Johanna Sinisalo's The Core of the Sun is a finalist for the Prometheus award this year.

It has enough SF elements to qualify as standard near future fiction, and provides biting social commentary. In feel, it reminds me a lot of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, but I liked this better in several ways.

The story takes place in a future Finland that has managed to selectively breed its women so that they're either docile sex dolls and mothers ("eloi"), or sterile, powerless but competent workers ("morlocks"). They've also outlawed psycho-active drugs from alcohol to heroin, and somehow included capsacin (hot peppers) on that list. The protagonist (Vanna) is a morlock who was raised as an eloi, which allows her to pass in polite company. She's also hooked on hot peppers, and has started dealing in whole, dried, and preserved peppers in order to afford her next fix.

Compared to Handmaid's Tale, the viewpoint character is a more active agent, with more freedom to act for her own interests and to undermine the system; her allies against the state are more fully bought into the fight; the state she fights has taken more reprehensible steps, though it seems to have less thorough control of its subjugated females.

The story is told with a mix of present-tense action, and recollections by Vanna of how she got to her present situation, mostly written as letters to her long-lost eloi sister, Manna. The two were raised away from the city by their eccentric aunt, which gave Vanna the opportunity to act naturally most of the time, and mimic her sister when visitors were around. This gave her the tools to pass as eloi when she grew up.

After the aunt dies, Manna finds a husband who Vanna suspects to be after the family farm, since neither Manna nor Vanna (passing as an eloi) can legally hold title to it. Vanna finds a man to partner with who values her for her unusual intellect and her ability to act independently (a useful tool for his black market activities).

Vanna pursues the secrets behind her sister's disappearance until events force her to escape with her partner. I found the prose (and occasional poetry) to be delightful and very evocative. The characters were convincing, and Vanna's struggle to be her own person in the face of societal expectations was heart breaking.

0.3productChris Hibbert

0.3

Chris Hibbert

Jo Walton's The Just City investigates the nature of justice, while telling an enchanting story involving gods, mortals and robots trying to actually build the Just City hypothesized by Plato. The goddess Pallas Athene brings together 10,000 children and a few hundred adults from many different times and places to found a new city (on the island of Atlantis) according to Plato's prescriptions in The Republic. Plato's main goal in The Republic was to explain the nature of Justice (the words 'Just' and 'Justice' occur more than 150 times on the wikipedia page), so Walton has plenty of room to explore the idea from several different directions.

In order to get infrastructure in place without burdening the new inhabitants (who are supposed to be coddled and trained so they can understand Justice) the goddess brings in robots to build housing and meeting rooms. The robots are kept around to take care of maintenance and other tasks that Plato didn't describe the city's inhabitants as handling. When the historical Socrates (as envisioned by Walton) joins the city, he turns out to be a very inquisitive man. Since the robots display some autonomy, Socrates wonders whether they have individual personalities and whether they're thinking and aware. This leads to even more opportunities for questions about Justice.

Pallas Athene wants to populate the city with willing participants, so the children (exactly half girls and half boys) all are from disadvantaged circumstances. The adults are all people who prayed for a chance to live in Plato's Republic, so (considering how often the book is actually read in the original greek, and in what historical periods) most are men from antiquity, and the women are nearly all from more modern times. This leads to some interesting political factions, and changing of practices as time goes on and the oldest denizens die off first.

Not all of the children are happy to be there, even though all of them agree that their previous lives (most were slaves) were worse. Even so, not having been given a choice rankles with a few, and their reactions are also interesting.

Many of Plato's ideas are reasonably modern, but others are very outdated, like assigning citizens to societal roles according to their metal. The adults of The Just City spend a lot of effort training and testing the children in order to place them appropriately. Many of the adults are uncomfortable with this duty, but they carry it out, and even put their thumbs on the scales as necessary in order to make the numbers come out right according to Plato's very Greek ideas about numerical harmony. When some of the children figure out that test rankings are being adjusted in order to fit pre-defined notions of how many should be in each category, they challenge the adults, and as with everything else that goes on in the city, philosophical discussion and socratic dialogue ensues.

Since there's limited space on the island, procreation must be limited and sexual activity controlled. The children (and adults) find creative ways around the restrictions, but this means discussion of sexual mores and prohibitions are necessary. We hear about everything from rape and unwanted intimacy to Plato's ignorance of issues of women's hygiene. For the most part the adults attempt to do everything according to Plato's prescriptions, but there are several clear gaps in Plato's planning which leads to the need for endless committee meetings (most of which we, mercifully, hear about afterward, rather than having to endure.)

Walton does a wonderful job of presenting these philosophical questions of freedom, choice, and justice through the character's activity and interactions. In the end, we get to know these people who are all striving to be their best, and to create an environment in which justice is available to all, even though humans always have incompatible desires. We even get some satisfying answers to new and old questions and some unresolved issues to ponder on our own.

Sex at Dawn: Ryan and Jethá

0.3

Chris Hibbert

Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá's Sex at Dawn argues convincingly that monogamy isn't particularly natural for humans. It certainly is one common choice, but many modern people have a lot of trouble sticking to the program despite a lot of exhortation and systemic incentives promoting the practice. Ryan and Jethá marshall evidence from anthropology, evolutionary evidence, comparisons with other primates, and examinations of current practices. Their main argument is that a reasonable definition of "naturally monogamous" would mean that most people pair up with someone from the opposite sex, and aren't tempted to stray. There are a few species that mostly act that way, but looking at the broad range of what humans do, we're not like that. It's an interesting question as to why sociologists, and anthropologists seem to want us to believe that it is natural in the face of all the evidence.

There are several places in the book where the authors don't seem to really understand how evolution works. When talking about male parental investment, they ridicule the notion that maximum reproductive productivity is anyone's goal. It's clear from context that they're misunderstanding a discussion in which individuals are described as acting as if maximizing fecundity is the goal. But the evolutionary reasoning is just that those individuals who produce more offspring end up predominating in subsequent generations, regardless of why they acted that way. But regardless of this, they still make a strong case.

When biologists compare anatomy and mating behavior across species, human genitalia and sexual cycles don't make sense for a species in which couples stick together over the long term and don't cheat on one another. The size of male Genitalia, timing and (lack of) visibility of ovulation, breast prominence, are all unnecessary if the pair bond is unshakeable. They make sense when you assume each individual normally mates with multiple individuals of the opposite sex.

Our close relatives the chimpanzees and bonobos don't restrict themselves to single partners and we look more like humans evolved in an environment where individuals didn't restrict their attention to a single partner. In this kind of environment, evolutionary pressures push toward the large penises (by body weight), external scrotum, long duration of intercourse, and large volume of ejaculate you see in humans. If our ancestors had had reliable access to a partner, they wouldn't have needed these (evolutionarily) expensive features.

Another myth they take on is that of the demure female, uninterested in sex. It certainly occurs, but it's not predominant, either in societies (like ours) that constantly promote the idea or in societies that don't. Ryan and Jethá also make it clear that, evolutionarily speaking, homosexuality is nothing to be ashamed of. Our nearest relatives and many other species engage in the practice, though seldom exclusively. Mainstream society's insistance that each person can be categorized as either heterosexual or homosexual, is just not consistent with our behavior or the evolutionary or anthropological evidence.

Anyway, if you're not sqeamish about these topics, it's a fun, eye-opening read. Not likely to change anyone's behavior, but maybe some people will feel less constrained about their choices. It'll probably also provide grist for some arguments, but that's a fine thing, too.

He, She, and It, by Marge Piercy

0.3

Chris Hibbert

Marge Piercy's He, She, and It tells parallel stories about two not-quite-human creatures and their struggles to get along in the world. The main story takes place in a medium-future world devastated by ecological catastrophe. Shira grew up in a small Kibbutz in the desert, and when her husband abducts her child she leaves the corporate enclave they've been working in and returns home, where she developes a relationship with Yod, a cyborg invented to protect the town. The backstory, told by her grandmother in intercalary chapters, is about a rabbi in the Prague ghetto 400 years ago who raises a golem to protect his community. Both of the simulacra learn to be people and to participate more fully in their communities.

There are many interesting facets interwoven quite well in the story. Shira is a high-tech worker, and she and her companions infiltrate the corporate data bases through a three-day experiential interface in which they are attacked and have a narrow escape. The Rabbi and the golem give us a glimpse of oppressed Jews and what they had to do to get enough accomomdation from the local rulers to enable them to survive the occasional pogrom and the annual depredations of the local rabble-rousers. There is politics, intrigue, outright battles, and exploration of the devastated cities where society's cast-offs live.

The relationship between Shira and Yod develops slowly, and is complicated by interactions with old sweethearts, eccentric inventors, and both Shira's mother and grandmother. The women dominate the front story, and are the most fleshed out of the characters, not counting Yod himself. The backstory focuses on the golem and the plight of the Ghetto's populace. Both stories were fast-paced and engaging. All the focal characters were strong positive people and provided a good setting for the surrounding exploration of whether and what kinds of rights the two artificial creatures should have. Very enjoyable.

Charles Stross: Glasshouse

0.3

Chris Hibbert

Charles Stross's Glasshouse has been nominated for the Prometheus award. The theme of overcoming ubiquitous surveillance makes it a likely finalist and a possible winner this year.

The story takes place in an advanced post-nanotech world where the primary means for long distance travel is cellular deconstruction, data transmission, and reconstruction. In addition to that, you can edit your body and mind before reconstruction, allowing you to modify your basic body type or gender, remove signs of aging, or edit your memories. Unfortunately, this also means that anyone who controls the gates can control what comes out the other end.

Robin, our protagonist, is one of several people who are going through rehab—apparently their most recent life left them with some mental trauma, and the editing at their last reconstruction wasn't as complete as it should have been, so they are getting used to their newest selves and learning to integrate into mainstream society. Since someone seems to be trying to kill Robin (who has strong self-preservation skills and instincts, but doesn't remember why), the choice to accept an invitation into an anonymity-enforcing experiment in recovering information about a lost historical period makes sense. The historical period is ancient earth; really a Hollywood-based view of 1950s-1990s America, but with many details elided, and the entire period mixed together in one giant mish-mash of the experimenters' guesses about why the stereotyped sex roles could co-exist with various anachronistic technologies and mores.

"In order to study the emergent properties of the society" the experimenters are constructing, the subjects are constantly monitored and rewarded with points for remaining in character, and lose points (both individually and for their cliques) for arbitrary behaviors the experimenters want to discourage. Some of the participants quickly adopt the point system as their primary driver of value, while Robin and a few others find unseen ways to fight back. Eventually, Robin discovers a cell of others who want to stop the experiment and/or escape.

The story is well-told and interesting, with both action scenes and psychological studies of the characters. The conflict is engaging, and the elaboration of the background (I haven't given it all away here) is rolled out in a plausible sequence. The exploration of how modern society will look to far-future societies is entirely plausible, with or without intentional culling of the historical records. Stross's characters have a believably accepting attitude to gender- and bodyplan-switching, and their reactions to an attempt to impose a cartoon interpretation of 1950s gender roles is convincing.

There aren't any obvious governments, but several factions are struggling to become the de facto monopolists on political control and the use of force, either locally or throughout the connected polities. The idea that societies that can communicate as easily as they do throughout the Invisible Republic might still maintain distinctly different political systems is interesting. The implication that it might be stable as long as no one manages to subvert the gates that enable cheap commerce is intriguing.

Sheri S. Tepper: Six Moon Dance

0.3

Chris Hibbert

Sherry Tepper's Six Moon Dance is an intriguing fantasy. It starts out seeming to be an investigation of a society with unusual sex roles (half the female babies on Newholme die as infants, so women have unusual power. Men are seen as the weaker sex, and male concubines are common; Mouche, the viewpoint character, will train to be one). The story slowly morphs into a deeper exploration of the interaction between a bizarre quasi-human society, and two interesting alien organisms, mediated by the Great Questioner, a cyborg with her own problems. Each has been changed by their interactions with the others.

Humans have only inhabited this world for a few hundred years. The first settlers didn't notice the native life (they were hiding until they figured out the settlers intentions), which put them in a bind because the Council of Worlds enforces their version of the Prime Directive harshly. The native life has some rather fantastic powers: budding off individuals who can live a separate life for a while and then reabsorb, returning their memories to the collective.

The story arises because the Questioner (the investigator and enforcer of the Prime Directive) schedules a visit at the same time as Newholme's periodic geologic upheavals start again in earnest. The natives have dealt with the problem in the past (it's partly of organic origin and intricately related to both the themes of multi-species intertwining and strange sex roles) but need more help from the humans this time around, since their presence has disrupted their normal approaches. But if the local humans are to escape punishment, the Questioner mustn't notice the shenanigans.

Of course, the Questioner has her own resources, and her job is to be suspicious, so everything unravels. But along the way, this is more than the story of an investigation, and Tepper describes events and people very poetically. Here are a few excerpts to give a taste:

Questioner has drafted two young dancers to help her with the investigation on Newholme, and as they were still struggling to find their identities, her intervention has interrupted their progress. Gandro Bao has trained as a Kabuki dancer, which has given him some sex-role confusion (excuse his broken English, please.) The other dancer, Ellin Voy has identity issues since she found out she is a clone raised to be a dancer just like her mother and her many sisters.

"So, I am being confused, and some days I am looking at face in mirror and thinking, who is this? Is this male or female? Is this real person or only actor? ... So when I am twelve, ... and deciding I am whoever I am wanting to be! Who I am choosing to be!"

"But that's just it! I can't choose who to be! I never had a choice!"

"You cannot choose to be horse, or fish, or tree, no. But it is like this. You are like small seed, and this ship is like big wind, and it is blowing seed from small plant far, far away where is no other such plant. And plant is not saying, 'Oh, oh. I cannot be oak tree, I cannot be bamboo, I cannot be cactus, I have no choice.' Plant is not so silly as that. Plant is putting down roots of own self and growing! And while it is growing, when things are difficult, it changes a little bit, so when it is grown, it is not exactly like the plant it was coming from. It adapts."

Near the end of the book, Mouche is consoling the Questioner:

"the true story of any living thing has pain in it, and life has to be that way. Curiosity is a good goad, but pain is a better one. It is pain that moves us, that makes us learn how to cure, how to mend, how to improve, how to re-create. Inside all of us, even the happiest are memories of pain. ... Each of us cries that we are lost. We ask the darkened room, who are we? And we demand easy answers: I am my father's son. My mother's daughter. A child of this family, or that."

"That's the nature of mankind," she agreed.

"True, but Corojum had an answer that is equally true, and I like his better! We are made of the stuff of stars, given our lives by a living world, given our selves by time. We are brother to the trees and sister to the sun. We are of such glorious stuff we need not carry pain around like a label. Our duty, as living things, to be sure that pain is not our whole story, for we can choose to be otherwise. As Ellin says, we can choose to dance.

The part about being driven by pain doesn't resonate with me, but I liked the way the story illuminated the exhortation to choose.