Artificial Condition (The Murderbot Diaries #2)[September 10, 2023]

[Mel]

it certainly is a great example of how we each bring ourselves into the books we read. Different passages feel important, certain assumptions are made based on our own experiences. It's interesting whenever a book makes you aware of your interpretation.

[Nirkatze]

That's one of the things I really love about Ann Leckie's books too--they really make me examine my inborn biases...

[Tonari no Emily]

Totally agree with that. I'm sad I've read all of Leckie's books already, I want more!

[Mel]

Yes, I was actually thinking of Leckie as another one that makes you question assumptions. I've enjoyed what I've read of hers - meant to pick up Translation State this summer, but it's still in the queue. :)

[Nirkatze]

I really enjoyed Translation State. I think I read it in one day. It grabbed me a lot more than I thought it would--or even that I realized it was grabbing me until oops, I finished. Also was not expecting it to end when it did (one of the dangers of ebooks and not having page count showing all the time).

[Graeme]

I think the author has written MB's gender as a blank page, which solicits the reader to insert whichever gender feels appropriate to them.

I think thats a very clever thing to do, as it aids engagement.

For me, what I find myself doing is imagining MB's face, and in the first two books they came across more feminine, but in this most recent book, more masculine.

In both cases, gender is not a strong feature. MB is primarily a robot with a smallish amount of organic tissue, and a rich interior emotional life in response to their quite unique circumstance. I think, it's the latter feature that our engagement hangs upon.

[Ryan]

Agreed. Gender is simply not relevant to MB, who is not fully human, and not in any of the ways that gender is typically distinguishable.

Another recent book that ignores gender is John Scalzi's The Kaiju Preservation Society, whose protagonist IS fully human but is carefully never referred to by a pronoun, nor does xe engage in any gender-specific activities, making it unclear what xer gender is.

Personally I don't mind books doing this, as it is often the case that gender simply doesn't matter.

[Tonari no Emily]

Yes i didnt even notice that about Kaiju at first, Ryan! Just like in Scalzi's Lock In. I love it when writers can be ambiguous with the gender of their character because most of the time it really doesnt matter with the plot.

[Ryan]

Ha, I noticed immediately, and after keeping an eye out for pronouns in the first two chapters and not finding any, I realized it was going to be like that for the whole book. It's also telling that the protag's name is a classic unisex name.

[Nirkatze]

What's the MC's name in Kaijuu? I know Scalzi did that in the Lock In/Head On books as well--but with the MC's name being "Chris" I auto-imagined male. Kris would've made me more fence-sitty. Most Christines I've known go by full name or Chrissy, or Tina, but no Chris.

[Ryan]

Jamie.

[Nyssa]

I noticed the ambiguity, but Jamie read more masculine to me.

[Nirkatze]

Nyssa wrote: "I noticed the ambiguity, but Jamie read more masculine to me."

Jamie is definitely a better neutral name imo, but I also instinctively read the MC as masculine... for Lock in/Head on Scalzi had two different narrators, I think, but Kaiju is just Wheaton...

[Nyssa]

I didn't have the audio for that one; Jamie just felt male.

[Ryan]

The only possibly male thing about Jamie that I could detect was the running joke "I lift things" but of course women can be employed to lift things too.

[Ann-Marie]

Ryan wrote: "The only possibly male thing about Jamie that I could detect was the running joke "I lift things" but of course women can be employed to lift things too."

And the person who had the role in the group that remained when Jaime's started was female. I read this with my irl book club a while back and someone pointed out that Jamie's gender was not specified, this never occurred to me while reading, I pictured a male character personally.

[Nirkatze]

Makes me very curious to do a reread...