Ozark series

The Books

• Twelve Fair Kingdoms. (There's also a Berkley Books paperback.)
• The Grand Jubilee. Doubleday, 1981.
• And Then There'll Be Fireworks. Doubleday, 1981.
• Yonder Comes the Other End of Time. DAW, 1986

Summaries

Suzette Haden Elgin's Ozark Trilogy is about a planet of colonists who left Earth over a thousand years ago, independent of official space expeditions. They are against centralized government, and have a loose but effective Confederation of Continents.

On Ozark, magic works. There's a mathematics-based magic called Transformations and (...) that only men are allowed to do, dominated by the Magicians of Rank. There's Granny magic; being a Granny is an official role with its own patterns of language and ways of power.

Twelve Fair Kingdoms

Responsible of Brightwater sets out on a Quest to set right the politics of her planet. Someone is interfering with preparations for the Grand Jubilee and meeting of the Confederation of Continents.

The Grand Jubilee

The 500-year Grand Jubilee gathers at Castle Brightwater, but there's trouble brewing. We get to see why Responsible of Brightwater, a teenage girl with no official position in the Castle, holds the reins of power around here, despite her not being a Magician or a Granny.

And Then There'll Be Fireworks

Responsible's sister, Troublesome of Brightwater, is purely evil and nasty and has no natural human feelings. She exists to make trouble. So when planetwide trouble comes along, she knows how to deal with it.

This is the darkest and grimmest of the Ozark books, with an opening scene of a 10 year old girl being whipped to death in public for refusing to marry and have babies. Things have gone horribly wrong on Ozark.

Yonder Comes the Other End of Time

Ten years later: Coyote Jones tangles with Responsible; the Communipath and Ozark worlds mix. The situation brings out the flaws and virtues of Coyote's approach to his life and work.

(What trilogy would be complete without its fourth book?)