For women’s studies majors and hardcore fans of old-school science fiction, and probably nobody else.
A feminist classic revived.
This book was published in 1984, a year before The Handmaid’s Tale. The two share several similarities. Both take place in a not-too-distant future in which governments use Christianity as the rationale for stripping women of basic rights. Human reproduction is regulated by men. And women work together both to make their own lives bearable within this system and to create a better world for their daughters. Elgin (Peacetalk 101, 2002, etc.), who died in 2015, was a linguist as well as a science-fiction author, and the conceit at the heart of her dystopian narrative is brilliant: When humans make contact with aliens, people who understand how languages work will become an invaluable resource for connecting with other sentient species. Linguists become a sort of aristocracy, both necessary for interstellar trade and reviled for their elitism. While it’s true that the men of the linguist families enjoy some power and authority, the women of their houses are valued solely for their ability to work as translators and their capacity to produce children who will work as translators. Once they are infertile, they retire to the Barren House. The central household in this novel is the Chornyak family, and what the men don’t know is that the women in their Barren House have been creating a secret language, a language that will allow women to communicate with each other, a language that will let them express experiences for which they have found no word in any language that they’ve learned. The worldbuilding here is intriguing. The concept of women freeing themselves from patriarchy by developing their own language is awesome. The execution, though….This is a novel about language, but the characters all sound the same—and there are so many characters that it’s hard to keep them straight. Not only do they sound the same, they also sound quite distinctly like characters in vintage genre fiction. Who imagines a future that includes words like “honcho” and “damnfool” and “loobyloo,” let alone swears such as “Sweet jesus christ on a donkey in the shade of a lilac tree”?
For women’s studies majors and hardcore fans of old-school science fiction, and probably nobody else.Pub Date: July 16, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-936932-62-7
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Feminist Press
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
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