Watchstar by Pamela Sargent

~The Quick Take~

Watchstar is an idea novel: the characters, the world(s), and the problems they face exist solely to make you consider big questions. In this instance, the questions are what it means to be human, the nature of human consciousness, and morality. How much you like Watchstar almost certainly depends on how much those topics intrigue you. As I find morality fascinating, but could take-or-leave anything to do with human nature/consciousness, it's only natural that Watchstar isn't a perfect fit for me.

~The Real Review~

In a psychic world where people strive to Merge with each other—as is the way of god—Daiya often seeks solitude. This need for separateness lands her in trouble when she encounters Reiho, a solitary, non-psychic human from another planet.

According to her people’s traditions, humans without psychic powers are brainless, soulless, mere husks that must be mercifully killed. If Daiya shares the part of her mind that knows of Reiho’s presence with her people, he’ll be hunted down and killed.

But for all of that, keeping Reiho secret is the least of her troubles. Her Ordeal is coming up—a harrowing journey into the desert where she’ll face an unknown test. If she survives it, she’ll be welcomed back into the village as an adult. But lots of young people never return.

Watchstar is definitely an idea book. Daiya and Reiho are fine characters, and the plot is the stuff of early-2010s YA dreams, but Daiya, Reiho, and the Ordeal are clearly props to explore the nature of what it means to be human and the vexing complexity of morality. In many ways, Reiho and Daiya are most important as representatives of their societies, even if they are flawed citizens.

Other, lesser, authors would have taken this too far, and propped up Daiya and her village as ignorant, mystical tribespeople, and Reiho and his folk as cold but perfect technological saviors. Sargent doesn’t fall into this trap. Naturally, we’re going to recoil at the needless slaughter of people who do not have psychic abilities, but other than that obvious evil, the socieities are not pitted against each other, with one clearly stacked as “good.” No, Sargent is smarter than this, and she has an MA in classical philosophy to back it up.

I admit that I found the morality of Watchstar to be the most interesting. Take, for example, Reiho landing on Daiya’s planet. He doesn’t mean harm. Even when Daiya literally attacks him, he doesn’t even consider physical retaliation. And yet, just his presence causes her all sorts of harm, and literally nothing he can do will undo that. By merely knowing that he exists, Daiya’s life is forever changed.

As someone who studied cultural anthropology, this scenario regularly troubled me. Some of the more self-aware classes discussed this. Some even gave dire examples of how you could inadvertently cause trouble by saying the wrong thing to the wrong population. But I couldn’t get a proper conversation rolling on whether or not it was morally responsible to spearhead cultural anthropological research in the first place. I wish I had had Watchstar in college to reference.

The theme of consciousness—apparently mandated in any book written in the 1970s—was less interesting to me. It’s not bad, but it’s not something I care much about, probably in part because by its very nature it’s going to be a bit open-ended and wishy-washy.

I also was a little bit disappointed because I expected the Ordeal Daiya must face to intertwine with the themes of morality and consciousness. And I guess it does, but only in a quick, topical way, and then the book is off again with a new plot that isn’t as supported by Daiya’s Ordeal as you might thing. This left me floundering a bit as Watchstar went on. I wanted something to sink my teeth into, but that part of the book was over.

One thing that bothered me at first but quickly became acceptable was the staccato writing style. Repetitive simple sentence structure can turn me off a book quicker than anything, but here it didn’t feel like bad writing—it felt like a voice authentic to Daiya, our POV character, who is so used to communicating via thought that she finds the use of words clumsy. It would be weird to have her stumbling over her words when interacting with Reiho, then have her POV storytelling full of flowery prose and complex sentences.

All-in-all, I’m not sure if I particularly liked Watchstar. It wasn’t bad by any stretch of the imagination, but with such a strong emphasis on theme, I didn’t feel as drawn to the characters or the world. For me to resonate deeply with such a book, the theme needs to be on point, but here 50% of the theme was largely outside of my interest.

I will say, though, that this book has left me with enormous faith in Pamela Sargent. Watchstar may not have been the perfect book to capture my attention / love, but it was carefully and clearly written by someone who obviously both knows their craft and gives a shit about their work. I have more Pamela Sargent on my shelf, and I’m looking forward to tucking into it.

Cover art by an unknown artist :(