Title Remnant Population Series --- Author Elizabeth Moon Cover Art David Stevenson Publisher Del Rey - 2003 First Printing 1996 Category Science Fiction Warnings None Main Characters Ofelia Falfurrias, Bluecloak Main Elements Aliens Website elizabethmoon.com

For forty years, Colony 3245.12 has been Ofelia’s home. On this planet far away in space and time from the world of her youth, she has lived and loved, weathered the death of her husband, raised her one surviving child, lovingly tended her garden, and grown placidly old. And it is here that she fully expects to finish out her days–until the shifting corporate fortunes of the Sims Bancorp Company dictates that Colony 3245.12 is to be disbanded, its residents shipped off, deep in cryo-sleep, to somewhere new and strange and not of their choosing. But while her fellow colonists grudgingly anticipate a difficult readjustment on some distant world, Ofelia savors the promise of a golden opportunity. Not starting over in the hurly-burly of a new community... but closing out her life in blissful solitude, in the place she has no intention of leaving. A population of one.

With everything she needs to sustain her, and her independent spirit to buoy her, Ofelia actually does start life over–for the first time on her own terms: free of the demands, the judgments, and the petty tyrannies of others. But when a reconnaissance ship returns to her idyllic domain, and its crew is mysteriously slaughtered, Ofelia realizes she is not the sole inhabitant of her paradise after all. And, when the inevitable time of first contact finally arrives, she will find her life changed yet again–in ways she could never have imagined...

This book is about many things. First, we have a system of colonization run by a corporation. This means that if they are unhappy of the results of the colony in any way, since they more or less own the colonists, they can just come and yank you from one place where you shed blood and tears for 40 years to make viable, and then just drop you somewhere else to start all over again. This isn't gone into depth, more a backdrop for the rest, but an interesting concept in itself.

It is also about an old woman, tired of being told what to do by her husband, her children, her son's wife, and of course the colony's administration. All her life she did what other people wanted her to do. So when the colony was evacuated she decided to stay behind. After all, she was unlikely to survive another cryo trip and the corporation considered her dead weight and a waster of space, so her son had to pay a premium so that she could go along. For once she can feel truly free.

This is also a tale of alien contact, of making friendships with the unlikeliest of allies. Of discovering and understanding someone who is so completely other, so different, that there is barely any shared frame of reference. And yet curiosity and a desire for knowledge drives them to make a connection, to learn and expand one own's view of the world.

And it is about knowledge and learning. You have the arrogant linguists and the administrators who after through years of schooling consider themselves superior than some dumb crazy old lady mucking about in the dirt caring for tomatoes, but don't know that you should never get between a cow and her calf. That not all knowledge is learnt in school, and there is a difference between the widsom of the old and the book learning of the young. After all a doddering senior couldn't have possibly taught an alien species her language any more than the reverse could be true, she's a farmer and she's old so that must mean lacking in intelligence. How we underestimate women, the elderly, and those that work with their hands. The remnant population.

At first I found it a bit hard to get into, it was mildly interesting to see Ofelia enjoying her freedom and being the only person (as far as she knows) on the planet. But she can only spend so much time gardening, maintaining houses, painting beads and running around naked before a reader longs for a bit more of a plot. Fortunately that comes with the arrival of the native aliens that live on the planet, highly intelligent but communicate through drumming and throat flares. And eventually Ofelia finds a place in a society where she feels she belongs, where in fact she is revered, for here the elderly are the Guardians, the teachers of children, the deciders of policy, and though she is human and not of the People, they decide she is worthy of this, something her own people could not see, blinded by the white hair and her wrinkles and bad hip. An unusual protagonist, rarely does an elderly woman take a lead role in a science fiction novel. And she's no retired spaceship captain, she's just a woman, like so many of the rest of us. But she's matters, and is important, and has value.

I liked Ofelia, she was grumpy and cantankerous and viewed the aliens as annoying curious children she hoped would just get bored and wander away before they made a mess of her stuff, or killed her, whichever came first. When you're 80 or so you know death will come in many possible forms, so even if the aliens will finish her off in her sleep, she was determined to take a nap. After all it wasn't like she could defend herself if the aliens meant her harm so why worry about it? But she could also be loving and gentle and protective towards them, something she found she was unable to be to her own children. There are moments when she's submissive and polite to the administrators, but then happy to tell dirty gossip to the guards. I don't know if I'd want her as my grandmother, she's a little hard to get along with, but she's certainly an interesting character.