Status Updates From He, She and It

Piercy sure loves her commas.

I thought this book was going to be about gender ambiguity instead of gender roles. They are gendering and sexualizing a cyborg that they view as non-human other yet you sexualize it? I just don't know.

I have been reading this book for a week and a half and I can't seem to speed up my progress. The story of the Maharal is sriously slowing me down because I don't care even though I sense that this story maybe important to Shira's story. Or maybe I just hope that it is...

'No. I conceived the ancient way and bore the baby to term. In fact I lost status with my co-workers because they felt it was a bit gross. One of the standard subjects for gossip among corporate women my age is exactly how you are trying to make a baby--comparing technologies...It's standard practice there to induce labor in the eighth month to avoid stretch marks.'

If the cyborg had been a large cat or a very large bird, she would have imagined it wondering if this thing that was her would be good to eat. While it was waiting input, did it have thoughts in any sense a human could understand? Did it not rather simply sit vacant as any other machine before the command to start up? Yod had a presence, perhaps what Malkah had meant by calling it a person...

Well, 'He, She and It' is supposed to be some stupendous book, but I'm not seeing that yet. A little upset, as I always am, over seeing Yiddish(?) words that it's assumed I know because everyone knows that everyone lives in New York City amongst 4M Jews. Sigh.

This has a different perspective and aesthetic (feminist, compassionate, progressive, Jewish) from Neuromancer, but it uses the same building blocks and could easily inhabit the same universe.

Loving this so far; the scientific world building coupled with the Jewish folklore and the slow buildup of cyborg romance is all wonderful