The Slave and the Free
This is actually 2 books for the price of one, both of which I liked quite a bit. The first follows a few men in the male dominated society, and the second follows the women’s side of the society. It’s been a few weeks since I read the books, however I do remember that I enjoyed the way that Suzy McKee Charnas dedicated sections to telling the story from the perspective of each character.
As is the theme with most of my blog posts here, I like this because it allows me to get to know the characters better and see things through their eyes. When reading, I often wonder how the other character would feel about the ongoing situations so for me, this style of writing fits with my tastes.
The Forever War
I immediately knew I’d like this book. Why? Because the cover looked like it was a scene right of Call of Duty 4 or some other such war video game. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t be interested in a “war” book, however I thought this one was ok.
While I didn’t get completely lost in it, I did enjoy reading it as I went along reading. I found the descriptions of the “aliens” almost comical since I pictured them almost like skinny Taurens, living in pods, with killer bubbles as weapons. I liked reading about the technologies used by both the “good guys” as well as the “aliens” because I’m a big geek and I like things like that 
Am I the only one that had those images in their head? I’d also be interested to read some of the other books by Joe Haldeman to see what other worlds he can come up with.
Houston, Houston, Do You Read?
This one was nice and short but I really enjoyed it. I even found myself wanting more. For some reason, character development is really imporant to me. It almost makes or breaks a good book for me. If the characters aren’t believeable, I won’t be drawn into the book.
In this short story, James Tiptree Jr. manages to pull me in almost right away. Even if I don’t particularly like the personality of a character, I still like to read about them. I liked all three men initially, but as we got deeper into who they were (which we unfortunately find out at the end) I found my feelings toward them changing.
Again, we are dealing with an all female society into which a few men are introduced. These women seem to have a very functional and progressive society going on. They had achieved many great feats of science, namely cloneing. Although they had a big population, there were actually only about 100 people because the rest were clones of those 100. I, personally, would not like this, but whatever works for them. I’m not convinced that this would ever happen, but that’s why we call this fiction.
I find it amusing that the narrator (the scientist) wishes he were more manly and one of the guys. He feels as though he is too nerdy and that he is not truly accepted by his peers. As it turns out, he’s the only one of them that the women open up to and almost accept because of who he is. The men that he thought he’d like to be more like, turn out to be much more harsh versions of the people he had known in his own ship.
I loved that this story reminded me so much of the British cult classic Red Dwarf. If you haven’t already seen it, I really urge you to stream a few episodes if you are looking for a laugh. The is even an episode where the guys meet a ship full of women.
I have to admit, I was very surprised by the harshness of the final scenes of the story. I wasn’t bothered by them, just surprised. The men were drugged before they were to be killed (so it’s sort of suggested) which made them become their true selves, expressing their true desires and motives. While I’m sure these are aspects of the male persona, since they were drugged these things came out in the woodwork. It was a good, yet harsh final scene to close the story with an ambiguous end.
The Female Man
So far, I think this is my least favorite book of the course. Saying that, I also feel a certain admiration for Joanna Russ because of how she wrote The Female Man. I found that I had some difficulty being able to follow who was speaking sometimes but once I got to know each of the characters, it became much easier.
I enjoyed each of the women, I thought their contrasting personalities were interesting and entertaining. I think that each one of them had something about them that we can relate to in our own personalities. I found their flaws to make them much more believeable and enjoyable characters which is what led me to finish the book. I think that if the character development wasn’t as good, I would have been more inclined to put the book down without finishing it.
While it wasn’t my favorite book, I certainly appreciate it’s style of writing and the overall storyline. When I could grasp what that story line was, that is!
The Disappearance
This book was quite a contrast to Herland in the time it was set and the style in which it was written. While Herland seemed to be a more formal style, The Disappearance was written in everyday language.
What I enjoyed about it was that it told the same story from two different perspectives. It was intersting to see how different things unfolded in the same, but opposite situation. In class, we noticed that there was a significant difference in the number of pages written in the male perspective and the female perspective. While I’m sure this was not intentional, I would have liked to hear more about what was happeneing with the women.
I’m not entirely sure that women would accomplish nothing, should all the men in the world disappear. I would like to think that we have come alot farther than that in knowledge and experience, however perhaps at the time that the book was written, this would have been plausible. I don’t doubt, however, that the male world would be chaos. For some reason, men seem to favour war and blowing things up as a way of solving problems.
I enjoyed the little details like the references to her hair or the importance of the women’s uniforms. I think that my favorite scene is when the ladies entertain the Russian women, getting drunk and having makeovers. Wouldn’t it be nice if our society was like that haha!
Herland
It’s been a while since we read Herland, however I’d still like to add a little something here about it. I was quite excited to start reading this book (a) because of it’s size and (b) because I’m weird and always get excited at the beginning of a new class. Don’t worry, this odd excitement will probably wear off before March.
Anyway, I’m happy to report that I enjoyed this little read. I like the contrasting personalities. How different personas were accounted for. I like the fantastical air of Herland. I my head, all of the women were, tall, beautiful amazons. Saying this, I wouldn’t actually like to live in Herland. I think I like men too much or something because it might annoy me to be surrounded by agreeable women day in and day out. Surely to goodness they would argue about something!
Welcome to My World
Hi guys This is a course blog for ENGL3722, Speculative Fiction so all posts will be in regards to course readings and class discussions. Currently working on my Herland and The Disappearance posts so check back for those! I’m gathering my thoughts a bit before I commit to posting them on the interwebs for the world to see.
Please feel free to comment (positive or negative) on any posts.
