When Locklear, an ethologist, left alone by his kzinti captors in the uninhabited kzinti compound on Zoo, solves practical and technical problems, we recognize the sub-genre of problem-solving sf, although without any of the Andersonian moments of realization that we might have anticipated, but also wonder how long the narrative can continue with Locklear as Robinson Crusoe and whether he will find a Friday before his captors return.
When Locklear releases a kzinret, female kzin, from stasis, we are surprised that she speaks but soon learn that she dates from a time before the kzinrret had been reduced to non-sapience. "Miss Kitty," as Locklear calls her, plans to resume her feminist war against the kzintosh. One moral of MKW might be "the shadow of the past" as various past threats to the current status quo emerge from stasis. We also learn that writers can take the series in diverse directions. Pournelle's & Stirling's MKW trilogy is a prequel to Anderson's whereas Ing's diptych is set at a later time in a different place.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I don't remember "Miss Kitty" being hostile to male Kzin AS SUCH. Rather, she was refusing the kind of grotesque subservience one faction of Kzinti advocated doing to their females. And in fact we will see a male Kzin agreeing with "Miss Kitty."
Ad astra! Sean
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