Books like The kindly ones by Melissa Scott
Orestes is a bleak, unforgiving world where the first colonists, castaways from a crash landing, survived through strict socio‑political controls and a rigid code of honour. Generations of hardship hardened the law: misdeeds were once punished by blood, and now those who break the code face a social death instead of execution. Every city on Orestes hosts colonies of ‘ghosts’—ostracised citizens forced to live apart from the living, yet they persist and become a powerful counterforce. As galactic civilisation expands and threatens Orestes’ isolation, the aristocracy’s desire to maintain tradition clashes with the rising influence of the ghosts and the inevitability of change.
First publish date: 1987
Genre: Science Fiction/Space Opera
Authors: Melissa Scott
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