Reviews and Comments

avatar for penwing

penwing reads (they/them)

penwing@bookwyrm.social

Joined 2 years, 6 months ago

Queer, geek, NW England, no longer late-30s.

Follow on Fediverse

This link opens in a pop-up window

started reading the telling by Ursula K. Le Guin (Hainish Cycle, #8)

Ursula K. Le Guin: the telling (Hardcover, 2000, Harcourt)

Once a culturally rich world, the planet Aka has been utterly transformed by technology. Records …

Well, this is it. The last book in the Hainish "Cycle". A project I've been thinking of for a while, but only started at the very end of March. I should finish this today or tomorrow - only 160 pages in this edition (i'm reading it from the Library of America Collected Omnibus but I don't want to have all these books reduced to just one or two in the reading challenges 8-)

stopped reading Consider Phlebas (Culture, #1) by Iain M. Banks

Iain M. Banks: Consider Phlebas (Culture, #1) (2005)

The war raged across the galaxy. Billions had died, billions more were doomed. Moons, planets, …

Consider Phlebas might have been amazing and reawakened Space Opera when it was released, but it's just unreadable now

I used to think I hadn't got Banks' humour until I read The Algebraist, but coming back to this and, nope. It's that this book was not full of Banksian humour.

Banks did go on to write better books than this. Better Space Opera. Better Culture novels. But this? This is just dire.

commented on Consider Phlebas (Culture, #1) by Iain M. Banks

Iain M. Banks: Consider Phlebas (Culture, #1) (2005)

The war raged across the galaxy. Billions had died, billions more were doomed. Moons, planets, …

Oooh... Does this book ever pick up..? It's interminably dull so far - the fat prophet on an island bit was nearly unreadably, frankly.

Not sure if I can keep going, but it's a book club one so I shall persevere a bit more...

#wsf

reviewed The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin

Ursula K. Le Guin: The Dispossessed (Hardcover, 1991, Harper Paperbacks)

Shevek, a brilliant physicist, decides to take action. He will seek answers, question the unquestionable, …

Enjoyable and thought provoking

I'm have only read this once before and remember thinking it was heavy which - while not putting me off re-reading - meant it never floated to prominence on my to-read list. This time I found it, not "lighter" per se, but something, certainly. Overall, it meant that I really enjoyed it in ways I wasn't expecting.

Structurally, I liked the interweaving twin timelines (in a book about the physics of simultaneity and the past, present and future being present together was a nice touch). And this theme was interesting to see having just read The River Has Roots and its riddles relying on the acceptance of a past, present and future.

But so much to think on freedom.

commented on The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin (Hainish Cycle)

Ursula K. Le Guin: The Left Hand of Darkness (Paperback, 2010, Ace Books)

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.

reviewed The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin (Hainish Cycle)

Ursula K. Le Guin: The Left Hand of Darkness (Paperback, 2010, Ace Books)

On the planet Winter, there is no gender. The Gethenians can become male or female …

Love this book

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 …