A Voice Out of Ramah
A Voice Out of Ramah is a 1978 novel by Lee Killough.
A Voice Out of Ramah: On the human colony of Ramah, we discover that a deadly virus initially wiped out 90% of all males. The founding patriarchs have maintained their power by maintaining this state of affairs through secret poisoning, even after a natural immunity had been bred into the population. We encounter this world several hundred years after settlement, when an intergalactic communications firm sends an envoy to the world. The female envoy encounters our priestly protagonist just as he is being forced to confront the horror of his work, and his twin sister's son may become one of the adolescents winnowed. The envoy's presence is therefore a catalyst for the priest's actions, which may change all of Ramah society ...
This story is quite interesting on a number of levels. First, most obviously, the patriarchal theocracy is an interesting set-up. The men are both the rulers, and the "protected", non-working class. Later in the book we see the women's reactions to their rulers from the perspective of the women, and it becomes apparent both to our-hero-the-priest and to the readers that the women are perfectly happy letting men have a certain illusion of power, while women still have their various freedoms. Ramah resonates in that respect with Sheri Tepper's The Gate to Women's Country, albeit with some significant differences. Second, the society is largely homosocial. Women are known to "tangle" and set-up sexual, monogamous partnerships with one another; Killough presents this nicely. Male homosexuality is never even hinted at, although men are allowed to be either celibate or sexual with women. All men seem to contribute to AI (artificial insemination) centers, and many women impregnate themselves via AI, not sexual intercourse. Other individual relationships -- such as brother-sister inc3st -- are not-quite-plainly stated but seem to be interesting side-effects of the population distribution. Finally, it's an interesting flip to the several feminist utopias with men mysteriously gone: At first Ramah seems potentially dystopian, with men in power, women downtrodden; but then we realize that women actually do have a tremendous amount of freedom & power. And we see the pain that the loss of their sons causes women. And when the gender imbalance may be reset at last, we see the tremendous social disruption that occurs, and fear, perhaps, for the women's delicious freedoms ...
Killough's writing was good and the plotting keeps the reader's attention and is well-edited. Characterization was good: although A Voice Out of Ramah was a little too slight to fully work out the characters' various moral dilemmas, nonetheless we do get a sense of real people. Recommended, if you can find a copy.