Carnival

First, shameful confession: I couldn't remember which one of the guys was Vincent, and which one was Angelo. They both have a lot of names, they're both determined, resourceful, embittered, hiding things, and madly in love with each other. If one of them could have had a speech impediment, or been a vampire, that would have helped me a lot. This isn't a reflection on the book, though: I just have a massive name-thing.

[book:Carnival] isn't quite the novel on Matriarchy I've been waiting for all my life, but it's damned close. No sentimentality about women (or men,) no utopia, a recognition that the lifestyle we choose comes at a price that is often payed by someone else, and a recognition how gender is constructed (and how it isn't.)

Bear is paying particular attention to taboos in this book, and result is a bit like being hit over the head with a millimetre thick sheet of ice: it doesn't hurt, but something shatters. Vincent and Angelo are both vegans, not particularly for ethical reasons, although they both explain themselves that way, but simply because they've been raised in a culture where exploitation of animals is unthinkable. They find the Amazonian keeping of animals as pets abhorrent, and are rather dismayed by how well the khir (a native animal) fits into the social fabric of Amazonian family and public life.

(You notice how I keep saying 'they'? Yeah, I can't remember which one did what at any given point. I promise, I plan to reread and make notes as I go in some sort of attempt to figure out who is who.)

I think I can argue that the central theme being explored in the book is freedom: who has it, what they pay for it, and who is denied it. Vincent and Angelo have a certain amount of freedom as (secret-ish) agents for their government(s), but they are denied a certain amount of freedom given the quasi-illegal state of being homosexual. The Earth government tightly controls its citizens' economic and reproductive lives, and Vincent and Angelo both resent this, and to some extent, regard it as sensible and necessary.

On New Amazonia, homosexual men enjoy slightly more freedom: they're regarded as less threatening, less savage, almost woman-like in their ability to be civilized. "Stud" males are kept much more closely confined.

I keep on wanting to give more little clever details and grand rearrangements of status quo, but the book is too densely packed and I'd end up rewriting it. Let it be taken as read that the world-building, or rather, universe-building, is marvelous.

The book is full of men and women who are willing to make personal sacrifices for a better world: the tragedy comes when people who love each other sacrifice each other for a better world they can't agree on.

I was in agony for most of the book as Vincent and Angelo got closer and closer, since I know Bear delights in tearing apart happy couples. I'm not telling you how it ends, though: you can suffer too.