Queer, geek, NW England, no longer late-30s.
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50% complete! penwing reads (they/them) has read 25 of 50 books.
Jordy Rosenberg: Confessions of the Fox (2019, Atlantic Books, Limited)
Jack Sheppard and Edgeworth Bess were the most notorious thieves, jailbreakers, and lovers of eighteenth-century London. Yet no one knows …
"The Emperor needs necromancers.
The Ninth Necromancer needs a swordswoman.
Gideon has a sword, some …
Significantly better this time... I think Gideon's voice clicked with me a lot more which helped
"The Emperor needs necromancers.
The Ninth Necromancer needs a swordswoman.
Gideon has a sword, some …
Oh no! I am finding myself smiling from time to time...
"The Emperor needs necromancers.
The Ninth Necromancer needs a swordswoman.
Gideon has a sword, some …
Well, in good news the rest of the book is not going to suffer so much in comparison to it's opening chapters...
In bad news - the suck fairy has visited those opening chapters very early on...
"The Emperor needs necromancers.
The Ninth Necromancer needs a swordswoman.
Gideon has a sword, some …
Once more into the lesbian space necromancers book for #mcrsf
I hope I like more than the first chapter this time... Come on penwing, positive attitude...
On the planet Winter, there is no gender. The Gethenians can become male or female …
Really good discussion of Left Hand of Darkness tonight at #wsf because one person thought Le Guin should have feministed harder...
I mean, I can accept a level of disappointment that Genly's gender prejudices and stereotypes are the same as ours (the same as 60s when it was written - SF is absolutely about the now - and boy is that depressing too) and haven't changed much in thousands of years, but to say Le Guin didn't push the boundaries with this novel - nope, not having it.
I mentioned Palmer's approach in Terra Ignota (where lying liar narrator is introducing people with gendered expectations despite gender being outlawed) but forgot to discuss how Leckie fell into the same pronoun trap with Ancillary Justice but using She rather than He on a society without gender.
The Earth colony of Landin has been stranded on Werel for ten years. But ten of Werel's years are over …
The Earth colony of Landin has been stranded on Werel for ten years. But ten of Werel's years are over …
On the planet Winter, there is no gender. The Gethenians can become male or female …
I didn't realise how much I loved this book until I reread it. It is the scifi book on gender in a very substantive way, but it is also, as the author acknowledges, out of date and lacking. Like Genly, le Guin and society learned and moved - one way and now, sadly, another...
It still shows misogyny in how Genly thinks of women and his (initial) attempts to put Gethians into gendered categories - perhaps exaggerated by the choice of "he" as pronoun (a great example of how "default" is not the same as "neutral").
But it is also much much more than just the scifi gender book. So much politics which must have had an impact on me when I read the book as a youngster - especially on patriotism and kindness - that I picked up much more brazenly on each reread.
Now to go discuss at …
I didn't realise how much I loved this book until I reread it. It is the scifi book on gender in a very substantive way, but it is also, as the author acknowledges, out of date and lacking. Like Genly, le Guin and society learned and moved - one way and now, sadly, another...
It still shows misogyny in how Genly thinks of women and his (initial) attempts to put Gethians into gendered categories - perhaps exaggerated by the choice of "he" as pronoun (a great example of how "default" is not the same as "neutral").
But it is also much much more than just the scifi gender book. So much politics which must have had an impact on me when I read the book as a youngster - especially on patriotism and kindness - that I picked up much more brazenly on each reread.
Now to go discuss at book club #wsf
On the planet Winter, there is no gender. The Gethenians can become male or female during each mating cycle, and …
On the planet Winter, there is no gender. The Gethenians can become male or female …
... Hate Orgoreyn? No, how should I? How does one hate a country, or love one? Tibe talks about it; I lack the trick of it. I know people, I know farms, hills and rivers and rocks, I know how the sun at sunset in autumn falls on the side of a certain ploughland in the hills; but what is the sense of giving a boundary to all that, of giving it a name and ceasing to love where the name ceases to apply? What is love one's country; is it hate of one's uncountry? Then it's not a good thing ...
— The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin (Hainish Cycle) (Page 184 - 185)
This may be the book about gender, but, bloody hell, is it powerful on patriotism...
On the planet Winter, there is no gender. The Gethenians can become male or female …
It is always Year One here. Only the dating of every past and future year changes each New Year's Day, as one counts backwards or forwards from the unitary Now.
— The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin (Hainish Cycle) (Page 1)
Page 1 and le Guin has already broken my brain with that... A completely relative dating system is just arghhhhhh
On the planet Winter, there is no gender. The Gethenians can become male or female …
Reading (actually the Folio Society edition but that ain't loaded up here) for #wsf
Earth-scientist Rocannon has been leading an ethnological survey on a remote world populated by three native races: the cavern-dwelling Gdemiar, …