Story set in a Fallout-esque world where a knight comes to town to slay a "demon" (really a mutated human) and a local womanQuick, queer, and awesome.
Story set in a Fallout-esque world where a knight comes to town to slay a "demon" (really a mutated human) and a local woman is determined to stop him.
Too quick for me to say anything more with spoilers, but like everything Alix E. Harrow writes, it's worth the read....more
This was one of the more thought-provoking books I鈥檝e read. I can鈥檛 say that I enjoyed it, per se, but it was excellent.
This is a 1990s science fictioThis was one of the more thought-provoking books I鈥檝e read. I can鈥檛 say that I enjoyed it, per se, but it was excellent.
This is a 1990s science fiction novel set in a far future where humanities colony worlds, long-sundered, are reconnecting. Though everyone involved is human, there are nevertheless differences that have popped up on different worlds. One of the more drastic changes was on a just-newly-contacted world, where newborn humans are completely sexless and genderless, each with the potential to develop male or female. At adolescence, one set of characteristics matures, and one atrophies. And, in about a third of the cases, neither set develops, and the person continues without any gender or sex.
This book tells the story of Tedla, one of these 鈥渘euters.鈥� Most of their world regards the neuters, more or less, as developmentally disabled; they鈥檙e near-universally assumed to be slow, dull, and in need of guidance by gendered men and women. They wear grey, are known as 鈥渂lands,鈥� are each in the guardianship of an individual or organization of gendered men and women, and are relegated to menial work. Except that Tedla has ended up on another world and received an education.
The story starts with Tedla arriving in an emergency care facility, having attempted suicide. The doctors are perplexed by Tedla鈥檚 completely genderless biology, and call in a cultural anthropologist to try to figure out Tedla鈥檚 story. We as readers gradually learn how Tedla came to the point of attempting suicide, in a story told in three parts. Parts of it are in the present, where Tedla is a person of great interest for various reasons as their homeworld makes its way into galactic society. Parts of it are Tedla鈥檚 recountings of their past. And parts of it are notes from an anthropologist that was part of the first contact team on Tedla鈥檚 world.
Now I鈥檝e been referring to Tedla using the pronoun 鈥渢hey鈥� as the currently-accepted gender-neutral singular. The book uses the pronoun 鈥渋t鈥� for Tedla, exclusively - everyone from Tedla鈥檚 world, including Tedla, insists it is correct. Tedla is neither male nor female, so 鈥渉e鈥� and 鈥渉er鈥� are both completely wrong. It makes many of the people in the book uncomfortable to refer to a person as 鈥渋t,鈥� and it makes *me* extremely uncomfortable as well - I kept wanting to say 鈥渏ust call them they!鈥� But this is intentional on the author鈥檚 part; she wants to push boundaries, and being a 30ish year old book transgenderism was much less known and much less accepted (as far as it currently is) than today.
This book addresses a ton of topics. If I were to try to settle on a single theme for it, I would say this is a book about the societal problems caused by having an oppressed class, and the way that the oppressors tend to blame the oppressed for it. But it also has a great deal to say about cultural relativism, and about capitalism - the world in which Tedla tells their story has an economy based entirely on the commoditization of information, which is obviously relevant in our current world (I鈥檇 really like to hear Gilman鈥檚 current thoughts on this).
As I implied above, just because this is a great book doesn鈥檛 mean it鈥檚 an easy one to read. It very much isn鈥檛. Tedla lacks genitals, but that doesn鈥檛 mean Tedla can鈥檛 perform sexual acts, or be used for them. Very strong content warnings here: sexual coercion, brutal sexual assault, and grooming are all major elements of the story.
A well-done, challenging, and extremely strange book (which is a compliment). I'm honestly not entirely sure how I feel about it, or even what I thinkA well-done, challenging, and extremely strange book (which is a compliment). I'm honestly not entirely sure how I feel about it, or even what I think it meant. Gonna need to ponder this one for a while....more
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