mousie_books's review against another edition
3.0
Elana and Randil (among others) are observers from an intergalactic Service visiting a world immersed in a Cold War and on the brink of potential nuclear self-annihilation. As the mission progresses, doom seems assured, and the policy of non-interference is questioned.
As stated in the afterward, this book is geared toward an older audience than 'Enchantress from the Stars' and sincere about its message. The narrative was a little preachy. Most of the story is told from Elana's perspective, and ironically, her views were patronizing even as she stated how wrong it was to feel superior to 'Younglings' -- that is, less technologically advanced races. (Oh, I'm sure they're trying their best, but little did they know...) I suppose it's consistent with her character and background, but it was annoying.
As stated in the afterward, this book is geared toward an older audience than 'Enchantress from the Stars' and sincere about its message. The narrative was a little preachy. Most of the story is told from Elana's perspective, and ironically, her views were patronizing even as she stated how wrong it was to feel superior to 'Younglings' -- that is, less technologically advanced races. (Oh, I'm sure they're trying their best, but little did they know...) I suppose it's consistent with her character and background, but it was annoying.
onceandfuturelaura's review against another edition
4.0
Was reminded of this book by The Geeks' Guide to the Galaxy. Haven't read it for decades but the moral conflict between observation and salvation still haunts me. Those darn irreplaceable bread pills...
hoppy500's review against another edition
5.0
The Far Side of Evil by Sylvia Engdahl
The author of this book asserts that it is not a sequel to Enchantress From the Stars, although in some ways it could be considered to be one. It is indeed a sequel in the sense that the story centers around the same protagonist, and it is set in the same universe. It is not a sequel in that it can be read completely apart from Enchantress From the Stars, and is aimed at a different audience, as the darker content is suitable for more mature teens and adults, but not for middle-grade students.
In The Far Side of Evil, Elana has received the training that she lacked in Enchantress From the Stars, and is ready for her first official assignment. Usually, a newly qualified agent of the Federation's Anthropological Service would only be assigned as part of a team under a more senior and experienced operative. However, Elana is sent on a solo mission to a planet called Toris, where there is an opportunity to observe a situation which has never been recorded hitherto by the Anthropological Service.
One of the author's personal convictions is that humanoid species on planets like Earth must at a certain point in their evolution expand into space if they are to avoid extinction. When their ambitions, aggressions, and need for overcoming risks and dangers are turned outward into space, the danger of total war is lessened, and when colonies start to be established beyond the home planet, most resources and energies are concentrated in this activity, leading to greater cooperation between nations and the eventual cessation of international conflicts. The period between the invention of weapons of mass destruction and the peaceful colonization of space is called the Critical Stage.
The Anthropological Service is well aware of the importance of the Critical Stage, but the recent discovery of Toris has provided a unique opportunity to observe firsthand the factors which decide whether a world survives or not. Unfortunately, Toris appears to be on the brink of self-annihilation, and it evidently has no interest in space exploration. Elana is sent on a solo mission of observation into a totalitarian dictatorship which seems bent on starting a nuclear war with more liberal-minded nations.
The Anthropological Service has an important Prime Directive of non-interference in younger 'less mature' cultures (similar to the one which is rarely adhered to in Star Trek). Agents like Elana take this principle very seriously since it is part of their Sworn Oath, and they are willing to die rather than risk disclosure of their true origins and the existence of the Federation.
Another young agent also assigned to the same planet considers himself an authority on Critical Stage cultures, and becomes convinced that direct intervention is justified and necessary in order to save the Torisians from themselves. But his naive actions play right into the hands of the dictatorship, which arrests Elana and interrogates her mercilessly (which is partly why this book is unsuitable for children).
In some ways this book is related to the time in which it was written (as are most works of fiction). In the early 1970s, the Cold War was still in full swing, but there was optimism about the future based on the then-recent Moon landings. Many people who observed events at that time would probably have expected there to be bases and colonies beyond Earth by the year 2020, and that we would by now be emerging from the Critical Stage. Although many things have changed greatly in the last half century, it nonetheless appears that we are yet firmly within that phase. But despite these facts, the story in no way feels dated.
Some readers have commented that the book contains too much philosophy and too little plot, but I did not feel that way when reading it. In fact, I found the balance to be just right. There are the overarching philosophical concepts involving whole planets and peoples, and the personal moral and ethical concerns regarding the decisions of individuals. To what extent do the ends justify the means when supporting an ideal, and how far should personal sacrifice go in adhering to cherished principles?
The idea that The Far Side of Evil is in some way a veiled political commentary is also baseless in my opinion, since the political powers mentioned are clearly generic and not intended to represent any specific parties in our world.
I found The Far Side of Evil to be a significantly more profound read than Enchantress From the Stars, but like that book there are many quotable passages which are relevant to our lives today, and which can help us make sense of the situations we find ourselves in.
Here are some of them:
“The human mind can’t be forced. You can’t even hurt me if I decide not to be hurt.”
“...there’s a danger in concentrating too hard on abstract theory.”
“...you have to trust the universe. You have to believe that the natural order of things has some sort of sense to it, some real if incomprehensible logic, and that what’s true isn’t to be feared.”
“After all, agents are chosen for sensitivity and imagination, among other things; and sensitive, imaginative people aren’t fearless. They are usually more apprehensive than average.”
“The underlying basis of panic is terror not of the threat itself but of how you’ll react to it.”
“Maybe it was simply that people live with what they have to live with, whether they think they can face it or not.”
“...there’s a pattern that takes in more than this world. I don’t understand it, and neither does anybody else. We can’t expect to understand it when we don’t have all the facts, but that’s no reason for deciding that everything is senseless! If it were, we might as well blow up the whole planet right now and be done with it, because what would it matter?”
“There comes a point for every human race when for the first—and only—time in its history it has the ability to destroy itself completely, and that point coincides with the point at which it is ready to take its first steps beyond its home world. The level of technology that creates one possibility simultaneously creates the other. If the colonization of space is undertaken, it becomes all-absorbing, full-scale war is forgotten, and the danger is averted.”
“The world is the way it is. There’s no place to hide; we’ve got to live in it and bear up under the pressure.”
“If there’s anything harder to counter than a clever lie, it’s a truth that’s been honestly misinterpreted.”
““Everything is purposeful,” I said gently. “Even the terrible things. But we don’t understand them while they’re happening.””
“If you ever find yourself faced with something really bad, something inescapable against which you have no defense, your only recourse is to accept it. Once you’re absolutely sure that there’s no way out, don’t resist. Just relax and let it happen. That will seem hard, but believe me, it will be less painful than shrinking from the thing. You’ll get something from it—you won’t feel that you can; you won’t understand; but in the end you will gain, if not from the experience itself, then simply from your bravery.”
“You have more to draw on than you think, I guess; you can do what you have to do.”
“It’s a funny thing, but if you try to act scared, any real fear you start out with stops bothering you; it becomes part of the game.”
“Nobody ever jumps from naïveté to realism; there’s a cynical stage in between. That’s true of worlds, and I guess it’s true of people, too.”
“...by subordinating the means to the end. That’s the only way anybody can judge anything, and when such a judgment is immoral it’s because the end itself is worth less than what must be destroyed to achieve it.”
“Evil lies not in a given act but in a person’s sense of values.”
“...the sustaining knowledge that evil, even victorious evil, was not the most powerful force in the universe.”
“It was as if I didn’t really mind what they did to me, because it wasn’t important compared with what I was doing by resisting. I was free inside, and they couldn’t change that; but I could stop them from doing harm to the world, so I had more power than any of them.”
“People differ in their ideas about morality, but by and large everybody agrees that if you deliberately do wrong, somewhere, somehow, you will suffer for it. Well, you do, and it can’t be avoided.”
“Dictatorships always fall in the end; that’s an incontrovertible law of nature.”
The author of this book asserts that it is not a sequel to Enchantress From the Stars, although in some ways it could be considered to be one. It is indeed a sequel in the sense that the story centers around the same protagonist, and it is set in the same universe. It is not a sequel in that it can be read completely apart from Enchantress From the Stars, and is aimed at a different audience, as the darker content is suitable for more mature teens and adults, but not for middle-grade students.
In The Far Side of Evil, Elana has received the training that she lacked in Enchantress From the Stars, and is ready for her first official assignment. Usually, a newly qualified agent of the Federation's Anthropological Service would only be assigned as part of a team under a more senior and experienced operative. However, Elana is sent on a solo mission to a planet called Toris, where there is an opportunity to observe a situation which has never been recorded hitherto by the Anthropological Service.
One of the author's personal convictions is that humanoid species on planets like Earth must at a certain point in their evolution expand into space if they are to avoid extinction. When their ambitions, aggressions, and need for overcoming risks and dangers are turned outward into space, the danger of total war is lessened, and when colonies start to be established beyond the home planet, most resources and energies are concentrated in this activity, leading to greater cooperation between nations and the eventual cessation of international conflicts. The period between the invention of weapons of mass destruction and the peaceful colonization of space is called the Critical Stage.
The Anthropological Service is well aware of the importance of the Critical Stage, but the recent discovery of Toris has provided a unique opportunity to observe firsthand the factors which decide whether a world survives or not. Unfortunately, Toris appears to be on the brink of self-annihilation, and it evidently has no interest in space exploration. Elana is sent on a solo mission of observation into a totalitarian dictatorship which seems bent on starting a nuclear war with more liberal-minded nations.
The Anthropological Service has an important Prime Directive of non-interference in younger 'less mature' cultures (similar to the one which is rarely adhered to in Star Trek). Agents like Elana take this principle very seriously since it is part of their Sworn Oath, and they are willing to die rather than risk disclosure of their true origins and the existence of the Federation.
Another young agent also assigned to the same planet considers himself an authority on Critical Stage cultures, and becomes convinced that direct intervention is justified and necessary in order to save the Torisians from themselves. But his naive actions play right into the hands of the dictatorship, which arrests Elana and interrogates her mercilessly (which is partly why this book is unsuitable for children).
In some ways this book is related to the time in which it was written (as are most works of fiction). In the early 1970s, the Cold War was still in full swing, but there was optimism about the future based on the then-recent Moon landings. Many people who observed events at that time would probably have expected there to be bases and colonies beyond Earth by the year 2020, and that we would by now be emerging from the Critical Stage. Although many things have changed greatly in the last half century, it nonetheless appears that we are yet firmly within that phase. But despite these facts, the story in no way feels dated.
Some readers have commented that the book contains too much philosophy and too little plot, but I did not feel that way when reading it. In fact, I found the balance to be just right. There are the overarching philosophical concepts involving whole planets and peoples, and the personal moral and ethical concerns regarding the decisions of individuals. To what extent do the ends justify the means when supporting an ideal, and how far should personal sacrifice go in adhering to cherished principles?
The idea that The Far Side of Evil is in some way a veiled political commentary is also baseless in my opinion, since the political powers mentioned are clearly generic and not intended to represent any specific parties in our world.
I found The Far Side of Evil to be a significantly more profound read than Enchantress From the Stars, but like that book there are many quotable passages which are relevant to our lives today, and which can help us make sense of the situations we find ourselves in.
Here are some of them:
“The human mind can’t be forced. You can’t even hurt me if I decide not to be hurt.”
“...there’s a danger in concentrating too hard on abstract theory.”
“...you have to trust the universe. You have to believe that the natural order of things has some sort of sense to it, some real if incomprehensible logic, and that what’s true isn’t to be feared.”
“After all, agents are chosen for sensitivity and imagination, among other things; and sensitive, imaginative people aren’t fearless. They are usually more apprehensive than average.”
“The underlying basis of panic is terror not of the threat itself but of how you’ll react to it.”
“Maybe it was simply that people live with what they have to live with, whether they think they can face it or not.”
“...there’s a pattern that takes in more than this world. I don’t understand it, and neither does anybody else. We can’t expect to understand it when we don’t have all the facts, but that’s no reason for deciding that everything is senseless! If it were, we might as well blow up the whole planet right now and be done with it, because what would it matter?”
“There comes a point for every human race when for the first—and only—time in its history it has the ability to destroy itself completely, and that point coincides with the point at which it is ready to take its first steps beyond its home world. The level of technology that creates one possibility simultaneously creates the other. If the colonization of space is undertaken, it becomes all-absorbing, full-scale war is forgotten, and the danger is averted.”
“The world is the way it is. There’s no place to hide; we’ve got to live in it and bear up under the pressure.”
“If there’s anything harder to counter than a clever lie, it’s a truth that’s been honestly misinterpreted.”
““Everything is purposeful,” I said gently. “Even the terrible things. But we don’t understand them while they’re happening.””
“If you ever find yourself faced with something really bad, something inescapable against which you have no defense, your only recourse is to accept it. Once you’re absolutely sure that there’s no way out, don’t resist. Just relax and let it happen. That will seem hard, but believe me, it will be less painful than shrinking from the thing. You’ll get something from it—you won’t feel that you can; you won’t understand; but in the end you will gain, if not from the experience itself, then simply from your bravery.”
“You have more to draw on than you think, I guess; you can do what you have to do.”
“It’s a funny thing, but if you try to act scared, any real fear you start out with stops bothering you; it becomes part of the game.”
“Nobody ever jumps from naïveté to realism; there’s a cynical stage in between. That’s true of worlds, and I guess it’s true of people, too.”
“...by subordinating the means to the end. That’s the only way anybody can judge anything, and when such a judgment is immoral it’s because the end itself is worth less than what must be destroyed to achieve it.”
“Evil lies not in a given act but in a person’s sense of values.”
“...the sustaining knowledge that evil, even victorious evil, was not the most powerful force in the universe.”
“It was as if I didn’t really mind what they did to me, because it wasn’t important compared with what I was doing by resisting. I was free inside, and they couldn’t change that; but I could stop them from doing harm to the world, so I had more power than any of them.”
“People differ in their ideas about morality, but by and large everybody agrees that if you deliberately do wrong, somewhere, somehow, you will suffer for it. Well, you do, and it can’t be avoided.”
“Dictatorships always fall in the end; that’s an incontrovertible law of nature.”
nzoeller's review
4.0
A companion to Enchantress from the Stars, but not a YA novel. Darker and more realistic- loved it.
tri_sara_topps's review
3.0
While I find these books incredibly fascinating and they effect me very deeply, I find that they go in and out of incredible sections of writing and very boring ones. Overall, a good read and I'd recommend just based on the subject matter addressed, but not my all time favorite.
tsilverman's review
5.0
This was such a thought-provoking book, while still being full of plenty of action.
meg_elyse's review
4.0
An excellently crafted and cerebral story. Not necessarily a thoroughly coherent follow-up novel. Ideas don't contrast, but they aren't quite built on the same background. Still, a wonderful story with lots of good thoughts and things to muse on.
jupiter2ff65's review
4.0
It was a slow read, but I liked the topics explored in this book. Especially since I have the advantage of looking back at world history while reading this book.
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