An Exchange of Hostages

Description

A promising young surgeon, Andrej Koscuikso has come, with great reluctance, to study at a military orientation center adrift in black space. Against his will, he will train here to serve as a "Ship's Inquisitor" - a vocation that runs counter to his deepest moral convictions.

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Andrej Koscuisko had graduated with the highest honors from the Mayon Medical Center and could have started a lucrative private practice. But his father had other plans for him, sending him to Fleet Orientation Station Medical where he will learn to become a Ship's Surgeon, a highly skilled torturer armed with the powerful Writ of Inquistion. Unable to escape his brutal training, Koscuisko will have to reconcile his natural empathy for the sick with a dark secret he will learn about himself. First-time author Susan Matthews demonstrates a sure hand and proves she's not afraid to take on a disturbing subject.

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Warring States: A Jurisdiction Novel

Description

The Ragnarok's legal status has been ambiguous since it shot its way out of Taisheki Station to escape a threat against the lives of its innocent crew. Ship's Inquisitor Andrej Koscuisko hopes to take advantage of this period of chaos and unrest to see his bond-involuntary Security slaves somehow freed and sent to Gonebeyond space. The personal conflict he is experiencing has surprised and distressed him, and yet he cannot afford to let his private agonies interfere with his purpose. But an incident that happened years ago in a dark cold street in Port Rudistal - the site of the Domitt Prison - has bound Koscuisko to a man who, all unknowingly, holds the key to a murder that's changed the course of history. More alone than he has ever been in his life, Andrej must face the deadliest threat he has ever encountered - the unknown enemy who murdered the First Secretary at Chilleau Judiciary, and set all of Jurisdiction Space into anarchy and horror.

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Prisoner of Conscience

Description

Andrei Koscuisko is an Inquisitor for the Bench federation of worlds. It is his duty to root out -- quickly, efficiently, quietly -- anyone who would threaten the ruling order.

Andrei has been posted to the penal facility at Port Rudistal. Here hundreds of prisoners -- traitors who dared dream of freedom and self-rule -- await interrogation. They know an Inquisitor's judgment is firm and unassailable. Yet there is a line that even he may not cross.

Although an Inquisitor is not supposed to feel outrage, weakness or pity, Andrei is, above all, a man of honor. And now he must risk his career -- and perhaps his life -- exposing the truth that lies behind the black walls of Domitt Prison.

A riveting novel of one man's courage in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, "Prisoner of Conscience again showcases one of the most promising voices in contemporary science fiction.

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Hour of Judgment

Description

As Chief Medical Officer aboard the Jurisdiction Fleet Ship Ragnarok, Andrej Koscuisko's duty is to care for his shipmates; as Inquisitor, he must extract confessions and administer punishment. But while the doctor takes pride in his healing skills, the torturer knows only self-loathing. As the planet Burkhayden prepares for the arrival of its new governor, a brutal attack on a Nurail slave woman by a ship's officer sets in motion a chain of events that culminates in murder, Called upon to minister to the injured woman, Andrei is soon pressed into duty as Inquisitor after a prime suspect is taken into custody for the murder. In this minefield of intrigue and deception, where a single misstep means death, Andrej's precarious equilibrium will be strained to the breaking point -- and beyond.

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Angel of Destruction

Description

"[Matthews] brilliantly uses science fiction's freedom of creation." (The Denver Post)

"Matthews will stand out in a field dominated (in numbers if not in stature) by mediocre imitators." (Analog)

A stand-alone novel set in Susan R. Matthews's critically acclaimed "Judiciary" universe, Angel of Destruction focuses on Bench officer Garol Vogel and his attempts to make peace with the Langsarik people-the people his own Judiciary drove into a life of piracy...

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Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?

Description

Polygamy, forced marriage, female genital mutilation, punishing women for being raped, differential access for men and women to health care and education, unequal rights of ownership, assembly, and political participation, unequal vulnerability to violence. These practices and conditions are standard in some parts of the world. Do demands for multiculturalism--and certain minority group rights in particular--make them more likely to continue and to spread to liberal democracies? Are there fundamental conflicts between our commitment to gender equity and our increasing desire to respect the customs of minority cultures or religions? In this book, the eminent feminist Susan Moller Okin and fifteen of the world's leading thinkers about feminism and multiculturalism explore these unsettling questions in a provocative, passionate, and illuminating debate.

Okin opens by arguing that some group rights can, in fact, endanger women. She points, for example, to the French government's giving thousands of male immigrants special permission to bring multiple wives into the country, despite French laws against polygamy and the wives' own bitter opposition to the practice. Okin argues that if we agree that women should not be disadvantaged because of their sex, we should not accept group rights that permit oppressive practices on the grounds that they are fundamental to minority cultures whose existence may otherwise be threatened.

In reply, some respondents reject Okin's position outright, contending that her views are rooted in a moral universalism that is blind to cultural difference. Others quarrel with Okin's focus on gender, or argue that we should be careful about which group rights we permit, but not reject the category of group rights altogether. Okin concludes with a rebuttal, clarifying, adjusting, and extending her original position. These incisive and accessible essays--expanded from their original publication in Boston Review and including four new contributions--are indispensable reading for anyone interested in one of the most contentious social and political issues today.

The diverse contributors, in addition to Okin, are Azizah al-Hibri, Abdullahi An-Na'im, Homi Bhabha, Sander Gilman, Janet Halley, Bonnie Honig, Will Kymlicka, Martha Nussbaum, Bhikhu Parekh, Katha Pollitt, Robert Post, Joseph Raz, Saskia Sassen, Cass Sunstein, and Yael Tamir.

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