A review by house_of_scatha
Maul by Tricia Sullivan
3.0
Not 100% sure about this one, If I could, I'd give a 3.5. Some parts were brilliant, but some parts were frustrating, and unfortunately it was less than the sum of its parts. For a feminist sci-fi novel I found it odd that the two male protagonists and the first person narrator were the most sympathetic characters. Many of the other women characters could have just as easily been men in another novel. They are cardboard cutouts sprayed pink.
The novel didn't really say very much interesting about a future society ruled by women, It seemed to be junk-food corporate America-lite with women at the mercy of their desire to breed and the limited options available to them. Even the really smart Doctor does incredibly dumb things in the presence of male pheromones.
Yes, its supposed to be about evolution and the arms race between viruses and the human immunes system. So breeding is part of it, but it rankled that that only the male character who is immune to the Y-plagues does anything clever. (The graphic novel series: Y the Last Man is far superior in looking at a society where all the men die out).
Actually the more I think about it, the more this book irritates. Characters come and go. I still don't know what happened to Naomi, who I quite liked. The clone-daughter is there at the start, disappears in the middle, and then comes back: the clone-mother / Doctor has no feelings for her daughter at all, and by the end of the book I thought she was quite a despicable piece of human trash. Why she was a researcher I have no idea and she is completely unlike any scientist I have ever met.
Its actually a strength of the writing that it doesn't rankle so much when reading it. No, not 3.5 stars, just 3 stars. Or maybe 2.5. Which is a shame, because I want to like it more that but unfortunately it is flawed. I wanted a book where a future matriarchy was more though out, where women aren't just slaves to their desire to breed, where characters were clever and smart. Unfortunately I didn't get that.
The novel didn't really say very much interesting about a future society ruled by women, It seemed to be junk-food corporate America-lite with women at the mercy of their desire to breed and the limited options available to them. Even the really smart Doctor does incredibly dumb things in the presence of male pheromones.
Yes, its supposed to be about evolution and the arms race between viruses and the human immunes system. So breeding is part of it, but it rankled that that only the male character who is immune to the Y-plagues does anything clever. (The graphic novel series: Y the Last Man is far superior in looking at a society where all the men die out).
Actually the more I think about it, the more this book irritates. Characters come and go. I still don't know what happened to Naomi, who I quite liked. The clone-daughter is there at the start, disappears in the middle, and then comes back: the clone-mother / Doctor has no feelings for her daughter at all, and by the end of the book I thought she was quite a despicable piece of human trash. Why she was a researcher I have no idea and she is completely unlike any scientist I have ever met.
Its actually a strength of the writing that it doesn't rankle so much when reading it. No, not 3.5 stars, just 3 stars. Or maybe 2.5. Which is a shame, because I want to like it more that but unfortunately it is flawed. I wanted a book where a future matriarchy was more though out, where women aren't just slaves to their desire to breed, where characters were clever and smart. Unfortunately I didn't get that.