Ilario: The Stone Golem by Mary Gentle

Ilario is a hermaphrodite who has survived slavery, herm own mother's attempted assassination, the attentions of a paid assassin, and childbirth. Now, with herm daughter to protect, as well as Ilario hermself, Ilario must take charge of herm destiny and save everyone from the threat of herm mother's husband. But how can Ilario do that without killing the man? Is it possible to come to some sort of accomodation that will leave Ilario alive and out from under the fear of assassination?

Ilario travels to Constantinople, where s/he brings Johannes Gutenberg to the Library of Alexandria. Gutenberg's printing press will allow the Alexandrian Library to print many copies of the books in their library and disseminate the information they hold all over the world. But first, Ilario and Rekhmire' must meet with the captain of an enormous ship that sailed into the harbor and find out where it comes from and who built it.

Ilario and Rekhmire' befriend the Chin Captain and with Queen Ty'ameny's help use him to frighten Ilario's home country of Tarasco, in Iberia. But before they leave, they must somehow disable the golem sent from the Turks to Constantinople, before it can be used to assassinate the Queen.

Then, Ilario travels home on the Chin Junk, to broker a peace between himself and his mother's husband. Afterwards, he will travel to Carthage, to see if he can use the threat of the Chin ship sailing the Meditteranean to keep both sides of the possible war in line. And in the end, Ilario will find love, possibly in the place least expected.

An epilogue, set 24 years later, caps off the series, showing how the world was changed from the world we know.

My problems with Ilario in the first book came from the fact that many times Ilario seems swept along by fate, unable to make any kind of decision on herm own, because of Ilario's early life as a slave when masters made all of Ilario's decisions, and the hermaphrodite only had to obey them and go along.

Now, the point has arrived in Ilario's life when herm has to make herms own decisions and live with the consequences. Ilario could simply arrange for herm's mother to die, but Ilario cannot or will not do that. So, I found Ilario's decisiveness much improved over the first book.

Again, the character of Ilario is the viewpoint character, but you get to see some truly interesting and amazing alternate history being worked out in the pages of the book. So, when as in our own world, Alexandria was sacked and the scrolls and treatises were lost forever, due to Ilario finding Johannes Gutenberg and bringing him to Alexandria, much of the information was saved, and even though Alexandria does eventually fall to the Turks, books of knowledge from the library continue to flow.

The epilogue is rather sad, as Ilario and herm daughter don't seem to be very close, and, reading between the lines, she appears to want to forget her father/mother as much as possible.

So, all together, the series is intriguing, and gave me lots to chew on. Unfortunately, it didn't feel all together satisfying to me, because it's a lot like real life, and that rarely ends as satisfying as we want it to either.