Star-Anchored, Star-Angered
Author: Suzette Haden Elgin
Published: May, 1984 by DAW (originally published 1979 by Doubleday)
Cover Artist: Kelly Freas
Publisher Blurb: Coyote Jones, secret agent for the Tri-Galactic intelligence service, had a strange handicap. In a universe where every normal being is telepathic, he suffered from almost total mind-deafness. He can project, but he can't receive. When the social system of the planet Freeway began to reel under the force of an alleged female Messiah, Coyote's handicap made him the perfect choice for the assignment: find, is she fake or isn't she?
If Drussa Silver is projecting telepathic illusions instead of performing miracles, Coyote would be immune to them. Since using religion to defraud is a criminal act, he could then bring her back to Mars-Central for trial. If she's the real thing however, the situation would be utterly different....
Notes: Star-Anchored, Star-Angered is the fourth book in the Coyote Jones series, following At the Seventh Level (1972) and followed by Yonder Comes the Other End of Time (1986), which is also part of the Ozark series.
Similarly to the rest of the series, there's so much 'telling' instead of 'showing' (do we really need to introduce one-off characters to write journal entries and reports when we could just have the characters involved actually going through those events?), Coyote is insufferable and incompetent, etc. That said, I think the writing here is better than in Furthest and the Coyote Jones portion of At the Seventh Level; I think it shows more of the promise of The Communipaths, although, like The Communipaths, the abrupt and anticlimactic ending is a weak point.
This one has a very New Age-influenced California festival feeling (the beautiful cover art actually does capture that, doesn't it? I can practically smell the weed). You could sum it up with "a middle class, westernized Buddhist, centrist-Democrat visits Outer Space Mt. Shasta and has a life-altering spiritual experience (aided in this case by telepathy instead of LSD, but in the 70s that was kind of the same thing, wasn't it?) and becomes a lightworker." This one could have been an interesting and more speculative novel if Elgin had used it to explore the New Age movement at the time. With her background in linguistics, especially, I wish she'd developed a story around why New Age movements appeal to people, how New Age language influences recruits, etc. I think she could have easily explored, for example, the juxtaposition of the people who genuinely come into these movements wanting to make the human world a better place against the often predatory and frequently racist language of many of its promoters.
Summary: Coyote Jones, agent for the Tri-Galactic Intelligence Service, is summoned to his latest assignment. He'll be heading to the planet Freeway undercover as a Student of religion in order to infiltrate a disruptive cult whose members are called Shavvies, presently led by a woman able to produce miracles. He must investigate Drussa Silver's works to determine if she's defrauding the population using religion; if so, she must be brought back to Mars-Central for trial and punishment.
Coyote has been chosen for this mission because, while he is a broadcast telepath of great strength, he's more or less impervious to any telepathic communication being sent to him; therefore, if Drussa Silver is using telepathy to produce illusions of miracles, he ought to be able to expose her at once as a fraud.
He begins his mission on the asteroid Harvard, where Dean of the Multiversity, Shandalynne O'Halloran, prepares him with a crash-course in Student culture and his cover. As a (supposed) Student of religion, he has been granted special permission to land on the reclusive planet Freeway as a researcher comparing the disruptive factor of the Shavvies with the far more peaceable integration of the Maklunites, whom he knows well and who espouse similar values. The Dean, however, is not entirely impressed with Coyote nor convinced of the benefit of his mission, and organizes a few delays for him on his way to Freeway. These include, among other things, a detour to a planet where he's been framed for inciting revolution. To win his freedom, he incites said revolution, and then continues on his way to Freeway.
Freeway's culture is in a feudal system, where a handful of extremely wealthy families and their households run the planet and live in luxury. Fealtors, meanwhile, are in service to the wealthy families. At the bottom of the class system are the poor. In this culture, the state religion is the conservative machine that enforces those values that keep the wealthy in power-- in particular, it enforces the tithing system that benefits the ruling class. Against this backdrop, the Shavvies-- "fruit pickers"-- represent the liberated, New Age sensibility many in this stifling culture long for. Drussa Silver, rising as a leader among them, is especially effective at drawing in converts. A gifted psionic herself, she is able to teach her converts how to achieve such pleasures as walking on water or using mindspeech on this world where mindspeech is seen as a sexual taboo.
However, Drussa Silver isn't reeling in her staggering number of converts on her own; a secret society of the ultra-wealthy is manipulating the people for purposes of their own. They intend for Coyote Jones to find Drussa Silver and take her back to Mars-Central, at which point they intend to murder her and frame Coyote.
On Freeway, arrangements are made for Coyote to move among the Shavvies. He meets Drussa Silver, and convinces her to perform a 'miracle' for him. She makes herself appear in multiple copies. Coyote, immune to telepathic manipulation, witnesses and is converted on the spot. This the secret society hadn't predicted. Now they must change tactics, since it's clear Coyote won't be removing Drussa from Freeway. They raise up a counter-movement to oppose the Shavvies. This ends with an assassination attempt, foiled not by Drussa's power but Coyote's as a mass-projection telepath.
While the secret society organizes their next move, Coyote goes on being a sort of bodyguard for Drussa. Ultimately, however, she is martyred when a fealtor, representing the Old Faith, by order of the family Fra to whom she owes allegiance, assassinates Drussa at a festival. The status quo is then restored on Freeway in absence of a miracle-worker. Disheartened and grieving, Coyote leaves the planet. The novel concludes with a letter from the Multiversity Dean, now convinced of Coyote's genuineness, encouraging him to follow his path. O Child of Light.