A review by mburnamfink
Commitment Hour by James Alan Gardner
4.0
Commitment Hour is a removal from the galactic exploration and politics of Expendable, towards an investigation of a very unusual small town. Tober Cove is a unique town, where children switch genders each year until they age of 20, where they must commit to one gender for the rest of their life. Fullin is a talented young musician, trying to avoid his soon-to-be jilted lover, when on the night before commitment he's visited by a powerful Spark Lord and a hated Neuter exile from his village, come to investigate the nature of Tober Cove.
The investigation of gender roles is in scifi in inextricably linked the Ursula K LeGuin, and Gardner builds on that tradition with a surprisingly egalitarian examination of the differences between men and women, and the benefits that experiencing both sides of the gender duality might bring*. Tabor Cove slots cleverly into the larger League of People's universe as an unethical science experiment set up on Old Earth and abandoned. I really enjoyed the details of the 400 years of history since first contact, and the authenticity of the small town culture.
That said, while the protagonist of this book felt believable as a person, Fullin was also a miserable brat. Fullin was so much obviously better as the female self, and his partner Cappie likewise as a male, that it was almost painful watching them walk towards locking themselves into the wrong gender. The actual timeline of the book was only a day, perhaps the worst day in anyone's life, and I'm surprised Fullin kept it together as well as he did. The book ends with a titanic shift in the nature of the Tabor's Cove, which is left unresolved.
This book is stylish, but I'm not sure how much I enjoyed reading it, or what exactly it had to say.
*Note: some people with really strong opinions about the Right Way that genders are may be offended, particularly trans activists and/or opponents, or gay people, of whom there are none in the novel. Fullin lives under the rule of particularly shitty patriarchal religion, but I'm not sure that Watsonian explanation holds up.
The investigation of gender roles is in scifi in inextricably linked the Ursula K LeGuin, and Gardner builds on that tradition with a surprisingly egalitarian examination of the differences between men and women, and the benefits that experiencing both sides of the gender duality might bring*. Tabor Cove slots cleverly into the larger League of People's universe as an unethical science experiment set up on Old Earth and abandoned. I really enjoyed the details of the 400 years of history since first contact, and the authenticity of the small town culture.
That said, while the protagonist of this book felt believable as a person, Fullin was also a miserable brat. Fullin was so much obviously better as the female self, and his partner Cappie likewise as a male, that it was almost painful watching them walk towards locking themselves into the wrong gender. The actual timeline of the book was only a day, perhaps the worst day in anyone's life, and I'm surprised Fullin kept it together as well as he did. The book ends with a titanic shift in the nature of the Tabor's Cove, which is left unresolved.
This book is stylish, but I'm not sure how much I enjoyed reading it, or what exactly it had to say.
*Note: some people with really strong opinions about the Right Way that genders are may be offended, particularly trans activists and/or opponents, or gay people, of whom there are none in the novel. Fullin lives under the rule of particularly shitty patriarchal religion, but I'm not sure that Watsonian explanation holds up.