Point of Hopes (Astreiant, #1) by Melissa Scott, Lisa A. Barnett
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Gay MC, bisexual MC, matriarchal setting, queernorm world
PoV: 3rd-person, past-tense, dual PoVs
ISBN: B007Q3W0K2
Goodreads

Nicolas Rathe is a pointsman, a dedicated watchman in the great city of Astreiant. During the annual trade fair, with a city filled with travelers and merchants, someone is stealing children. The populace is getting angry and frightened and convinced that a foreigner must be to blame. Rathe calls on the aid of both an out-of-work soldier, the handsome Philip Eslingen, and the necromancer Istre b’Estorr.

The art of astrology is a very real power in the kingdom and plays as much a role in politics as greed and intrigue. Rathe finds himself struggling to find the children before a major astrological event brings about catastrophe.

Highlights

~matriarchal Renaissance/Elizabethan setting
~detective work!
~what if astrology really mattered actually???
~clock-fuckery
~royal succession intrigue

These days, there aren’t many books that I reread over and over; I don’t have time, not if I want to keep up with all the news books I want to read (of which there are so many!)

But the Astreiant series is one I come back to again and again, and have done for years – this latest reread of Point of Hopes was my sixth. My SIXTH! Since it was brought back into print in 2012!

That should tell you a lot.

So what is Point of Hopes and why should you read it?

Because I say so, duh

Ostensibly, Point of Hopes is a police procedural; in the city of Astreiant, children are going missing, and one of our main characters, Rathe, is a more-or-less policeman trying to find them. Our other main character is Eslingen, a soldier who is taking a break from soldiering to work as a more-or-less-bouncer, and he and his employer become the targets of their neighbours’ suspicions when a local child disappears. Rathe and Eslingen get thrown together, and shenanigans ensue.

But this really isn’t a detective novel. Instead it’s a delicious, languid exploration of a matriarchal city in a Renaissance-esque world where your birth stars have real, measurable effects; a slow, gentle, rich novel that rewards the kind of reader who likes to take their time. It’s a very soothing book, one I reach for when I’m stressed – maybe because of all the sensory detail, which forces me to slow down and be calm. Point of Hopes is unhurried, and you won’t find much tension in it until near the end; if you want fast-paced and loud, you’ll have to look elsewhere.

I never get tired of the total immersion into the worldbuilding of this setting; this is a book where you can smell the cooking and hear the vendors calling their wares in the markets. And even without the fantastical elements – like the importance of the (completely original) zodiac and how it affects everyone’s lives – Astreient feels like it’s drawing from a historical period I don’t see often in Fantasy. Rathe is a pointsman, someone who tries to solve crimes (‘scoring a point’), but the pointsmen have only been around for a generation or two at this point, and there are still people appalled at the idea of commoners enforcing the law. A small but constant undercurrent in Hopes is the issue of unlicensed printers – printed newsheets are everywhere, but we don’t see many books. The guilds wield real power, but are still subservient to the monarch and nobility. And there are women everywhere – running the points-stations, owning businesses, butchers and soldiers and magists. As I said, Astreient is matrilineal, arguably matriarchal; property passes from mother to daughter, families want girls rather than boys, and marriage is extremely rare – and when it does happen, it’s more of a business arrangement than anything romantic. Reading Point of Hopes, all the minor, background characters that would usually be men are women instead – which is only noteworthy because it stands out by contrast to, oh, every other book I’ve ever read.

(I’d like to point out that this is a believable matriarchal setting – that is, there’s no heavy-handed Male Oppression^TM in the way we often see with SFF matriarchies. Women just happen to be in charge most of the time, here; but there are male business owners too! The Surintendent of Points (kind of a police commissioner???) is a guy! Honestly, your stars often matter a lot more than your gender in this setting.)

It’s interesting to me that Scott and Barnett created a matriarchal society, but chose to make both their PoV characters men. I feel like I should have something clever to say about that, but I don’t; it just seems noteworthy. Maybe it was just a case of male readers being more likely to read about other guys than women, so making Rathe and Eslingen dudes was about appealing to a wider readership. I do not know!

Point of Hopes is what we call ‘pre-slash’ in fandom spaces; that is, it’s reasonably clear that Rathe and Eslingen are probably going to end up romantically involved, but they don’t get together in this book. (I suspect this is mostly because the book was originally published back in 1995, and keeping the queerness on the down-low was a tactical decision; their relationship is established but still subtle by the next book to be published, Point of Dreams in 2001, and in 2012 we got a novella about the beginning of their romance.) For a good chunk of the book, Rathe and Eslingen don’t even know each other; they don’t meet until Eslingen’s employer is accused of being one of the child-thieves, and they spend very little on-page time together until the climax. So as well as not being your usual kind of police procedural, this is also in no way a typical romance – in fact, it probably shouldn’t be called a romance at all. (From the many Melissa Scott books I’ve read, this is a common approach for her; queer relationships abound in her books, but generally her characters aren’t very demonstrative in/are pretty private about their feelings – they usually have something more serious and urgent to attend to instead!)

Which brings us back to the question: what even IS this book? All I can really tell you is – it’s fun. A soothing kind of fun. It’s rich and languid and exploratory, and I reread it (and every other book in the series!) every single year. I can’t believe so few people know about it!

So I really must insist that you give it a go.

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