nogoodnik reviewed A Woman of the Iron People by Eleanor Arnason
Lixia and the members of her human crew are determined not to disturb the life …
slow and soothing, if not quite cozy
4 stars
Stop me if you've heard this one before: in the far future, on a planet inhabited by a humanoid species with very alien gender roles, an anthropologist takes a journey, asks too many questions, and listens to their stories...
Slow and character-driven in a way that feels hard to manage in a first contact story - much of the book concerns itself with who Lixia meets, and what she (and we) can learn from what they have to say. I loved the rich worldbuilding and mythology, and the very intentional ambiguity on how much of the alien peoples' gender roles are biological vs. cultural: their gender roles are as rigid as ours, yet like us, everyone that Lixia meets seems to be pushing up against them in some way. 3.5 stars bc/ I found the dialogue stiff in a way that suited the aliens, but felt off when it …
Stop me if you've heard this one before: in the far future, on a planet inhabited by a humanoid species with very alien gender roles, an anthropologist takes a journey, asks too many questions, and listens to their stories...
Slow and character-driven in a way that feels hard to manage in a first contact story - much of the book concerns itself with who Lixia meets, and what she (and we) can learn from what they have to say. I loved the rich worldbuilding and mythology, and the very intentional ambiguity on how much of the alien peoples' gender roles are biological vs. cultural: their gender roles are as rigid as ours, yet like us, everyone that Lixia meets seems to be pushing up against them in some way. 3.5 stars bc/ I found the dialogue stiff in a way that suited the aliens, but felt off when it started making its way into the human characters, and there's a twist near the end that I struggle to see the purpose of.
