Lucas reviewed Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang by Kate Wilhelm
Got some strong individual-as-hero vibes from it that I was not expecting
3 stars
I took the novel's first two parts as interesting feminist sci-fi. Appreciated how well it set up contrasts in how societies deal with sex, gender, relationships, as well as their inability to address their blindnesses and collapse.
In the third part, however, the society is described to have faults that, to me, felt made only to emphasized Mark's superiority as an individual. They are not as considered, do not seem to follow from certain events of premises as well as in the previous parts. Instead, the novel turned to something more like like Ayn Rand's: full of straw men acting too stupidly and stubbornly, there to only to illustrate the superiority of one with an individual will and self-sufficiency. How disappointing.
