Agave Revealed

This engaging second installment in LaForge’s Maze series (set 50 years after The Marcella Fragment and enjoyable on its own) places romance at the crux of a conflict between city-states and their respective ideologies. She-Who-Was-Hesione, 18th Mother of the walled city of Pelion, inherits an intrigue two generations in the making between her city and Agave, a desert metropolis best known for its slave markets and for violently impeding Pelion-bound pilgrims. Her only hope of challenging Agave’s aggression is to join Lillas, an Agave noblewoman, and Reddin, a Pelion Healer, in the mysterious rite of Transformation. LaForge’s worldbuilding is lush and diverse, but incongruously heteronormative given Pelion’s sex-positive matriarchy. While homosexuality is permissible, the necessity of male/female pairs for Transformation is taken for granted, and the only acknowledged form of sexual intimacy is a man “covering” a woman. Though sometimes marred by clunky exposition, uneven pacing, and inconsistent character development, LaForge’s sophomore effort is a frequently engrossing exploration of post-Earth societies. (July)