From: tdober@llnl.gov (TDO)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: gay science fiction
Date: 7 Oct 92 02:57:12 GMT
Followup-To: soc.motss
Organization: llnl

In article <17738@autodesk.COM>, booter@Autodesk.COM (Elaine Richards)
wrote:
> 
> In article <1992Oct2.133206.68825@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu> dh0a@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (DONALD L. HARDY) writes:
> >Storm Constantine has a series out.  "Enchantments of the Spirit" or
> >something like that.  Through a bizarre mutation human males become
> >hermaphroditic, but maintain their male identities (by choice rather than
> >necessity).  They couple, bear children, all sorts of stuff.  Boys kissing
> >boys in a post-apocalyptic world.  Not too bad.
> 
> 
> Sounds like a copy of Ursula K. LeGuin's "The Left Hand of Darkness",
> where bisexual people go into a cycle called kemmering and take on the
> attributes of one gender or another. The king, as I recall, was unhappy
> because he never mothered a child even though he had fathered many.

There are indeed some similarities.

  o  They both deal with the subject of hermaphrodites (as did Marion
     Zimmer Bradley's _The Planet Wreckers_, for that matter).

  o  They both deal with the subject of hermaphrodites.

  o  Did I mention that they both deal with the subject of
     hermaphrodites? :-)

There are also some profound differences.

In terms of the people:

  o  Gethenians are only sexually capable for a few days each month.
     The Wraeththu are like humans in that they are always sexually
     capable (after they have reached puberty).

  o  Gethenians are "locked in" to one sexual role during each sexual
     cycle. The Wraeththu can alternate roles at will.

In terms of the stories:

  o  _TLHOD_ deals with an outsider's perspective on a well established
     (almost stagnant?) culture. The Wraeththu series deals with an
     insider's perspective on a culture that is still very much in the
     process of developing (and feeling no small number of growing pains).

  o  _TLHOD_ deals with a culture that is homogeneous (except for our
     token Earthman). The Wraeththu books have people from the culture
     that is being supplanted (i.e. normal human culture) side by side
     with people from the newer culture. There are also vast differences
     between subgroups within the newer culture. Where Gethenians are
     portrayed as having very little interest in large-scale violence
     and warfare, a number of different groups of Wraeththu view warfare
     as a way of life. Other groups are pacific in nature.

In terms of the "feel" of the books:

  o  _TLHOD_ struck me as being largely a very cool, intellectual sort
     of book. The characters spend a lot of time talking, philosophising,
     exploring the differences between their two cultures. The Wraeththu
     books to me had a very "gritty" feel. People are very active, they
     go out and do things, they spend very little time just talking and
     philosophising. The reader learns about their culture by being
     immersed in it with the characters, rather than through expository
     speeches by the characters.

In short, if you dismiss Storm Constantine's books as "a copy of Ursula K.
LeGuin's 'The Left Hand of Darkness' " you are doing the author a grave
injustice.


> ER


TDO (who really isn't as annoyed as the above article probably sounds)
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