Collaborators, by Deborah J. Ross
a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5..." style="float: left; padding-right: 20px">
Collaborators by Deborah J. Ross
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I first read and reviewed Collaborators (Dragon Moon Press, 2013) in 2016. When I learned that Deborah Ross was re-releasing a revised and expanded version of the novel, I found myself curious as what she had changed, what had expanded and rethought. I decided I needed to revisit my own thinking. I wondered what I might expand and rethink.
Re-reading my earlier review, I found myself in conversation with what I written four years ago. That review began with a rumination on two of the novel’s overarching questions, the first: what is a collaborator? The second, a perennial theme in science fiction, what does it mean to be human? Now, I found myself expanding the second question to consider how gender affects being human. I am also adding another overarching question or issue, the nature of power, and its use abuse.
Collaboration can be both a positive and negative act.
To collaborate is “to work jointly on an activity, especially to produce or create something.” This takes me to my graduate training in rhetoric and composition, as collaboration, in composition or writing studies, is often discussed as part of how one teaches writing and comes to understand the writing process. To invent, to create, is a social act. Despite the romantic image of the poet in the garret, no story or poem or painting is solely the creation of one person. The books read and studied before, the people who influenced the creator, the sociocultural context of the creator—all contribute in the making of meaning. Those who collaborate are those work together on an activity to create something.
Not all collaboration, however, is so benign and generative. The second definition offered by Google is to “cooperate traitorously with an enemy.” As I did in my first review, I find myself remembering World War II and those traitors and opportunists—those collaborators—who supported the Nazis in World War II when their countries were occupied. This story, in a broader sense of the many ways people responded to the Nazis, is at the heart of the novel. I would go even further. This story is foundational to the novel. Ross includes four Bonus essays at the end, discussing key issues and themes in greater detail. In the essay, “World-building in Collaborators, I learned that Ross and her family lived in Lyon, France, for “about nine months.” This experience illuminates the novel in two key ways. The first way is the city of Lyon itself. Its culture and history echo in the alien city of Miraz. The other key way is the history of Lyon, especially during the German occupation in World War II. She became “interested in how many varied ways the French responded to the German occupation. Some protested from the very beginning for religious or ethical reasons, but others went along” for a variety of reasons, including “fear or apathy or entrenched antisemitism,” and others “sought to exploit the situation for personal power or financial gain” (394). Eventually this interest and the research that come from it, convinced Ross that she “had to tell this story,” and as a science fiction and fantasy writer, she chose to do so in the “genre [she] knew” (395).
The novel begins with First Contact, a perennial science fiction theme. A news flash from Miraz, the capital of Chacarre: “Space ships sighted over Chacarre,” There has been “a flurry of communication” between Chacarre and Erlind, the neighboring country, a rival, sometime an enemy of Chacarre (5). This national news story results initially in individual action. Hayke, a farmer, and his children, go out at night to see if they can see signs of the alien arrival in the night sky. One of his children sees “an unwinking mote of light” in the northeast sky (6).
Aliens have arrived. They are us, Terrans. The starship, Prometheus, seems to have an unfortunate encounter with a “hidden ‘dark’ hole”. Repairs are needed and the planet, below named Bandar by the Terrans, seems to have “an adequate manufacturing capability” to help with repairs. No Prime Directive here, the Terrans “offer to trade technological knowledge for certain items to be manufactured to [their] specifications” (19).
This brings the reader to the question of being human and gender, and to the issues of power.
Ross is using, I would argue, a very broad definition of being human, akin to the legal one Robert Heinlein uses in Star Beast: “Beings possessed of speech and manipulation must be presumed to be sentient and therefore to have innate human rights, unless conclusively proved otherwise” (167). The Bandari speak of themselves as human, and wonder if we are. That Ross uses it to refer to the inhabitants of a planet that we—Terrans—would call alien, is, frankly, oddly disturbing. These aliens, these citizens of Chacarre and Erlind seem to be like us—sort of, mostly, or rather just enough for assumptions to be made that aren’t questioned or examined until far too late. Gender is a dominant feature in how we see ourselves. For the Bandari, their definition of “gender has a very different meaning and [their] instincts can drive a crowd to madness” (back cover). They are gender-fluid, and do not divide themselves into two genders, rather “every other age-appropriate person is a potential lover and life mate” and “in a life-paired couple, each is equally likely to engender or gestate a child” (402).
Yes, I heard echoes of Le Guin and The Left Hand of Darkness. One key
difference is that Le Guin’s Gethenians are humans, descended from the Hainish as we Terrans are. Another key difference and perhaps of more importance, is that Le Guin’s Gethenians are only sexually active when in kemmer. For Ross’s Bandari, “Sex [is] something [they] enjoy often and enthusiastically with their age-mate friends,” and this can lead to a “permanent lifelong pairing” (403). For Terran humans, understanding this sexuality will be difficult, to say the least.
There are misunderstandings between the native species and the Terrans, misunderstandings that lead to violence and retaliation and interference and open conflict. “Soon everyone—scientists and soldiers, rebels and lovers, patriots and opportunists—are swept up in a cycle of destruction” (back cover). Who is at fault? And what does it mean to collaborate? To betray one’s species? Does loving an alien, as does Lexis, a Chacarran, and it seems, so CelestiniBellini, a Terran, make one a collaborator? And collaboration, cooperating, working together, joining forces, this seems to be the way to fight back—or is fighting the way to stop the violence? Can there be reconciliation? Peace?
Can something be created that is new and different? Of value? Is there common ground?
And the issue of power? How is power used and abused by both the Terrans and the Bandari. The Terrans have “the power of advanced technology, the power of military superiority…” Both species have “the power of idealism, power that comes from love, power that comes from political advantage …and especially power that relates to gender” (401). What happens when powerful technology encounters the power of love, idealism, and morality? What happens when greater physical power and strength misreads a gender-fluid people as binary? Weapons can kill the silent witnesses that come to protest at the Terran compound, but will weapons stifle the power of that silence?
These two cultures, alien to each other, are explored in depth through the lives of such people on the planet as the aforementioned Hayke, a farmer, who follows a way of life, a philosophy—or is it a religion (there are echoes of Taoism and Quakers)—called the Way, Alon and Birre, lovers, then mates; their families, and Lexis, a professor who takes a Terran lover. On the ship, we find intense scientists, such as Vera Eisenstein, the resident genius, and her protégé, Sarah Davis, and Celestin Bellini, a soldier and Lexis’ lover, and the captain, Hammadi.
Can there be forgiveness? Compromise? Understanding? Will collaboration result in good or ill, no matter which definition is used, or is it somewhere in the murky middle?
Ross didn’t make radical changes in the plot from 2013 to 2020. But, these people—Terran and Bandari—they are deeper, layered, and thus more dynamic. When Alon grieves for his (admittedly not an accurate pronoun, as Ross notes) lost child, we experience the stages of grief with him. He lost his unborn child in a horrific way. Is what happened forgivable? Are there things that are unforgiveable?
This rich novel, with its “first-rate world-building from a writer gifted with a soaring imagination and good old-fashioned Sense of Wonder” (C.J. Cherryh, back cover) asks the reader to think and think again. Read Collaborators again, if like me, you read the first version. You will be rewarded with a stronger, more nuanced, and a more passionate story. Read the Bonus sections at the end—and experience world-building, and species construction. Take the time mull over gender and power and collaboration. Be prepared to keep reading. This novel is a real page-turner.
Highly recommended.
View all my reviews
Collaborators by Deborah J. RossMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I first read and reviewed Collaborators (Dragon Moon Press, 2013) in 2016. When I learned that Deborah Ross was re-releasing a revised and expanded version of the novel, I found myself curious as what she had changed, what had expanded and rethought. I decided I needed to revisit my own thinking. I wondered what I might expand and rethink.
Re-reading my earlier review, I found myself in conversation with what I written four years ago. That review began with a rumination on two of the novel’s overarching questions, the first: what is a collaborator? The second, a perennial theme in science fiction, what does it mean to be human? Now, I found myself expanding the second question to consider how gender affects being human. I am also adding another overarching question or issue, the nature of power, and its use abuse.
Collaboration can be both a positive and negative act.
To collaborate is “to work jointly on an activity, especially to produce or create something.” This takes me to my graduate training in rhetoric and composition, as collaboration, in composition or writing studies, is often discussed as part of how one teaches writing and comes to understand the writing process. To invent, to create, is a social act. Despite the romantic image of the poet in the garret, no story or poem or painting is solely the creation of one person. The books read and studied before, the people who influenced the creator, the sociocultural context of the creator—all contribute in the making of meaning. Those who collaborate are those work together on an activity to create something.
Not all collaboration, however, is so benign and generative. The second definition offered by Google is to “cooperate traitorously with an enemy.” As I did in my first review, I find myself remembering World War II and those traitors and opportunists—those collaborators—who supported the Nazis in World War II when their countries were occupied. This story, in a broader sense of the many ways people responded to the Nazis, is at the heart of the novel. I would go even further. This story is foundational to the novel. Ross includes four Bonus essays at the end, discussing key issues and themes in greater detail. In the essay, “World-building in Collaborators, I learned that Ross and her family lived in Lyon, France, for “about nine months.” This experience illuminates the novel in two key ways. The first way is the city of Lyon itself. Its culture and history echo in the alien city of Miraz. The other key way is the history of Lyon, especially during the German occupation in World War II. She became “interested in how many varied ways the French responded to the German occupation. Some protested from the very beginning for religious or ethical reasons, but others went along” for a variety of reasons, including “fear or apathy or entrenched antisemitism,” and others “sought to exploit the situation for personal power or financial gain” (394). Eventually this interest and the research that come from it, convinced Ross that she “had to tell this story,” and as a science fiction and fantasy writer, she chose to do so in the “genre [she] knew” (395).
The novel begins with First Contact, a perennial science fiction theme. A news flash from Miraz, the capital of Chacarre: “Space ships sighted over Chacarre,” There has been “a flurry of communication” between Chacarre and Erlind, the neighboring country, a rival, sometime an enemy of Chacarre (5). This national news story results initially in individual action. Hayke, a farmer, and his children, go out at night to see if they can see signs of the alien arrival in the night sky. One of his children sees “an unwinking mote of light” in the northeast sky (6).
Aliens have arrived. They are us, Terrans. The starship, Prometheus, seems to have an unfortunate encounter with a “hidden ‘dark’ hole”. Repairs are needed and the planet, below named Bandar by the Terrans, seems to have “an adequate manufacturing capability” to help with repairs. No Prime Directive here, the Terrans “offer to trade technological knowledge for certain items to be manufactured to [their] specifications” (19).
This brings the reader to the question of being human and gender, and to the issues of power.
Ross is using, I would argue, a very broad definition of being human, akin to the legal one Robert Heinlein uses in Star Beast: “Beings possessed of speech and manipulation must be presumed to be sentient and therefore to have innate human rights, unless conclusively proved otherwise” (167). The Bandari speak of themselves as human, and wonder if we are. That Ross uses it to refer to the inhabitants of a planet that we—Terrans—would call alien, is, frankly, oddly disturbing. These aliens, these citizens of Chacarre and Erlind seem to be like us—sort of, mostly, or rather just enough for assumptions to be made that aren’t questioned or examined until far too late. Gender is a dominant feature in how we see ourselves. For the Bandari, their definition of “gender has a very different meaning and [their] instincts can drive a crowd to madness” (back cover). They are gender-fluid, and do not divide themselves into two genders, rather “every other age-appropriate person is a potential lover and life mate” and “in a life-paired couple, each is equally likely to engender or gestate a child” (402).
Yes, I heard echoes of Le Guin and The Left Hand of Darkness. One key
difference is that Le Guin’s Gethenians are humans, descended from the Hainish as we Terrans are. Another key difference and perhaps of more importance, is that Le Guin’s Gethenians are only sexually active when in kemmer. For Ross’s Bandari, “Sex [is] something [they] enjoy often and enthusiastically with their age-mate friends,” and this can lead to a “permanent lifelong pairing” (403). For Terran humans, understanding this sexuality will be difficult, to say the least.
There are misunderstandings between the native species and the Terrans, misunderstandings that lead to violence and retaliation and interference and open conflict. “Soon everyone—scientists and soldiers, rebels and lovers, patriots and opportunists—are swept up in a cycle of destruction” (back cover). Who is at fault? And what does it mean to collaborate? To betray one’s species? Does loving an alien, as does Lexis, a Chacarran, and it seems, so CelestiniBellini, a Terran, make one a collaborator? And collaboration, cooperating, working together, joining forces, this seems to be the way to fight back—or is fighting the way to stop the violence? Can there be reconciliation? Peace?
Can something be created that is new and different? Of value? Is there common ground?
And the issue of power? How is power used and abused by both the Terrans and the Bandari. The Terrans have “the power of advanced technology, the power of military superiority…” Both species have “the power of idealism, power that comes from love, power that comes from political advantage …and especially power that relates to gender” (401). What happens when powerful technology encounters the power of love, idealism, and morality? What happens when greater physical power and strength misreads a gender-fluid people as binary? Weapons can kill the silent witnesses that come to protest at the Terran compound, but will weapons stifle the power of that silence?
These two cultures, alien to each other, are explored in depth through the lives of such people on the planet as the aforementioned Hayke, a farmer, who follows a way of life, a philosophy—or is it a religion (there are echoes of Taoism and Quakers)—called the Way, Alon and Birre, lovers, then mates; their families, and Lexis, a professor who takes a Terran lover. On the ship, we find intense scientists, such as Vera Eisenstein, the resident genius, and her protégé, Sarah Davis, and Celestin Bellini, a soldier and Lexis’ lover, and the captain, Hammadi.
Can there be forgiveness? Compromise? Understanding? Will collaboration result in good or ill, no matter which definition is used, or is it somewhere in the murky middle?
Ross didn’t make radical changes in the plot from 2013 to 2020. But, these people—Terran and Bandari—they are deeper, layered, and thus more dynamic. When Alon grieves for his (admittedly not an accurate pronoun, as Ross notes) lost child, we experience the stages of grief with him. He lost his unborn child in a horrific way. Is what happened forgivable? Are there things that are unforgiveable?
This rich novel, with its “first-rate world-building from a writer gifted with a soaring imagination and good old-fashioned Sense of Wonder” (C.J. Cherryh, back cover) asks the reader to think and think again. Read Collaborators again, if like me, you read the first version. You will be rewarded with a stronger, more nuanced, and a more passionate story. Read the Bonus sections at the end—and experience world-building, and species construction. Take the time mull over gender and power and collaboration. Be prepared to keep reading. This novel is a real page-turner.
Highly recommended.
View all my reviews
No comments have been added yet.
