea woman and free her. Yet Louis, in punishing these three people he has loved, also gives each of them something he or she greatly desires. It is a brilliant conclusion, a clever mixing of bitter and sweet that satisfies.

The Moon and the Sun has been called alternate history. Such a history postulates a change in some aspect of our past and then explores its ramifications. Here, it is the existence of the sea people. However, at the end of the book, the Pope orders Yves to search out and destroy all traces in the human record that the sea people exist -- which means the story could be part of our own history. It is a powerful conclusion that leaves the reader questioning what secrets might exist in our real past.

If Louis XIV is the Sun, then Yves is the Moon that reflects his glory. The moon exists whether or not the sun illuminates it, but if it cannot be seen, does it cease to exist in the minds of the people who observe and record history? McIntyre evokes this theme again and again throughout the book, from Yves's position at court to Marie-Josephe's accomplishments. Yet in the end, for all that the Sun King glows even without his moons -- Yves, Marie-Josephe, and Lucien -- it is he who has lost the most.

This book has everything: prose rich in imagery and lyricism, powerful characterization, a plot that sings, enchanting romance, and a depth of insight into human nature. The Moon and the Sun is destined to become a classic.

Catherine Asaro's next Skolian Empire novel, The Quantum Rose, will be serialized in Analog, starting with the May 1999 issue. The Quantum Rose plus its sequel will come out as one book from Tor, probably in late 2000. The Veiled Web, a near-future suspense novel unconnected to the Skolia books, will come out from Bantam in December 1999. Ascendant Sun, the sequel to The Last Hawk is due out from Tor in March 2000. Her debut novel Primary Inversion is in its second printing, and Catch the Lightning won the1997 Sapphire Award and the UTC Reader's Choice Award for best science fiction novel of 1997. The Radiant Seas just came out in hardcover from Tor, and continues the story of Primary Inversion. The Skolia books are stand alone novels, but take place in the same universe. Catherine is a physicist at Molecudyne Research. She earned her Phd in chemical physics from Harvard and a BS from UCLA. Her husband is John Cannizzo, the proverbial NASA rocket scientist. They have one daughter.