Songmaster By Orson Scott Card Dial Press (New York), 1980. 338 pages. ISBN: 0-803777-11-6
Reviewed by: D. Michael Martindale

Although Orson Scott Card walks among us in the guise of a science fiction author, it's all a charade. Deep down he's really a poet at heart, and only toying with us when he gives all those Hugo and Nebula award acceptance speeches.

Need proof? I point you to the most successful of his earliest published novels: Songmaster. If you check the spine, it says right there: science fiction. When you read the story, you will discover a galactic empire where space ships travel the stars with all the efficiency of the Starship Enterprise. There will be cool gadgets like mind probes and automatic converters for human waste and exotic transportation vehicles called fleskets.

But other than these window-dressings necessary for inclusion in the publishing category of science fiction, nowhere will you find any actual science. In its place you find music. The novel Songmaster, like its author, is science fiction in name only. Underneath is a book belonging in a category all its own: "musical fiction."

I don't mean a fiction novel about music, although that certainly could describe Songmaster. No, it's much more involved than that. Just as science fiction stories postulate some fantastic scientific principle, then weave a tale around its implications, Card's Songmaster postulates fantastic musical skills, where trained virtuosos communicate in "Songspeech," where vocal performances overwhelm the listeners with memories and emotions wrenched from deep inside them, where a young boy singing of deep rage and pain and grief can kill a man who loves torture and death. The book which tells this tale is written with a style worthy of its subject -- in a word: poetic.

On one of many planets in the empire is an institution called the Songhouse. The leaders of the Songhouse, called Songmasters, scour the planets for great singing talent among the neglected and deserted children of the empire. These they adopt and bring to live in the Songhouse, a castle-like behemoth constructed of chilly stone. The children receive training in singing, training unknown to humans of today. They advance from Groans to Bells to Breezes, until they achieve a level of mastery where they are prepared to go out into the universe and fill the worlds with beautiful music. Most only achieve the level of Songmaster, but occasionally one child comes along with such great ability that he or she becomes a Songbird.

Songbirds are rare and will only be placed with patrons who can truly appreciate their music. It's a truism within the Songhouse that no one who loves killing can ever appreciate a Songbird. Yet when the emperor of the galaxy, Mikal Imperatur, comes and demands one, and breaks into weeping at the sound of one, the Songmasters realize that he is one such person, in spite of his violent road to the throne. They fear that the integrity of the Songhouse will be questioned, because it will appear to citizens of the empire that the Songhouse bowed to the demands of the emperor and allowed him to have a Songbird when he didn't deserve one. But they must be true to their philosophy, and so a search for the perfect Songbird for Mikal begins.

Decades later a young boy named Ansset is found and adopted to the Songhouse. As he is trained, it becomes clear that he will be the first Songbird in many years. Furthermore he will be Mikal's Songbird. When Riktors Ashen, the aging emperor's right-hand man, comes to collect Ansset, he is privileged to be a witness to the boy's parting performance:

     And he sang.
     His voice filled every part of the hall, but there was no resonance from the walls to distort the tone. He rarely sang words, and those he sang seemed meaningless to Riktors. Yet the emperor's envoy was held spellbound. Ansset's hands moved in the air, rising, falling, keeping time with the song so that even Riktors, at a distance, could see that the song came from Ansset's soul. . . . And when Ansset at last fell silent, the song lingered in the air and Riktors knew he would never forget it. He had shed no tears, felt no terrible passion. Yet the song was one of the most powerful experiences of his life.
     Mikal has waited a lifetime for this, Riktors thought.

By the time Ansset is turned over to the emperor, Mikal is very old. The young boy and the ancient ruler of worlds grow to love each other deeply. Ansset gets caught up in the vicious politics of the imperial court. He is kidnapped, used as an unwitting weapon for an assassination attempt, and suffers great loss and pain because of the machinations of evil men. The book follows Ansset throughout his life as he grapples with power and suffering and the breathtaking powers of his voice.

Card's passion for telling stories of great suffering and responsibility in a moral universe that stems from his LDS faith shines through vividly, as when Ansset, succumbing at last to grief that has tormented him for years, sings a song of accountability, a song that demands "expiation for the crimes," among those who caused his sorrow (let me warn those of tender sensibilities that the following excerpt is graphic):

he saw . . . Ansset, his face tipped upward toward the ceiling, the song still pouring from his throat like a volcano's eruption, seemingly endless, seemingly the death of the world. His arms were spread out, his fingers distended, his legs standing wide, as if the world were shaking and he was barely able to stay upright . . .
     Riktors Mikal, emperor of all mankind, lying on the floor crying out again and again, begging for forgiveness, writhing to try to find a place where the sound wouldn't go. It had found him, almost all the song had touched him, and he was insane, tearing at his clothing, blood coming from his face where his own nails had raked him . . .
     The Mayor of the palace looked last at Ferret, who alone was silent. He had torn his stomach open with his own hands; with his own hands he was throwing his bowels onto the floor. Again and again, with gushes of blood, he spilled himself. His face was in ecstasy; he alone in the room had found an outlet adequate for the pressure of the song.

This early novel of Card's is still popular today. It shows the grace and poetry with which he can write, his love of music, his ability to paint scenes of tender love and terrible anguish, and his unyielding demand for moral honesty. If the excerpts in this review seem to parallel the two excerpts I presented in my review of Card's novel Treason, that's no coincidence. They both illustrate the essence of Orson Scott Card, poet and disciple of Jesus.

-- 
D. Michael Martindale
dmichael@wwno.com
Worlds Without Number
http://www.wwno.com