Recent reading

[luzula]

Dawn by Octavia Butler
Uh, if you want dubcon xeno, this is for you. I thought it did a really good job keeping the aliens uncomfortable and ambiguous, but also well-meaning on their terms. And of course, the humans are not actually better than the aliens, just different--the first human the main character meets after a long time among aliens tries to rape her. I like how this is SF based on biology. There are really a lot of situations in nature where species are in a state of symbiosis or parasitism, which if both species were sentient would be fraught with deeply weird consent issues. This is basically humanity forced into such a situation.

There was one way in which I thought the humans acted weird. Forty of them are awakened from a kind of deep sleep, and most of them pair off and start sleeping with each other within a few days. Really? That is so not what I would do. Is it really how most people would act? Anyway, looking forward to seeing where this is going in the next book.

All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Andrews
For fannish book club. I did not like this book, and neither did most of the book club group. I felt like the narrative voice was trying to be cool and ironic all the time and it really annoyed me. The worldbuilding had some interesting ideas, but it didn't feel grounded, and the various elements of it didn't hang together well.

Comments

[isis]

I completely agree with you on All the Birds in the Sky.

[luzula]

I have a hard time understanding why it's nominated for a Hugo? It seems to be a popular book.

[desireearmfeldt]

I recently read it because I'd heard it was good from I-don't-remember-where (and had read an excerpt in a magazine), and had a similar reaction. There were things I liked about it but getting past the narrative voice was hard.

[china_shop]

There was one way in which I thought the humans acted weird. Forty of them are awakened from a kind of deep sleep, and most of them pair off and start sleeping with each other within a few days.

It sounds weird to me too. Are they under stress and in need of comfort, or is this purely recreational?

[luzula]

They are under stress, but not in immediate danger--they're all strangers to each other who are woken by another human and told that they're held by aliens who want to help them re-colonize earth and also enter into a sort-of symbiotic relationship with them.

[calvinahobbes]

Dawn was such a weird read for me, too. I do sort if appreciate the thought experiment, but I don't like or even want to spend my time on feel-bad reads, which this one definitely was to me. I honestly thought both the rape and pairing-off dated the book by a lot.

[luzula]

I'm going to keep reading, because I was interested in the human/alien relationship and want to see where she's going with that. But yeah, I can see how you'd not want to keep going.