From Powers:
Writing about our life in the House of Arcamand in the City State of Etra, I fall back into it and see it as I saw it then, from inside and from below, with nothing to compare it to, and as if it were the only way things could possibly be. Children see the world that way. So do most slaves. Freedom is largely a matter of seeing that there are alternatives.
Powers is the story of Gavir, well educated and raised in relative comfort, though he is a slave. He, like the other protagonists in this series, has a Power: He sometimes sees snippets of the future. No one knows but his sister, and she has taught him well to keep his talent a secret. Because even if his visions could help Etra, the people there would fear him. If the master fears the slave, it will never, ever, in the long run, go well for the slave.
Gavir begins his story at the beginning, with his early memories, and tells the story of his life: His life as a slave in Etra, a great tragedy and the breaking of trust, his life after that, and his long journey home.
At first, I really wasn't sure about this one. I couldn't figure out Gavir's voice -- he was speaking about what seemed to be the present, about being a young child, but he referred to his hand as a "grubby paw", which sounded very much like an adult looking back on his childhood. So I was a little worried -- but, due to my Big Love of the author, I had rationalized it: By the end of the first chapter, I'd decided that (and this is directly from my notes) "as a precog, it would make sense for his word choice and use of tenses to be somewhat confused".
Of course, I should have just trusted in Le Guin. Because at the beginning of the second chapter, he makes it known that he IS an adult looking back, so I was able to switch of my whirring brain and just enjoy the story.
The Epic Journey part of stories don't generally do much for me. So this installment in the series did feel long to me. The parts where Gavir was in one place, interacting with people and dealing with the politics of the region flew by, but the actual traveling dragged. And he does travel a whole lot. I cared about him, though, so I kept going -- and, as I already knew that he made it somewhere, I wanted to know where and how. And, as hard as it was for me to keep going at times, I did appreciate the realism of the journey.
I reacted the same way to Homecoming, actually -- I found the memory of the journey more enjoyable than the actual journey, if that makes any sense. As with Homecoming, the actual homecoming does make the journey more than worthwhile, and do I think I'll enjoy this book more as a re-read than as a first read.
While Powers does work as a standalone, the other books enhance it. They make the themes (freedom and loss and the power of words) and the story familiar-but-different, and the ending, especially, is one that readers of the first two books will appreciate. As I had the background, it hit me pretty hard, but I imagine that it might feel somewhat anticlimactic to readers who haven't experienced the first two.
I don't know if there will be another book in the series -- I'm sure there is plenty more to tell -- but if it did stop here, I'd be comfortable with that. By the end of Powers, there was a real feeling of having come full-circle back to Gifts.
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