(Minor spoiler alert if you haven’t read Linesman or Alliance.)
In our Linesman series of books, Ean Lambert comes from a world called Lancia. When he left, he swore he’d never go back. He hated Lancia and everything it stood for, particularly its morally corrupt emperor, Yu, and Yu’s advisers.
Lancia was part of a political entity that had been around for hundreds of years. The once-great Alliance of worlds was stagnating under its own bureaucracy. A small number of worlds—one of them Lancia—held all the power, and they used that power to further their own worlds, rather than for the benefit of the whole Alliance.
Ean joined a line cartel and became a linesman, one of the elite few who repaired line ships.
Politically, the cartels naturally affiliate themselves with the other main galactic power, the union of gate worlds (Gate Union), because the gate worlds control ship jumps, and linesmen repair line ships.
The Alliance and Gate Union are enemies, about to go to war.
If we, as onlookers rather than writers, had to choose a ‘good’ side in this war, we’d probably have chosen Gate Union. Even though the various factions double-cross each other trying to wrest power. Even though one faction is determined to start a war. Even though Gate Union ends up strangling their enemy’s economy by restricting their jumps.
But Ean, our protagonist, joins the other side.
He’s there at the formation of the ‘new’ Alliance. He plays a part in some of the New Alliance victories. He does acknowledge, early on, that by inclination and career choice he would normally side with Gate Union, but by the end of Linesman he wholly supports his own side.
He works with a group of dedicated, decent people. Many of them are Lancastrians. Michelle, Yu’s daughter, and Abram Galenos, Admiral of Lancia, are trying especially hard to create a future for their people.
Ean doesn’t think he’s on the ‘bad’ side.
Which begs the question. In a war, how do you know you’re fighting for the right side?
It’s seldom easy to know in real life. The right side for you often depends on where you come from, your race, your religion, and how and where you have lived.
It’s not so difficult in books. In many of them, it’s clear which side is the ‘good’ side.
In Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, we see Sauron as undoubtedly evil. (Tolkien himself, in his letters to his son, said that he didn’t deal in absolute evil, but that Sauron had gone the way of all tyrants, beginning well, while desiring to have things work his way.) For most of us, Lord of the Rings is clear cut. Hobbits are good guys. Elves and dwarves are good guys. Humans are too.
Other books are not so clearly defined. In fact, in many books it doesn’t matter whose side you are on. You just want the characters you support to win.
The best books aren’t clear cut at all. They’re the ones where you don’t think about sides, not while you’re reading them. But later, you’re still thinking about the book and you realise that maybe, just maybe, you should be supporting the other side. Or at least sympathising with them.
In Anne Leckie’s Ancillary Justice, we’re on Breq’s side. We follow her throughout the book. We want her to win. Yet if you stop and think about it, the Imperial Radch truly are bad guys. While Breq is Justice of Toren, she’s responsible for annexing planets, killing anyone who dares to fight the Radch. She stores hundreds of thousands of bodies in her holds, and turns them into disposable soldiers when she needs them.
The Radch subsume whole civilisations, and have done for hundreds of years.
Yet we still want Breq to win. We’re still on her side.
In fiction, it’s the story that counts. Whether you read for the plot, the characters, the world building, or for any other reason at all, it doesn’t matter. In most cases, you choose the protagonist’s side.
That means, in our Linesman series of books, you’re on the side of the New Alliance.
There’s a plot thread in our latest book, Confluence.
But the biggest threat comes from an unexpected source. Someone is trying to take down the New Alliance from within—and will use anything, even the lines themselves, to ensure its destruction. (Back cover, Confluence.)
We thought a lot about that plot thread. To us, someone who betrays—or appears to betray—the New Alliance, is a traitor. We’re on Ean’s side, and therefore the New Alliance is our side.
But the betrayers don’t think of themselves as traitors. They’re working for what they think is the ‘right’ side.
Are they wrong to want to do that?
AUTHOR BIO
K. Dunstall is the pen name for Sherylyn and Karen Dunstall, sisters who live in Melbourne, Australia. They are the authors of the Linesman series of novels. Linesman, Alliance and Confluence. Confluence is released on 29 November, 2016.
Website: www.skdunstall.com
Twitter: Guest post: In a war, how do you know you’re fighting for the right side? by S.K. Dunstall
