The Motherlines Series by Suzy McKee Charnas
The Motherlines Series is a compelling narrative set in a dystopian world where the protagonist, Alldera, escapes from a society that enslaves women, known as the Holdfast. The series unfolds through three novels, beginning with "Walk to the End of the World," which portrays the aftermath of an environmental disaster called the Wasting. In this world, women, referred to as fems, endure brutal oppression, and Alldera's journey leads her to seek freedom and liberation for herself and others.
Throughout the series, themes of survival, resilience, and the complexities of gender and power dynamics are explored. Alldera encounters various factions, including the Riding Women, who possess unique reproductive abilities and challenge traditional norms surrounding gender roles. The narrative delves into Alldera's struggle for autonomy and leadership as she unites different groups of women to reclaim their rights and redefine their relationships with men.
Ultimately, the series culminates in Alldera's decisive return to the Holdfast, where she leads a revolt to free the remaining enslaved women and confront the oppressive forces that have sought to control them. The Motherlines Series presents a thought-provoking exploration of women's agency in a post-apocalyptic setting, blending elements of science fiction with deep socio-political commentary.
On this Page
The Motherlines Series
First published:Walk to the End of the World (1974), Motherlines (1978), and The Furies (1994)
Type of work: Novels
Type of plot: Science fiction—feminist
Time of work: The distant future
Locale: Earth
The Plot
The novels follow the protagonist Alldera, who escapes slavery to men in the Holdfast and flees to the Grasslands. There she discovers other escaped female slaves as well as free tribes of women. She leads her people back to conquer their homeland.
Walk to the End of the World depicts life in the Holdfast following the Wasting, an environmental disaster. The surviving women, called fems, are horribly treated as slaves. As the novel opens, Eykar Bek has abandoned his post as Endtendant of Endpath, a job that involved providing good deaths for men who felt ready to die, by administering poison to them. Captain Kelmz and Servan d Layo, Bek’s boyhood friend and occasional lover, are ordered to bring him to the city for punishment. Instead, they agree to help him find his father, Raff Maggomas. Bek is the only man in the Holdfast to know his father’s name; the men consider the generations to be natural enemies.
At the request of a fem who saves their lives during their search, they allow Alldera to join them. Although the men do not know it, Alldera’s purpose in making the journey is to escape the Holdfast. She plans to return with the fabricated message that escaped fems will be coming to the rescue. The matris, or older fems, believe this message will quell the desire on the part of the younger fems to revolt, thus protecting the fems as a whole from reprisals. During the journey, both d Layo and Bek rape Alldera. Bek, quite thoughtful and sensitive in comparison with the other men, also engages Alldera in long conversations in which he encourages her to describe what life is like for fems.
In the city of ’Troi, Maggomas has created a technologically advanced society and plans, among other innovations, to raise fems for meat. Bek kills his father, and ’Troi is taken by the other Holdfast men. At Bek’s encouragement, Alldera flees the city during the battle and escapes into the wild.
In Motherlines, Alldera is discovered, pregnant and exhausted, by the Riding Women. These Riding Women not only raise, ride, and eat horses but also induce replication of their own genetic material by mating with these animals. Women with the same genes form a Motherline. The Riding Women rear Alldera’s daughter with the hope that she will be able to reproduce as they do and found a new Motherline.
After learning of the Riding Women’s reproductive method and finding it repulsive, Alldera moves to a free fems’ camp. To her disappointment, she finds the fems clinging to old ways. In contrast to the Riding Women, who are fiercely independent and love one another without jealousy, the free fems are subservient to their leader, Elnoa, and engage in petty rivalries. Alldera later returns to the Riding Women, and the free fems begin to follow her, until all but Elnoa have arrived. They learn to ride and to act more independently. Gradually, the fems and Riding Women begin to respect each other’s customs.
In The Furies, Alldera leads the fems back to the Holdfast to free the remaining slaves, conquer the men, and use the men for reproduction. A band of Riding Women tries to stop the fems, fearing that the fems will reveal their existence to the men. They do not catch up with the fems until after their first victory in the Holdfast, but the Riding Women remain to help defeat the men. Alldera’s troops conquer the Holdfast with little resistance, killing many of the men and keeping the others as slaves for future breeding. Alldera discovers Bek still alive and enslaves him. She protects him from the fems who want to kill him.
Fems unhappy with Alldera’s leadership attempt to kill her, and Bek saves her life. Alldera and her trusted friends, including Bek and Sheel the Riding Woman, seclude themselves at Endpath while the others create a government in the city. After repeated pleas for her leadership, Alldera returns to the city in a triumphal procession.