"A wealthy aristocratic woman in a future society sets out in a spaceship with a crew of clones conditioned to act the parts of the characters from the Arthurian romances. Then they are shipwrecked, and the artificial personalities of the clones strangely affect the struggle for survival. Cherryh knows her Arthurian material thoroughly and has done her usual excellent job of writing, with perhaps more emphasis on mood and characterization than usual." -Booklist
Product Description
Their names were Lancelot, Elaine, Percivale, Gawain, Modred, Lynette and Vivien, but they were not characters from legend. They were made people, clone servants designed to suit the fancy of their opulent owner, the Lady Dela Kirn. And they worked aboard the Maid, an anachronistic fantasy of a spaceship, decorated with swords, heraldic banners, old-looking beams masking the structural joints, and lamps that mimicked live flame. They lived in a kind of dream, and had no idea of their origins, their prototypes in those old, old story tapes of romance, chivalry, heroism and betrayal. Until a wandering instability, a knot in time, a ripple in the between sucked them into a spatial no-man's-land from which there seemed to be no escape. And they were left alone, with the borrowed personas of their ancient namesakes, to face a crisis those venerable spirits were never designed to master.
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Review
"A wealthy aristocratic woman in a future society sets out in a spaceship with a crew of clones conditioned to act the parts of the characters from the Arthurian romances. Then they are shipwrecked, and the artificial personalities of the clones strangely affect the struggle for survival. Cherryh knows her Arthurian material thoroughly and has done her usual excellent job of writing, with perhaps more emphasis on mood and characterization than usual." -Booklist
Product Description
Their names were Lancelot, Elaine, Percivale, Gawain, Modred, Lynette and Vivien, but they were not characters from legend. They were made people, clone servants designed to suit the fancy of their opulent owner, the Lady Dela Kirn. And they worked aboard the Maid, an anachronistic fantasy of a spaceship, decorated with swords, heraldic banners, old-looking beams masking the structural joints, and lamps that mimicked live flame. They lived in a kind of dream, and had no idea of their origins, their prototypes in those old, old story tapes of romance, chivalry, heroism and betrayal. Until a wandering instability, a knot in time, a ripple in the between sucked them into a spatial no-man's-land from which there seemed to be no escape. And they were left alone, with the borrowed personas of their ancient namesakes, to face a crisis those venerable spirits were never designed to master.