rhodered's review
3.0
Reread after decades. I remember being thrilled by this book. The human heroine on a rescue mission to help her bestie, who is not human, gather his friends and get them to a safe planet as an empire collapses. I liked it I think because she’s a single, professional, adult woman on an adventure, being valued for her brains and bravery, and there’s no romance at all. I love romance genre books, but the idea that a woman could be the heroine of a book without being a romantic object - that fed something hungry inside of me.
Now I’m struck by a few things. The first is, she has no human friends.
As a very young woman just moved to a strange city and new career, that might not have struck me as odd back then. Now it’s glaring. What sort of woman in her early 30s has zero human connections? She had a male lover a year or so ago, and has human coworkers she doesn’t like, and her family is dead so long ago it leaves no resonance. Her entire emotional life is bound up in this male of another species who she admires professionally.
It reminded me forcefully of the boomer women in the 1980s and early ‘90s who were ‘the only’ woman in upper management, who had male professional mentors and who not mentor or help women below them (and we were all below them) due to a dearth mentality - there can be only one. They thought of themselves as feminists, but other women were professional competition, not supportive community.
Secondly, she has no children. Others in the book, of other species, have kids, but they are liabilities. They slow you, make you vulnerable. Her mentor notes he has had families in the course of his long life, but to do so, he removed himself from his career and the outside and lived in a constricted manner at home. Parenting and the greater universe don’t mix.
Thirdly, the way the deaths of so-called immortals are treated is odd. The immortal hero grieves briefly and then moves on within minutes in some cases. I would think the death of someone who can live thousands of years would be...a bigger deal? Or they would take more care?
Lastly, it’s a bit floridly written. I’m not sure if I’ll continue.
Now I’m struck by a few things. The first is, she has no human friends.
As a very young woman just moved to a strange city and new career, that might not have struck me as odd back then. Now it’s glaring. What sort of woman in her early 30s has zero human connections? She had a male lover a year or so ago, and has human coworkers she doesn’t like, and her family is dead so long ago it leaves no resonance. Her entire emotional life is bound up in this male of another species who she admires professionally.
It reminded me forcefully of the boomer women in the 1980s and early ‘90s who were ‘the only’ woman in upper management, who had male professional mentors and who not mentor or help women below them (and we were all below them) due to a dearth mentality - there can be only one. They thought of themselves as feminists, but other women were professional competition, not supportive community.
Secondly, she has no children. Others in the book, of other species, have kids, but they are liabilities. They slow you, make you vulnerable. Her mentor notes he has had families in the course of his long life, but to do so, he removed himself from his career and the outside and lived in a constricted manner at home. Parenting and the greater universe don’t mix.
Thirdly, the way the deaths of so-called immortals are treated is odd. The immortal hero grieves briefly and then moves on within minutes in some cases. I would think the death of someone who can live thousands of years would be...a bigger deal? Or they would take more care?
Lastly, it’s a bit floridly written. I’m not sure if I’ll continue.
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