Hand of Prophecy

Park's second novel is set in the same harsh universe as her first, Speaking Dreams (1992), which was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award. Born on a frontier world once ruled by the Faraqui, now by the Emirate, Frenna has always done what she was told. Such is the way of her people, who shrug off bad events with a single word of fatalistic acceptance: troah, unavoidable hard luck dealt by the ""fateful hand."" Taken from her family at the age of 18 and enslaved on a distant world, Frenna has been injected with a virus that will keep her physically young for 20 years, then kill her. When Frenna learns how to beat the virus, she fights her inbred sense of troah and escapes with three doses of the cure, only to be caught by a Faraqui noble who puts her to work as a medic in the slave arenas of the planet Traja, where he's also left his troublesome prophetess sister (who calls herself Troah), to keep her from stirring up trouble. As if the gore of the fighting arenas and the threat of imminent military invasion aren't enough, Frenna must come to terms with troah: her own, and the embittered prophetess who has the ability to free slaves from the virus and who sees Frenna as a threat to her own fragile power. Park's latest novel expands the vision of its predecessor, delving deep into the hearts of people whose brutal mores and ambitions shield their all-too-human vulnerabilities. The writing is blunt and sure, deftly knitting together resonant themes of power and helplessness, bondage and freedom. (Mar.)