The Sterkarm Handshake

Infobox Book |
name = The Sterkarm Handshake


image_caption = 1998 hardback cover
author = Susan Price
country = UK
language = English
genre =
publisher = Scholastic
pub_date = 16 Oct 1998
media_type = Hardback
pages = 386
followed_by = A Sterkarm Kiss

"The Sterkarm Handshake" (1998) is a science fiction novel by Susan Price which won the 1999 Guardian Children's Fiction Prize. It deals with time travel between the 21st and 16th centuries and its effect on the Sterkarm clan.

Plot introduction

A British corporation creates a Time Tube back to the 16th Century Scottish-English border, initially planning to exploit its untouched mineral resources. The 21st-century travellers represent themselves as magical Elves, and attempt to win the co-operation of the local clan, the Sterkarms.

Title

A "Sterkarm handshake" refers to the treachery of the left-handed Sterkarms, who would offer a right hand to shake in apparent friendship while still wielding a weapon in the left hand.

Plot summary

"The Sterkarm Handshake" deals with a British corporation, the FUP, who create a Time Tube back to the 16th Century Scottish-English border, initially to exploit its then untouched mineral resources of gold and oil, though they later plan a tourist resort. They fatally underestimate the natives. A local clan, the Sterkarms, are welcoming at first, regarding the 21st-century travellers as magical Elves because of their medicine and technology, but increasingly refuse to cooperate. The clansmen, who have always lived by plunder, begin robbing the FUPs, which leads to the FUP's power-hungry boss kidnapping the only son of the Sterkarm chieftain. The Sterkarms' retaliation is savage.

A young 21st-century anthropologist, Andrea Mitchell, who lives with the Sterkarms as a translator and liaison, finds her loyalties divided when she falls in love with Per Sterkarm.

equels

"A Sterkarm Kiss", published in 2003, revisits the concept, with FUP this time contacting the Sterkarms of a different dimension in a subtly different 16th century. The corporation attempts to manipulate the Sterkarms by reigniting their rivalry with another clan. Andrea Mitchell returns to the past, but all the people she knew before are now strangers, including her lover Per.

A third Sterkarm novel is planned. [ [http://www.susanprice.org.uk/ Susan Price on the third Sterkarm book] ]

Reception

"The Sterkarm Handshake" was awarded the 1999 Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, although it is more accurately described as a young adult novel. It was also shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal.

"Publishers Weekly" wrote that "Price's gripping time-travel adventure cleverly imagines a startling collision of 21st-century technology and 16th-century mores." [Publishers Weekly, Nov 27, 2000 v247 i48 p77]

References