Review: Male feminist revolution - in space
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 01 6, 2014
This is surprisingly good. It almost edges out of sci-fi romance into actual sci-fi territory - but not quite. But "almost" is still pretty remarkable!The blurb: Omra is a woman in an alien/humanoid culture that has evolved a super-strict system of sexual control where men are tested in childhood and divided in groups of Alphas (hyper-aggressive muscular cover models) and Betas (everybody else). Alphas control the military and the government, whereas Betas fill all the other support functions. The culture is entirely homosocial: Alphas make a type of marriage with Betas, only using women for breeding purposes. Women are considered genetically defective and incapable of intelligence; they are chattel, not even slaves, not even acknowledged as human. Heroine Omra is a female "breeder", a woman of fertile age, waiting around in a "breeder containment facility" until an Alpha shows up and purchases her for breeding purposes. (Not for romance or companionship, not even for sexual pleasure, which it is considered unseemly at best, revolting and unnatural at worst, for Alphas to experience with a woman.)When the region's commander Dak purchases her, things change for both of them: Dak turns out to be a secret sympathizer in the cause of those few citizens who want to live in family units and have a modicum of equality with their females. Omra has to learn to navigate her new not-quite-a-relationship and hide her various secrets. Dak, who has basically zero sexual interest in his beta "husband" (I imagine that he is basically totally straight, but his culture doesn't have a concept for this, so he naturally suspects that there's something wrong with his unnatural interest in females) finds himself falling in "regard" with his new breeder.Pros: Whoa, this is... kind of good! The author takes the premise and uses it to spin out interesting ideas about feminism, dominance, the way cultures default to assumptions about "normal", and the cost to all the square-peg people who force themselves to fit into round holes. I think that you're primarily supposed to be interested in the sexy romance between Omra and Dak, but really I found myself gripped by "WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN?" about Dak and his weird little thing where he is unwillingly a leader of massive social change. It isn't even really because he falls in love with Omra, it's because he basically realizes that the way his culture treats women (and men, for that matter) is horrible, illogical, and fundamentally indefensible. I feel like Dak is a kind of proto-feminist, and his culture was oddly interesting.Cons: The premise sounds pretty silly. It all seems like it's going to be a weird space erotica about impregnation or something. (Not that there's anything wrong with that, if that's your jam.) And it isn't like this is actually high-brow sci-fi. It's definitely still a vaguely cheesy romance, but the ideas it toys with are a distinct cut above the normal "Eeee abducted by Space Fabio eeee" stuff.Bottom line: What other science-fiction romance is going to challenge you to think about the flexibility of human sexual behavior, gender norms, and personal choice?