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asher553THE POTTER OF BONES, Eleanor Arneson, 2002; in 'The Very Best of the Best' by Gardner Dozois, 2019. I picked up this best-of collection from 35 years' worth of 'The Year's Best Science Fiction' and resolved to read it through. 'The Potter of Bones' is the first story in the collection and I enjoyed it greatly.
Set in a matriarchal, humanoid society on an Earth-like planet, it tells the story (from a much later historical POV) of Tulwar Haik, orphaned and displaced when most of her town's fishing population are wiped out by a storm. Gifted with creativity and curiosity, she learns the craft of pottery and in the process becomes curious about the ancient past, eventually laying the foundations of her world's scientific thought.
Like 'The Baroque Cycle', this is science fiction in the most literal sense - fiction about science - and it explores the mental process of categorizing information (putting facts, figuratively, 'into pots'). Tulwar Haik and Stephenson's Leibniz are both aroused to curiosity by the appearance of fossilized shells in stone, far from any evident bodies of water. In Haik's case, her scientific curiosity must compete with her desire to be successful at her craft, and her love for the theatre (and for an actor named Dapple).
Haik's story is told through the voice of a narrator or tale-teller living in a much later time, and so has the form of 'historical fiction' (again like the Baroque cycle) but set within a fictional world.
Set in a matriarchal, humanoid society on an Earth-like planet, it tells the story (from a much later historical POV) of Tulwar Haik, orphaned and displaced when most of her town's fishing population are wiped out by a storm. Gifted with creativity and curiosity, she learns the craft of pottery and in the process becomes curious about the ancient past, eventually laying the foundations of her world's scientific thought.
Like 'The Baroque Cycle', this is science fiction in the most literal sense - fiction about science - and it explores the mental process of categorizing information (putting facts, figuratively, 'into pots'). Tulwar Haik and Stephenson's Leibniz are both aroused to curiosity by the appearance of fossilized shells in stone, far from any evident bodies of water. In Haik's case, her scientific curiosity must compete with her desire to be successful at her craft, and her love for the theatre (and for an actor named Dapple).
Haik's story is told through the voice of a narrator or tale-teller living in a much later time, and so has the form of 'historical fiction' (again like the Baroque cycle) but set within a fictional world.
