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Shadow Man
Living on a planet where one's sex is a matter of choice, Warreven, whose decision to be a man precluded his marriage to the planet's prince, suffers a bizarre identity crisis. By the author of Trouble and Her Friends.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 1995
5 people are currently reading
867 people want to read
About the author
Melissa Scott
100 books447 followersScott studied history at Harvard College and Brandeis University, and earned her PhD. in comparative history. She published her first novel in 1984, and has since written some two dozen science fiction and fantasy works, including three co-authored with her partner, Lisa A. Barnett.
Scott's work is known for the elaborate and well-constructed settings. While many of her protagonists are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered, this is perfectly integrated into the rest of the story and is rarely a major focus of the story. Shadow Man, alone among Scott's works, focuses explicitly on issues of sexuality and gender.
She won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in Science Fiction in 1986, and has won several Lambda Literary Awards.
In addition to writing, Scott also teaches writing, offering classes via her website and publishing a writing guide.
Scott lived with her partner, author Lisa A. Barnett, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire for 27 years, until the latter's death of breast cancer on May 2, 2006.
Scott's work is known for the elaborate and well-constructed settings. While many of her protagonists are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered, this is perfectly integrated into the rest of the story and is rarely a major focus of the story. Shadow Man, alone among Scott's works, focuses explicitly on issues of sexuality and gender.
She won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in Science Fiction in 1986, and has won several Lambda Literary Awards.
In addition to writing, Scott also teaches writing, offering classes via her website and publishing a writing guide.
Scott lived with her partner, author Lisa A. Barnett, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire for 27 years, until the latter's death of breast cancer on May 2, 2006.
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dnf
May 4, 2018DNF @ 38%. I even skimmed another 30 pages, to the halfway point, and it was still a blow by blow account of an unlucky-in-love lawyer and an immigrant pharmaceutical director's respective days. I am so disappointed. I was really looking forward to this--the idea of seeing 5 genders was really fascinating and the comparison between the binary and something maybe closer to all encompassing was something I did find interesting.
Except that the five "genders" were all sex-based. In a way, it was pretty cool, in that due to a drug needed for space travel, intersex births sky-rocketed. Society needed a way to identify cisgender folks, those with both sets of human reproductive organs, and those whose bodies had more feminine or masculine traits. Fine. Good. Except that none had any desire to be identified differently from their bodies, which seems bizarre to me. Gender is a social construct, sure, but it is more than that. It maps brains differently. It was hard, then, to find one society that allowed for trans people to live with whichever of the two pronouns they chose or required people lose their gender and simply announce their "true sex" as it was called.
And, despite the removal of the social construct of gender, meaning that all people with AB set of features were considered C "gender," there were still stereotypes! "Well, 3er sure negotiated like a fem." WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN. How do ovaries or testes negotiate? Because that's what we're talking about.
So anyways, that was weird.
But I'd have kept reading just for the thought experiment (and maybe the characters, who are somewhat interesting) if ANYTHING had f$#@ing happened. I know which shampoos Warreven prefers and how dancing works on Hara, but not why I give a shit. Halfway through the book, the biggest plot points that had occurred were a dance riot (?) that impacted zero main characters and the dude who was basically the president of Hara rigging an election for Warreven so that he could be in charge of negotiating port rights for ships. I'm sure there are many good books about dance, riots, and port rights, but this was not one of them.
Oh! OH!! I almost forgot! Sweet Christ, the borrowed words and obvious blurring of other words. hyperlumin-A for the FTL drug. Bonemarche for the big commercial city. Baas for boss. Why? It just made me angry to see misspelled words all over the place and realize that the cool local vocab was just boss or master spelled with "alien" double letters.
Very cool to see more intersex people front and center, and maybe if I didn't have a lot of books with plots I was excited to unravel I'd have pressed on, but since I do, I'm gonna say goodbye to Hara.
Except that the five "genders" were all sex-based. In a way, it was pretty cool, in that due to a drug needed for space travel, intersex births sky-rocketed. Society needed a way to identify cisgender folks, those with both sets of human reproductive organs, and those whose bodies had more feminine or masculine traits. Fine. Good. Except that none had any desire to be identified differently from their bodies, which seems bizarre to me. Gender is a social construct, sure, but it is more than that. It maps brains differently. It was hard, then, to find one society that allowed for trans people to live with whichever of the two pronouns they chose or required people lose their gender and simply announce their "true sex" as it was called.
And, despite the removal of the social construct of gender, meaning that all people with AB set of features were considered C "gender," there were still stereotypes! "Well, 3er sure negotiated like a fem." WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN. How do ovaries or testes negotiate? Because that's what we're talking about.
So anyways, that was weird.
But I'd have kept reading just for the thought experiment (and maybe the characters, who are somewhat interesting) if ANYTHING had f$#@ing happened. I know which shampoos Warreven prefers and how dancing works on Hara, but not why I give a shit. Halfway through the book, the biggest plot points that had occurred were a dance riot (?) that impacted zero main characters and the dude who was basically the president of Hara rigging an election for Warreven so that he could be in charge of negotiating port rights for ships. I'm sure there are many good books about dance, riots, and port rights, but this was not one of them.
Oh! OH!! I almost forgot! Sweet Christ, the borrowed words and obvious blurring of other words. hyperlumin-A for the FTL drug. Bonemarche for the big commercial city. Baas for boss. Why? It just made me angry to see misspelled words all over the place and realize that the cool local vocab was just boss or master spelled with "alien" double letters.
Very cool to see more intersex people front and center, and maybe if I didn't have a lot of books with plots I was excited to unravel I'd have pressed on, but since I do, I'm gonna say goodbye to Hara.
April 25, 2019
Interim Summary of Shadow Man by Melissa Scott
Planet Hara has a complex society, based on 'mesnies', 14 clans based on the original fourteen founders, and five Watches. But they recognize only two genders, despite the fact that the drugs that made FTL travel safe and reliable caused mutations among the original colonists. The Concord (the rest of space traveling humanity) has come to recognize five genders: male, female, mem (XX & ovary & non-teste male genetalia; ƥe/ƥis/ƥim/ƥimself), fem (XY & testes & non-ovary female genetalia; δe/δer/δer/δerself), and herm (testes and ovaries; Ʒe,Ʒer,Ʒim,Ʒimself). Harans choose their gender assignment at maturity, even in the face of Concord influence to adopt the five gender model.
Warreven is a Haran advocate, with a specialty in laws surrounding sexual behavior. It is implied thus far that he is a herm who chose male at maturity to escape marriage and assignment as a woman; 'he' is small and dark and flaunts gender custom to dress and speak ambiguously. Mayre Tatian is a phamaceutical rep from the Concord, a bit of a straight arrow, who has met and become attracted to Warreven. Mayne has trouble with his data implants and seeks to get them fixed on the planet. His company has constrained him to not not get embroiled in 'trade', or sexual behaviour outside the norm on the planet.
Warreven's marriage was to have been to the son of the most powerful man on the planet; that failed relationship is coming around to bite Warreven, as his name has been put forth as the only worthwhile candidate for the planet's trade director.
Notes on FINISHING!!!
This is a book with many faces -- part commentary on politics, part commentary on colonialism, part commentary on culture, part social science SF, part literature, and a big part looking at the effects of gender on society and the effects of society on gender. I feel like there are mild influences from Heinlein's The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress and from Frank Herbert's Dune and from Ursula K Le Guin's Left Hand of Darkness, at least in the sense of world-building.
Unfortunately these diversities tend to weaken the novel instead of strengthening it. For me, too much of my reading energies were spent figuring out what was going on, and what it all meant, to enjoy the writing. We spend the novel on the planet Haran, a hundred years after contact has been reestablished with other planets of human society's second wave of expansion. The first wave had collapsed when it became apparent that the drugs allowing lightspeed travel were having severe genetic impacts, effectively adding three genders to the human race. So there, Dear Reader, is the first challenge that Ms. Scott's novel will present to you: how to understand and build upon the foundation of five genders, and the correct pronouns for who's who, and still understand what's what.
Our second challenge is this: despite having incurred the same biological effects that all colonials have, the Harans are locked into a binary gender model. This is good, Dear Reader, in that we have something of a touchstone to a society we are familiar with. But it feels contrived, and opens a new set of questions with respect to what's important -- one protagonist is indigenous to Haran and living as a male, but truly on of the three unrecognized genders and active in the underground society of 'wrangways' and 'wry-a-beds' (analogous, somewhat, to transgender and LGBT today) -- and how we are to feel about it.
I feel that all of this would make more sense if the plot had unambiguous direction and pacing, but we no sooner launch down an understanding of one protagonists plight than we shift to another, or sidebar to investigate future interfaces to computers or rename every kind of vehicle on the streets, and soon there is a plethora of things that might be important, until the detritus falls away in the last 10% of the story to have an idea of what's what.
Planet Hara has a complex society, based on 'mesnies', 14 clans based on the original fourteen founders, and five Watches. But they recognize only two genders, despite the fact that the drugs that made FTL travel safe and reliable caused mutations among the original colonists. The Concord (the rest of space traveling humanity) has come to recognize five genders: male, female, mem (XX & ovary & non-teste male genetalia; ƥe/ƥis/ƥim/ƥimself), fem (XY & testes & non-ovary female genetalia; δe/δer/δer/δerself), and herm (testes and ovaries; Ʒe,Ʒer,Ʒim,Ʒimself). Harans choose their gender assignment at maturity, even in the face of Concord influence to adopt the five gender model.
Warreven is a Haran advocate, with a specialty in laws surrounding sexual behavior. It is implied thus far that he is a herm who chose male at maturity to escape marriage and assignment as a woman; 'he' is small and dark and flaunts gender custom to dress and speak ambiguously. Mayre Tatian is a phamaceutical rep from the Concord, a bit of a straight arrow, who has met and become attracted to Warreven. Mayne has trouble with his data implants and seeks to get them fixed on the planet. His company has constrained him to not not get embroiled in 'trade', or sexual behaviour outside the norm on the planet.
Warreven's marriage was to have been to the son of the most powerful man on the planet; that failed relationship is coming around to bite Warreven, as his name has been put forth as the only worthwhile candidate for the planet's trade director.
Notes on FINISHING!!!
This is a book with many faces -- part commentary on politics, part commentary on colonialism, part commentary on culture, part social science SF, part literature, and a big part looking at the effects of gender on society and the effects of society on gender. I feel like there are mild influences from Heinlein's The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress and from Frank Herbert's Dune and from Ursula K Le Guin's Left Hand of Darkness, at least in the sense of world-building.
Unfortunately these diversities tend to weaken the novel instead of strengthening it. For me, too much of my reading energies were spent figuring out what was going on, and what it all meant, to enjoy the writing. We spend the novel on the planet Haran, a hundred years after contact has been reestablished with other planets of human society's second wave of expansion. The first wave had collapsed when it became apparent that the drugs allowing lightspeed travel were having severe genetic impacts, effectively adding three genders to the human race. So there, Dear Reader, is the first challenge that Ms. Scott's novel will present to you: how to understand and build upon the foundation of five genders, and the correct pronouns for who's who, and still understand what's what.
Our second challenge is this: despite having incurred the same biological effects that all colonials have, the Harans are locked into a binary gender model. This is good, Dear Reader, in that we have something of a touchstone to a society we are familiar with. But it feels contrived, and opens a new set of questions with respect to what's important -- one protagonist is indigenous to Haran and living as a male, but truly on of the three unrecognized genders and active in the underground society of 'wrangways' and 'wry-a-beds' (analogous, somewhat, to transgender and LGBT today) -- and how we are to feel about it.
I feel that all of this would make more sense if the plot had unambiguous direction and pacing, but we no sooner launch down an understanding of one protagonists plight than we shift to another, or sidebar to investigate future interfaces to computers or rename every kind of vehicle on the streets, and soon there is a plethora of things that might be important, until the detritus falls away in the last 10% of the story to have an idea of what's what.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 27, 2018
5 genders vs 2. A/A+, her best yet? I should definitely reread it.
The real review to read is Althea Ann's, https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
And she references an interesting academic paper, "The Five Sexes: Why Male and Female Are Not Enough"
http://capone.mtsu.edu/phollowa/5sexe...
The real review to read is Althea Ann's, https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
And she references an interesting academic paper, "The Five Sexes: Why Male and Female Are Not Enough"
http://capone.mtsu.edu/phollowa/5sexe...
February 26, 2016
Another book in my series of reading sci-fi only when it’s written by women this year, I picked Shadow Man by Melissa Scott. No other reason behind it than me clicking myself through goodreads and putting some books on my to-read list.
As sci-fi introductions go, I was surprised by this one, but in a good way. Sci-fi books can take a long time in introducing you to all the worldbuilding that needs to take place, and that can be tedious, but Shadow Man never had me confused or bored (after, say, the first chapter, but first chapters can generally be confusing). I have to say that I went into this book knowing not much more than the basic premise that we’re dealing with a world (or universe) with more than two genders (namely five), so I really went in headfirst without any preparation.
A few words about the plot: I liked it. It was very politically driven, and less action-based, though there certainly is some action, to the point where it read like a polispolit-thriller in space. Well, not in space, but on a planet in space. Eh, it’s sci-fi, you get the idea. The characters were politicians, lobbyists, activists, and people being fucked over by the government. I enjoyed it, but that’s because I’m a sucker for people who manage to portray alien politics well and believable without falling into lazy stereotypes.
The worldbuilding in general was super intriguing: A planetary colony that was separated from the rest of humanity when it was discovered that faster-than-light travel caused people to be born as more than the ‚traditional‘ sexes of male and female (and I say traditional because that’s how male and female are viewed on Hara, the world where the story takes place). It took a while to re-establish contact with that world, and now while the rest of the people in the universe have accepted that there are five sexes, on Hara people still have to choose between being male or being female, even when their bodies don’t match that. (This is probably my only beef with the book, the fact that gender and sex are seen as one and the same, but it still does a great job in portraying how harmful the gender binary is to the people of this world… even when it doesn’t go into depth in exploring gender vs. sex etc.) The politicians on Hara want to keep it that way, even when that makes them seem backwards to the offworlders who buy from Hara. There’s also a pretty big market for prostitution, where mostly poor people with sexes that don’t match the binary try to make money with off-worlders that come there.
That’s what I meant when I said it’s a polit-thriller: The books is about gender politics and conservatives in power who want to preserve the status quo. It’s speculative fiction with very clear parallels in reality.
I enjoyed this book. I loved the characters, too, quite apart from the plot being really engrossing. The perspectives switch between Tatian, an off-worlder, and Warreven, a Haran who was born a herm and in the course of the story comes to terms with xer identity.
A little note on the kindle version: All the pronouns that weren’t he or she were lost in formatting. I’m guessing their used ‚special‘ letters that my kindle couldn’t process, but it was really annoying to have to read Warreven’s pronouns as ‚3e‘ all the time. I’m using ‚xe‘ for xem because I literally don’t know how it was supposed to look in print. So if you want to read this book, I suggest a print version to avoid odd numbers as pronouns for people.
As sci-fi introductions go, I was surprised by this one, but in a good way. Sci-fi books can take a long time in introducing you to all the worldbuilding that needs to take place, and that can be tedious, but Shadow Man never had me confused or bored (after, say, the first chapter, but first chapters can generally be confusing). I have to say that I went into this book knowing not much more than the basic premise that we’re dealing with a world (or universe) with more than two genders (namely five), so I really went in headfirst without any preparation.
A few words about the plot: I liked it. It was very politically driven, and less action-based, though there certainly is some action, to the point where it read like a polispolit-thriller in space. Well, not in space, but on a planet in space. Eh, it’s sci-fi, you get the idea. The characters were politicians, lobbyists, activists, and people being fucked over by the government. I enjoyed it, but that’s because I’m a sucker for people who manage to portray alien politics well and believable without falling into lazy stereotypes.
The worldbuilding in general was super intriguing: A planetary colony that was separated from the rest of humanity when it was discovered that faster-than-light travel caused people to be born as more than the ‚traditional‘ sexes of male and female (and I say traditional because that’s how male and female are viewed on Hara, the world where the story takes place). It took a while to re-establish contact with that world, and now while the rest of the people in the universe have accepted that there are five sexes, on Hara people still have to choose between being male or being female, even when their bodies don’t match that. (This is probably my only beef with the book, the fact that gender and sex are seen as one and the same, but it still does a great job in portraying how harmful the gender binary is to the people of this world… even when it doesn’t go into depth in exploring gender vs. sex etc.) The politicians on Hara want to keep it that way, even when that makes them seem backwards to the offworlders who buy from Hara. There’s also a pretty big market for prostitution, where mostly poor people with sexes that don’t match the binary try to make money with off-worlders that come there.
That’s what I meant when I said it’s a polit-thriller: The books is about gender politics and conservatives in power who want to preserve the status quo. It’s speculative fiction with very clear parallels in reality.
I enjoyed this book. I loved the characters, too, quite apart from the plot being really engrossing. The perspectives switch between Tatian, an off-worlder, and Warreven, a Haran who was born a herm and in the course of the story comes to terms with xer identity.
A little note on the kindle version: All the pronouns that weren’t he or she were lost in formatting. I’m guessing their used ‚special‘ letters that my kindle couldn’t process, but it was really annoying to have to read Warreven’s pronouns as ‚3e‘ all the time. I’m using ‚xe‘ for xem because I literally don’t know how it was supposed to look in print. So if you want to read this book, I suggest a print version to avoid odd numbers as pronouns for people.
June 30, 2016
I'm writing this review years after the fact, but it had a great impact on me; I've been thinking about it. Reading this can be an uphill battle keeping up with pronouns and the politics of the society -- but once it clicks it is so worth it. I felt attached to the characters and was impressed at the handling of the performative nature of gender with societal restraints. It makes the reader question not only the "less progressive" society but the "more progressive" one as well. They both have labels and language that constrain and with which we try to assemble our identity as it feels real to us.
A very complex and fulfilling read that examines the nature and complexity of gender in society. Highly recommended!
A very complex and fulfilling read that examines the nature and complexity of gender in society. Highly recommended!
May 28, 2019
Good reminder of the importance of speaking truth to power even if you don’t immediately accomplish something by doing so.
July 11, 2013
I'm finding it hard to string sentences together to make actual paragraphs, so let's have bullets!
- It's been ages since I actually read an F&SF book with a glossary in it. (Well, there's Kirith Kirin. But the last book I've finished with a glossary of terms is Wraeththu.
- This book is about Hara and about the Concord countries. I'm guessing post-Apocalyptic and post-generation ship (as suggested by the gods and the way the family system works). People started taking this drug to ensure safe interstellar travel, with the side-effects of three extra genders: mostly male, mostly female, and the hermaphrodite. Five genders are recognised by the Concord countries, but only male and female legally exist in Hara (something like a backwater country). Odd bodied persons are forced to declare themselves (legally and through their clothing) as either male or female. Warreven, one of the main characters, chose to remain male even though he was promised marriage with the son of the Most Important Man if he changes his gender to female.
- Trade is confusing. Even now I can't really tell you what trade is, but it has to do with citizenship, sexual relations between indegenes and offworlders, and actual mercantile trade.
- Book is really more about the acknowledgement of the existence of oddbodied people. In the end, Warreven TL;DR: more about gender than sexuality. In retrospect, I really like it.
- I have the Paragons of Queer edition from Lethe Press. There are quite a number of typos. Not enough to make me give up on the book, but still pretty jarring. If the cover wasn't so pretty (and if 10% of the sales didn't go to Breast Cancer research), I'd much prefer the Tor version (except it's out of print, I think?)
- Chekov's gun that was never fired. Or fired very subtly. Tatian's whinging about the faulty wiring of the message gadget thing (sorry) on his arm paved the way for him to talk to people and get embroiled in the whole revolution of the genders issue, but does not really play a big part in the show. (Man, I was expecting something.)
- Favourite part of the book I don't know why that bit struck me as hard as it did, but well, manliness is not the only way, I guess.
- I really like Warreven and the worlding is really interesting, but I think this novel could have been longer. So many things didn't really tie up (i.e. Tatian's technical problems) and the climax wasn't set up well enough. This is one of Melissa Scott's earlier works and it shows. But okay. I still love it.
- It's been ages since I actually read an F&SF book with a glossary in it. (Well, there's Kirith Kirin. But the last book I've finished with a glossary of terms is Wraeththu.
- This book is about Hara and about the Concord countries. I'm guessing post-Apocalyptic and post-generation ship (as suggested by the gods and the way the family system works). People started taking this drug to ensure safe interstellar travel, with the side-effects of three extra genders: mostly male, mostly female, and the hermaphrodite. Five genders are recognised by the Concord countries, but only male and female legally exist in Hara (something like a backwater country). Odd bodied persons are forced to declare themselves (legally and through their clothing) as either male or female. Warreven, one of the main characters, chose to remain male even though he was promised marriage with the son of the Most Important Man if he changes his gender to female.
- Trade is confusing. Even now I can't really tell you what trade is, but it has to do with citizenship, sexual relations between indegenes and offworlders, and actual mercantile trade.
- Book is really more about the acknowledgement of the existence of oddbodied people. In the end, Warreven TL;DR: more about gender than sexuality. In retrospect, I really like it.
- I have the Paragons of Queer edition from Lethe Press. There are quite a number of typos. Not enough to make me give up on the book, but still pretty jarring. If the cover wasn't so pretty (and if 10% of the sales didn't go to Breast Cancer research), I'd much prefer the Tor version (except it's out of print, I think?)
- Chekov's gun that was never fired. Or fired very subtly. Tatian's whinging about the faulty wiring of the message gadget thing (sorry) on his arm paved the way for him to talk to people and get embroiled in the whole revolution of the genders issue, but does not really play a big part in the show. (Man, I was expecting something.)
- Favourite part of the book I don't know why that bit struck me as hard as it did, but well, manliness is not the only way, I guess.
- I really like Warreven and the worlding is really interesting, but I think this novel could have been longer. So many things didn't really tie up (i.e. Tatian's technical problems) and the climax wasn't set up well enough. This is one of Melissa Scott's earlier works and it shows. But okay. I still love it.
October 18, 2015
Billed as "queer speculative fiction", I view this as something else. Not that it doesn't deal with both gender and sexual orientation, but it is a complex tale, dealing with multiculturalism, different understandings of what it is to be human, and has both a respect of difference and a tenderness at its heart which make it as good as anything in science fiction. As soon call Leguin's Left Hand Of Darkness an example of "queer speculative fiction" as this - it suggests a niche audience, when it should not. Wonderful story, wonderful writing. I believe it has become, all at once, one of my favorite SF novels.
May 29, 2017
A very interesting story with a well-built world sadly hampered by pedestrian prose and uneven pacing. This would have been much better at half the length with half the detail (the pharma biz stuff is needlessly prominent and Tatian's inner musings in the first third of the book are nearly as pointless). I'd still recommend this for readers looking for queer-focused science fiction, though.
September 29, 2013
An extremely interesting novel by Scott, probably my favorite of all her work I've read so far. It seems to have been inspired by Anne Fausto-Sterling's 1993 essay, "The Five Sexes: Why Male and Female Are Not Enough" (http://frank.mtsu.edu/~phollowa/5sexe...). Humanity has achieved FTL travel, and colonized widely. However, the drug that allows people to survive interplanetary travel has also had the side effect of increasing mutations, causing around 25% of children to be born intersex. Throughout most of the colonized worlds, this fact has been gradually absorbed by society, and five sexes are considered standard, and the corollary gender roles and social expectations to go with each gender have grown up around them as well. However, on one world, long out of touch with its neighbors, society clings to a two-gendered model - everyone, regardless of their physical attributes, must be seen as either male or female. When contact is made again, and trade and business relations grow, the people from other worlds and other societies are increasingly seen as a threat. The book concentrates on one person in particular - Warreven, a 'herm' who has been living as a man, but who would like the freedom to be seen as an individual, without having to fit into a gender role that does not precisely suit. It's a socially complex, idea-filled book, with strong characters. The furor that some of these characters work themselves up into over socially constructed gender roles - up to and including extreme violence - seems absurd - and sometimes unbelievable - until one realizes that our own society is just as bad if not worse, over some of the very same exact issues. Highly recommended.
February 12, 2015
Oh my, whatever you do don't read the Kindle-version of this book. The formating is a NIGHTMARE, to the point where you end up wanting to throw the book out of the window in a fit of rage. I really tried to look past the awful hyphenation, utterly confusing symbol-errors and behind it there is a really intriguing and original story, one that I would've really enjoyed if the text didn't look like a worst case scenario from fanfiction.net
The combination of Kindle being (at times) unable to read certain characters and some spellcheck errors (?) in the pronouns had the end result that my book had 7 different genders instead of the intended 5. In addition to he, she, 3e, %e and Þe I also had some cases of ?e, be and zhei. In short, sometimes I had no clue what gender a person was. Normally it wouldn't bother me, but the book makes a big point about genders, so it was annoying that the formating ruined those clues for me.
So yeah, a proofread version of Shadow Man might've been a 4-star book for me, but instead I alternated between fits of rage and wishing that I had a open version of the book so I could correct the errors as I came upon them.
The combination of Kindle being (at times) unable to read certain characters and some spellcheck errors (?) in the pronouns had the end result that my book had 7 different genders instead of the intended 5. In addition to he, she, 3e, %e and Þe I also had some cases of ?e, be and zhei. In short, sometimes I had no clue what gender a person was. Normally it wouldn't bother me, but the book makes a big point about genders, so it was annoying that the formating ruined those clues for me.
So yeah, a proofread version of Shadow Man might've been a 4-star book for me, but instead I alternated between fits of rage and wishing that I had a open version of the book so I could correct the errors as I came upon them.
October 12, 2019
I went into this book with a lot of anticipation. I have not been a fan of Melissa Scott’s works so far, but “Shadow Man” won a Lambda Literary award and is in the Gaylactic Spectrum Hall of fame. As of this writing, she’s won four of the former award, two of the latter. She seems to be the darling of the LGBTQ literary award circuit. I thought this book would be different. It’s about a planet with five sexes and nine sexualities, which was really intriguing. Well, the author pulled off the world-building really well, but the execution of the story was terrible. It was a slog to get through. It was only three hundred pages long and nothing happens for the first two hundred. But by the last third I was only barely interested. I figure this book won its accolades for the concept, because the plot has a lot to be desired.
Come visit my blog for the full review…
https://itstartedwiththehugos.blogspo...
Come visit my blog for the full review…
https://itstartedwiththehugos.blogspo...
April 16, 2012
When a college course hands this book out, and then hands a cheat sheet to go with it, you know you are in for a long and confusing read. I must admit, Shadow Man was not a book I was looking forward to in my 399 class but after reading the first 150 pages in one sitting, I was pleasantly surprised.
This book challenges the way we view gender in a unique (and confusing) way. In a world made up of five genders (male, female, hermaphrodite, mostly female, mostly male), all of which have their own distinct pronoun, this novel challenges the way our brain thinks. Even though I knew some of the characters were not standard male or female I had problems switching my brain from a default reading of just that.
The main character of Warreven lives in a world where all five genders are accepted, but in his society alone, only two are recognized. Being one of the so called “odd bodies” this becomes a problem fairly quickly. Shadow Man is an exploration of the gender rights taking place in this world and how one who isn’t considered normal, can even function in an elitist society that would rather kill an odd body than recognize them as human. Overall, a compelling tale and one that makes you sit back and actually think.
The only reason why this book did not get five stars? It is confusing. The novel takes place in the future in a society that is truly alien to us. There are words and customs that are entirely new to the readers and the author, since this book is told from the point of view of a native, doesn’t spend much time detailing out the things we don’t know. This can sometimes leave you feeling at a loss for what’s going on and most of the time, I only had a vague idea of certain plot lines. Make sure to pay attention and be prepared to flip to the back of the book where a handy glossary is. For some, this will take away from the story but I have to applaud the author for not dumbing things down for her readers and just throwing us in the fire, so to speak. That, combined with some very obvious grammatical and format errors, brought the book down a star but I still believe it’s worth a read, although I think it is one that you will have to read again to completely grasp what is happening.
This book challenges the way we view gender in a unique (and confusing) way. In a world made up of five genders (male, female, hermaphrodite, mostly female, mostly male), all of which have their own distinct pronoun, this novel challenges the way our brain thinks. Even though I knew some of the characters were not standard male or female I had problems switching my brain from a default reading of just that.
The main character of Warreven lives in a world where all five genders are accepted, but in his society alone, only two are recognized. Being one of the so called “odd bodies” this becomes a problem fairly quickly. Shadow Man is an exploration of the gender rights taking place in this world and how one who isn’t considered normal, can even function in an elitist society that would rather kill an odd body than recognize them as human. Overall, a compelling tale and one that makes you sit back and actually think.
The only reason why this book did not get five stars? It is confusing. The novel takes place in the future in a society that is truly alien to us. There are words and customs that are entirely new to the readers and the author, since this book is told from the point of view of a native, doesn’t spend much time detailing out the things we don’t know. This can sometimes leave you feeling at a loss for what’s going on and most of the time, I only had a vague idea of certain plot lines. Make sure to pay attention and be prepared to flip to the back of the book where a handy glossary is. For some, this will take away from the story but I have to applaud the author for not dumbing things down for her readers and just throwing us in the fire, so to speak. That, combined with some very obvious grammatical and format errors, brought the book down a star but I still believe it’s worth a read, although I think it is one that you will have to read again to completely grasp what is happening.
April 10, 2012
Warreven is a herm, who lives in a rigid 2 gender society which refuses to acknowledge the existence of the 5 genders. He is about 40 years old, attractive, and possesses male and female genitalia and breasts. When he was a younger man, he was engaged to another man, but this man's family insisted he change his legal gender to female; however Warreven has always sexually identified as male and refused. This caused bad blood between these two men which is played out in the story.
Over time, Warreven got involved in trade, which is legal prostitution, however he was not good at it, and instead became an advocate- an attorney who focused on defending intersex individuals and also prostitutes.
I really found the first beginning of this story fascinating. However, I did find the story's writing kind of bland. Even events which should be exciting were relayed in a really dry way.
Warreven gets dragged into running for a political office. There is a guy who has a bad implant in his arm who runs around complaining about it, and various of Warreven's friends fall victim to intersex-phobia and bad guys intent on quashing the intersex community. The writing style becomes very dry- and muddled. Characters pop in and pop out, and you have no idea who they are or what they are doing. There is a lot of casual drug use and ambivalence about human rights issues.
Warreven is an intriguing character- but I wanted him to have more of an active voice. I really wanted to root for him, and I wanted to feel more of what Raven felt in situations, and instead there is a lot of telling, not showing.
I would love to see a better writer tackle Warreven's world and this story- because it could be utterly fascinating. As it was I was left feeling frustrated by an interesting world and cool characters, but a writing style that failed to engage me.
Over time, Warreven got involved in trade, which is legal prostitution, however he was not good at it, and instead became an advocate- an attorney who focused on defending intersex individuals and also prostitutes.
I really found the first beginning of this story fascinating. However, I did find the story's writing kind of bland. Even events which should be exciting were relayed in a really dry way.
Warreven gets dragged into running for a political office. There is a guy who has a bad implant in his arm who runs around complaining about it, and various of Warreven's friends fall victim to intersex-phobia and bad guys intent on quashing the intersex community. The writing style becomes very dry- and muddled. Characters pop in and pop out, and you have no idea who they are or what they are doing. There is a lot of casual drug use and ambivalence about human rights issues.
Warreven is an intriguing character- but I wanted him to have more of an active voice. I really wanted to root for him, and I wanted to feel more of what Raven felt in situations, and instead there is a lot of telling, not showing.
I would love to see a better writer tackle Warreven's world and this story- because it could be utterly fascinating. As it was I was left feeling frustrated by an interesting world and cool characters, but a writing style that failed to engage me.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 20, 2018
Argh!
The author spent a huge amount of time and effort on some magnificent worldbuilding, creating two separate cultures with wonderful solidity, then promptly pissed it all away on 250 pages of NOTHING BLOODY HAPPENING!
Being charitable, I think she was trying for a story in which things happened as they would in real life, rather than as they do in stories. The protagonists are largely on the periphery of large social upheavals, and we get a view of how their individually minor actions have an impact on the greater events.
The problem is that even THIS much payoff only happens in the last twenty pages of the book! So what you read is about 230 pages of people having business meetings and making bland, low-stakes political bargains!
The general problem of the book can be exemplified perfectly in one plot point. Early in the book, one of the protagonists' implanted tech begins to malfunction. This makes it difficult for him to interface with computers and vehicles and so-forth. In almost every scene where he needs to do anything of the sort, we're reminded of how his implants are on the fritz. We have a whole section where he tries to track down a replacement part and get it fixed.
None of this has any effect on what happens.
It doesn't crap out in a crucial moment and put him in peril, attempting to get the replacement parts (which never arrive, by the way) doesn't tip him off to a smuggling ring, nothing like that. It just pads out every scene with a few extra sentences of how annoying it is... WHICH IS A PERFECT METAPHOR FOR THE PLOT AS A WHOLE!
I have rarely read any book which made me feel so profoundly as though I wasted my time.
The author spent a huge amount of time and effort on some magnificent worldbuilding, creating two separate cultures with wonderful solidity, then promptly pissed it all away on 250 pages of NOTHING BLOODY HAPPENING!
Being charitable, I think she was trying for a story in which things happened as they would in real life, rather than as they do in stories. The protagonists are largely on the periphery of large social upheavals, and we get a view of how their individually minor actions have an impact on the greater events.
The problem is that even THIS much payoff only happens in the last twenty pages of the book! So what you read is about 230 pages of people having business meetings and making bland, low-stakes political bargains!
The general problem of the book can be exemplified perfectly in one plot point. Early in the book, one of the protagonists' implanted tech begins to malfunction. This makes it difficult for him to interface with computers and vehicles and so-forth. In almost every scene where he needs to do anything of the sort, we're reminded of how his implants are on the fritz. We have a whole section where he tries to track down a replacement part and get it fixed.
None of this has any effect on what happens.
It doesn't crap out in a crucial moment and put him in peril, attempting to get the replacement parts (which never arrive, by the way) doesn't tip him off to a smuggling ring, nothing like that. It just pads out every scene with a few extra sentences of how annoying it is... WHICH IS A PERFECT METAPHOR FOR THE PLOT AS A WHOLE!
I have rarely read any book which made me feel so profoundly as though I wasted my time.
June 11, 2019
I usually love Melissa Scott's work, and I figured that since this had won a Lambda, it was probably going to be good. Unfortunately, this is probably my least favorite of all Melissa Scott's books that I have read so far.
I thought the premise was really interesting -- an increase in intersex births leading to a society with five genders, and the story of a colony world that basically refuses to acknowledge this is happening -- but the execution of the premise just didn't grab me. It was way longer than it needed to be, and the politicking just dragged on and on and I kept waiting for things to happen.
It also probably didn't help that my e-reader didn't support whatever special character was used at the beginning of the mems' pronouns -- I think it was a thorn, because the fems had an eth and the herms had a yogh -- and it just rendered it as a box with a question mark in it and I spent about half the book convinced this was some kind of profound statement on gender before I figured out it was just my Kindle app not playing nicely with encoding.
I thought the premise was really interesting -- an increase in intersex births leading to a society with five genders, and the story of a colony world that basically refuses to acknowledge this is happening -- but the execution of the premise just didn't grab me. It was way longer than it needed to be, and the politicking just dragged on and on and I kept waiting for things to happen.
It also probably didn't help that my e-reader didn't support whatever special character was used at the beginning of the mems' pronouns -- I think it was a thorn, because the fems had an eth and the herms had a yogh -- and it just rendered it as a box with a question mark in it and I spent about half the book convinced this was some kind of profound statement on gender before I figured out it was just my Kindle app not playing nicely with encoding.
March 7, 2010
Scott bends sex roles, and my mind. In a successful effort to be more disorienting, she tends to introduce characters well after they're involved in a scene.
Scott likes to explore gender roles, and to make thinks more challenging, she adds 3 additional human genders: full hermaphrodite, mostly-male, and mostly-female, but sets the story on a world that denies the intermediate genders. This means that every character has a 'real' gender identity, as well as a local legal gender which may be different. In addition, some characters may act (or be described) more masculine or feminine at different times, getting different pronouns. It's bewildering -- actually a bit too much for me, as I found it more confusing than interesting.
But Scott always delivers an interesting tale and thought experiment, both, so it was well worth reading.
Scott likes to explore gender roles, and to make thinks more challenging, she adds 3 additional human genders: full hermaphrodite, mostly-male, and mostly-female, but sets the story on a world that denies the intermediate genders. This means that every character has a 'real' gender identity, as well as a local legal gender which may be different. In addition, some characters may act (or be described) more masculine or feminine at different times, getting different pronouns. It's bewildering -- actually a bit too much for me, as I found it more confusing than interesting.
But Scott always delivers an interesting tale and thought experiment, both, so it was well worth reading.
October 31, 2014
Melissa Scott's world building is incredibly complex, and her "show don't tell" means that it can take a bit of time to really get into the worlds she builds. However it's usually well worth the journey and this book is doubly worth it. Hara is a complex society which is fully fleshed out.
This book really makes you think about gender and sexual identity, about the arbitrary rules our culture builds around these issues, and what it means to be a man or a woman. Or a herm, or a mem, or a fem.
The ending of this book leaves the door open for a sequel; I live in hope that one day it will be written.
This book really makes you think about gender and sexual identity, about the arbitrary rules our culture builds around these issues, and what it means to be a man or a woman. Or a herm, or a mem, or a fem.
The ending of this book leaves the door open for a sequel; I live in hope that one day it will be written.
February 28, 2009
I read this rather than do homework...it is about a planet that is "behind" all of the other planets because it only accepts two genders and only straight pairins (you can switch to the other gender though if you are a 'herm'), whereas all the rest of the planets accept and respect 5 genders and 9 sexual identities!! (There was a drug that everyone took in order to do planetary travel that resulted in high numbers of miscarriages and all of these intersexed births...) It is hard to learn all the language, but there is a handy glossary in the back.
July 24, 2015
This is not sci fi for the novice- it requires some dedication to delve into the invented idiomatic language and 5 pronouns (including one sex with variable pronouns). It is very current, however, in that it addresses the issue of invisibility as it relates to an artificial 2 gender system, which is something young people today are struggling with (in this book, 2 genders are applied to 5 sexes. It is an obvious silliness, but is any society trying to define gender identity based on sex any less so?).
August 23, 2012
If you liked This Alien Shore, Windup Girl, or Left Hand of Darkness you will probably derive some pleasure from Melissa Scott's Shadow Man.
Likewise, if you enjoy Shadow Man you should probably consider reading the other titles I've mentioned.
Likewise, if you enjoy Shadow Man you should probably consider reading the other titles I've mentioned.
January 26, 2015
Good scifi exploring the queer future. I wish I'd read a hard copy so I could have had better access to the glossary, though. Maybe one of my favorites of Melissa Scott's stuff, and i wish there was more set in this world.
July 14, 2008
This completely got around so many of the ways I think of gender. It was good for me. :) Plus, it was a good read. Excellent all around.
January 25, 2009
Like anything else, there is shoddy and poorly written science fiction. Scott had no idea how to make sexual difference interesting and vivid for the reader.
May 19, 2021
This book imagines a space-age people (humans probably) who have evolved to have 5 sexes. There is no distinction between gender and sex. It doesn't hold up to today's conversations about gender and sex and sexuality, but this was published over 20 years ago.
During the first three quarters of the book I was at times skeptical and at times annoyed by how it seemed to put paramount importance on a person's "sex at birth" vs how they want to present themselves as. However, as I got to the last quarter of the book (literally, starting at Chapter 9 of 12), I began to see what the author (who is a queer woman) was probably trying to get at. I think that a lot of the main characters' development has real-world parallels to LGBTQ peoples' journey in discovering themselves. (Of course I cannot speak for trans people but I did read a review by a trans person praising this book.)
Now, if it were only the issue of sex and gender, I would be a lot kinder about this book.
What I can't forgive is how colonialist/imperialist its point of view is. I can't even begin to list all of the things that left a very bad taste in my mouth, but let's just say if I were reading a physical copy of this book I would have thrown it against a wall. I don't think it was deliberate on the author's part. It was just utterly thoughtless, which is equally bad. And look, I know I can't expect everyone to be Ursula Le Guin, who treats issues of colonialism and imperialism with so much wisdom and respect for the colonised peoples, but damn this book was offensive. Thoughtlessly so.
During the first three quarters of the book I was at times skeptical and at times annoyed by how it seemed to put paramount importance on a person's "sex at birth" vs how they want to present themselves as. However, as I got to the last quarter of the book (literally, starting at Chapter 9 of 12), I began to see what the author (who is a queer woman) was probably trying to get at. I think that a lot of the main characters' development has real-world parallels to LGBTQ peoples' journey in discovering themselves. (Of course I cannot speak for trans people but I did read a review by a trans person praising this book.)
Now, if it were only the issue of sex and gender, I would be a lot kinder about this book.
What I can't forgive is how colonialist/imperialist its point of view is. I can't even begin to list all of the things that left a very bad taste in my mouth, but let's just say if I were reading a physical copy of this book I would have thrown it against a wall. I don't think it was deliberate on the author's part. It was just utterly thoughtless, which is equally bad. And look, I know I can't expect everyone to be Ursula Le Guin, who treats issues of colonialism and imperialism with so much wisdom and respect for the colonised peoples, but damn this book was offensive. Thoughtlessly so.
Read
September 30, 2020read like 45% of this book yesterday because i was like "oh shit i can't be the only one who didn't finish" and instead was the only one who DID FINISH
anyway something about the writing style seemed so familiar to me and made me like it DESPITE it being super dense and me not being smart enough to keep up with uhhhhh. everything happening. i can't remember anyone's names. i don't understand how the family groups work. i'm just reading hoping i pick stuff up along the way and then 50 more things are introduced that i immediately forget about. ha h a YIKES
don't listen to me or anything i say i have no deep thoughts
anyway something about the writing style seemed so familiar to me and made me like it DESPITE it being super dense and me not being smart enough to keep up with uhhhhh. everything happening. i can't remember anyone's names. i don't understand how the family groups work. i'm just reading hoping i pick stuff up along the way and then 50 more things are introduced that i immediately forget about. ha h a YIKES
don't listen to me or anything i say i have no deep thoughts
December 29, 2024
Disappointing. I was intrigued at first, thought the concept of 5 Sexes, the modern and conservative views interesting but did not like the style or the resolution.
There is a whole storyline of Tatian, one of the main characters, and his broken implant, which he tries to fix the first half of the book and is almost never talked about in the second half anymore.
The Tendlathen killing Telemathe in front of a lot of people and nobody seeing it just does not make sense to me.
Also the places in the world did not feel real. It seems like everybody meets at the same 3 Places the whole time by chance even though we're talking about a whole planet.
And last, I don't mind if my SciFi is confusing at the beginning but I never really understood what trade was in the end and why it is such a big deal for corporations.
There is a whole storyline of Tatian, one of the main characters, and his broken implant, which he tries to fix the first half of the book and is almost never talked about in the second half anymore.
The Tendlathen killing Telemathe in front of a lot of people and nobody seeing it just does not make sense to me.
Also the places in the world did not feel real. It seems like everybody meets at the same 3 Places the whole time by chance even though we're talking about a whole planet.
And last, I don't mind if my SciFi is confusing at the beginning but I never really understood what trade was in the end and why it is such a big deal for corporations.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 15, 2021
Had such promise in the concept, and very detailed world building, but was too heavily focused on details of bureaucracy, politics and commerce for me, I found all this bureaucracy tedious. It felt lacking in joy, in love. All relationships in the novel seemed based on obligation, politics, or sex, Warreven even questioned why a refugee couple would want to emigrate together, as if there was no concept of romantic love in that society, and it generally felt quite cold and clinical in its bureaucratic focus. Its biological essentialism was also really off-putting, as if sex is the same as gender, as if being intersex directly correlates to someone's gender identity. In addition, for a novel that focuses so heavily on gender, it disappointingly didn't even nominally pass the Bechdel test, with 95% of the main characters being men, cis or trans. I would have been interested in more perspectives of women.
May 19, 2021
Another book i got ages ago from Duke's women in science & engineering scifi book club. I enjoyed this so much- intrigue, attraction (that never even gets consummated!!!), masks, other worlds, different languages, the discussion of gender and sexuality that seems so prescient now. The brutal attack at the end and the worry that "odd-bodied" people can't get appropriate treatment, and may actually get mistreated, in hospitals. I also kind of loved Tatian's messed up bio-ware that you would think would somehow get fixed as that is part of the plotline, but never does. And the no winning at the end. my favorite characters were the hard-boiled mechanics that Tatian meets on his journey to fix his arm.
January 23, 2020
Trigger warning: The society derived for the five-genders feels like it is based on what is now known as harmful slang for certain communities.
I was not entirely sure what to expect from this book, and I ended it not entirely sure how to feel.
This isn't a romance - it is also not a deeper meditation on gender inequality or rights movements, although that is probably the closest thing it is to being.
This feels like a snapshot of an event occurring in a larger universe, and one in which both sides are biased and corrupt.
That said, the characters are well written and the story has a decent slow pace. I'd read other books if this was revealed to be a series.
I was not entirely sure what to expect from this book, and I ended it not entirely sure how to feel.
This isn't a romance - it is also not a deeper meditation on gender inequality or rights movements, although that is probably the closest thing it is to being.
This feels like a snapshot of an event occurring in a larger universe, and one in which both sides are biased and corrupt.
That said, the characters are well written and the story has a decent slow pace. I'd read other books if this was revealed to be a series.
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