Recent Reading

[virtuella]

Some comments on my latest adventures in Literature Land.

Comments

[virtuella]

Yes, the senator. Towards the end one could indeed feel sorry for him, horrible man though he was. I suppose it's because now and then he has a point, and also because the other Esteban was much worse.

I can't remember an Aurora. In my copy, Clara's daughter was called Blanca. Perhaps it's the translation?

But really, that tablecloth - I feel I might want to write a poem about it.

[virtuella]

Indeed. It seems a very hefty book for a twelve-year-old to read.

[clodia_metelli]

//However, I cannot help getting increasingly irritated by one single aspect, and now I am halfway through, a voice at the back of my head keeps screaming, WHERE ARE THE WOMEN? WHERE ARE THE BLOOMING WOMEN?//

Sounds like a period detail to me. I take it romance isn't a plot point?

[virtuella]

But that's not the point, Clodia. There are no female scientists, politicians, priests, civil servants. There are only nameless "wives" and you can easily guess what their prime occupation is if I tell you that the population of 100000 increases tenfold within fifty years.

[clodia_metelli]

Yes, I mean it sounds like a sign of the period it was written in. /shrug

[randy_o]

I’ve not read much science fiction and never any Asimov, so this is quite a new experience for me, and one that I have enjoyed so far. Contrary to my expectations, the book is effortless to read and interesting with many insightful comments on politics and sociology. However, I cannot help getting increasingly irritated by one single aspect, and now I am halfway through, a voice at the back of my head keeps screaming, WHERE ARE THE WOMEN? WHERE ARE THE BLOOMING WOMEN? The only clue that women even exist is when we hear that thirty-thousand scientists “and their wives” move to Terminus - so among thirty-thousand scientists there was not a single woman?ROFL!!! Take a look at the copyright date on that book, and bear in mind that Isaac Asimov wrote in the Golden Age of Science Fiction, when the genre was for boys and nerdish men. The US had one female Senator, and she was an anomaly. Women in space? How were they going to pee

[virtuella]

Finlay said there were female characters in the Asimov books he read. Perhaps this is an exception. Anyway, even if he couldn't imagine women in space, there should have been women on the planets. Well, there were, but they are nameless, faceless and dialogueless, an anonymous mass of brood mares. Why don't all these male characters have wives they talk to occasionally?

Coming to think of it, I haven't come across any children yet either. Amazing how these planets maintain their populations.

[randy_o]

Why don't all these male characters have wives they talk to occasionally?

Two reasons: It never occurred to him, and second, it's a pacing issue in an adventure genre. How many women were there in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea? Or in The Naked and the Dead, for that matter? The characters don't really take the time out for domesticity

Science Fiction has changed a lot since the early years, and so has society. But back then, the women were usually put in there as sex objects to be rescued and to prove the hero's masculinity.

[virtuella]

//How many women were there in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea? Or in The Naked and the Dead, for that matter

[virtuella]

And did you find the Dog in the Night Time funny?

I found the lifeboat passages fairly dull, too, though in a way that probably reflects the reality of the experience.

[virtuella]

Well, I didn't find it boring throughout, just in parts.