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laurynkelly's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
semmler's review
adventurous
informative
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.5
Interesting and groundbreaking in the perspective on interspecies/transspecies relations. How do we communicate, what would the job of a communicator between species entail etc. Loved that part!
Found it sometimes hard to follow and I think the style how memoirs are told is just not my thing.
Would recommend to people with interest in alternative interspecies communication!
Found it sometimes hard to follow and I think the style how memoirs are told is just not my thing.
Would recommend to people with interest in alternative interspecies communication!
dee9401's review against another edition
3.0
An enjoyable, quick read. 3.5* is what I would give if I could.
yourbookishbff's review
adventurous
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
Based on the book's back cover blurb, I fully anticipated an erotic space adventure, and would have guessed Naomi Mitchison to have been her generation's Ruby Dixon. That is not at all what this story is, and the contrast between how it was positioned and described to readers to its actual thematic content still has me reeling. In Memoirs of a Spacewoman, Mitchison writes in first-person the fictional adventures of Mary, a communications specialist and space explorer. As readers, we see glimpses of her life through her other-worldly missions to faraway planets. We see her learning to communicate in a variety of mediums with alien communities, and we see flashes of her own personal memories and desires and dreams.
While this story reflects on a number of questions familiar to science fiction readers - that of time warping and off-Earth travel and alien communication and human adaptability - most compelling are the questions it raises about reproductive freedom and motherhood. Mary, like all human women, is able to choose fathers of her children outside any expected long-term relationship or legal commitment. She weighs personal connection, appearance, availability and comfort and selects a number of partners during and in between her own independent missions. She feels fondness for them, as she does the children they share, but she is first and foremost Mary, a space explorer, and reproduction is a specific mission she undertakes when she chooses to, children becoming new members of a loosely defined crew with its own freedoms. At one pt, as she worries for her half-human/half-Martian daughter, Viola, she admits to the reader that such "motherly" worry is unnatural, as she respects her children as independent humans with rights to freedom of thought and expression and movement. For a woman in the 1960s - herself in an open marriage and a mother to seven children - to imagine, so boldly, a world in which women have complete agency in reproduction and child rearing, in which women feel no pressure to exhibit maternal "instincts" or to show maternal affection, in which women choose partners or don't choose partners, as they see fit, is remarkable. In her book Hatching: Experiments in Motherhood and Technology, Jenni Quilter, contrasts Mitchison's exploration of the future of reproduction with that of her contemporary Aldous Huxley in Brave New World. And now I can't stop imagining a different version of my life where Memoirs of a Spacewoman was on my high school syllabus instead of Brave New World. What would my conception of self have been in my earlier, impressionable years, had I encountered a mother envisioning new paths to motherhood? Had I encountered a woman unashamed to imagine an independent existence outside of parenting?
Absent in Mitchison's reflections are any meaningful reflections on race or class, and our willing suspension of disbelief in the effortless economy Mary enjoys is necessary. Aware of those shortcomings, though, this is a book I wish was more well-known, and I'm grateful to have finally stumbled upon it.
While this story reflects on a number of questions familiar to science fiction readers - that of time warping and off-Earth travel and alien communication and human adaptability - most compelling are the questions it raises about reproductive freedom and motherhood. Mary, like all human women, is able to choose fathers of her children outside any expected long-term relationship or legal commitment. She weighs personal connection, appearance, availability and comfort and selects a number of partners during and in between her own independent missions. She feels fondness for them, as she does the children they share, but she is first and foremost Mary, a space explorer, and reproduction is a specific mission she undertakes when she chooses to, children becoming new members of a loosely defined crew with its own freedoms. At one pt, as she worries for her half-human/half-Martian daughter, Viola, she admits to the reader that such "motherly" worry is unnatural, as she respects her children as independent humans with rights to freedom of thought and expression and movement. For a woman in the 1960s - herself in an open marriage and a mother to seven children - to imagine, so boldly, a world in which women have complete agency in reproduction and child rearing, in which women feel no pressure to exhibit maternal "instincts" or to show maternal affection, in which women choose partners or don't choose partners, as they see fit, is remarkable. In her book Hatching: Experiments in Motherhood and Technology, Jenni Quilter, contrasts Mitchison's exploration of the future of reproduction with that of her contemporary Aldous Huxley in Brave New World. And now I can't stop imagining a different version of my life where Memoirs of a Spacewoman was on my high school syllabus instead of Brave New World. What would my conception of self have been in my earlier, impressionable years, had I encountered a mother envisioning new paths to motherhood? Had I encountered a woman unashamed to imagine an independent existence outside of parenting?
Absent in Mitchison's reflections are any meaningful reflections on race or class, and our willing suspension of disbelief in the effortless economy Mary enjoys is necessary. Aware of those shortcomings, though, this is a book I wish was more well-known, and I'm grateful to have finally stumbled upon it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Colonisation
Moderate: Medical trauma and Medical content
Minor: Sexual content
cattytrona's review
3.0
an interesting piece. it’s funny to read about the future in that clipped and proper mid-century domestic drama style. and fun to see scifi so little concerned with plot, and so much more engaged with just moving through its world: mitchison comes up with some really cool innovations for both her alien and human characters.
two main hesitations, both unfortunate side effects of when it was written
two main hesitations, both unfortunate side effects of when it was written
- exists post story of your life/arrival. the early bits establishing what communication means in this world particularly reminded me of that story, but without the turn, so that i was just unfortunately conscious of what it wasn’t doing
- entrenched in some really uncomfortable gender stuff. embraces some real attitudes about women being caring and maternal, across advancements and species and galaxies, to the extent that i kept feeling like, this must be some kind of critique. must be. especially because there are some tentative attempts at a less binary approach to gender, and a desire for a radical approach to sex. but no, less binary is still pretty binary, radical sex is still reproductive sex, just without marriage. i found this sexism more difficult to read than the big brushstrokes women as sidelined stuff you often come up against in scifi, because it was a shame it came from mitchison, and the women’s press, and because it felt particularly insidious inside this attempt at a woman-told utopia.
corymojojojo's review against another edition
3.0
3.5. This is a book of ideas and some fascinating ideas at that. Almost written as a scientific report, we hear about the protagonist’s many expeditions to different planets and galaxies, where she is in charge of establishing communication with all sorts of different interesting creatures. This is creative, anthropological sci-fi in the vein of Le Guin (in fact there are many direct comparisons to be made to The Left Hand of Darkness which this predates), but Mitchison takes a scientific style akin to Lem’s Solaris as opposed to Le Guin’s more character-focused Hainish novels. This was, in fact, the big downside to this book for me: a lack of real plot or interesting characters (which was my complaint about Solaris as well). For the most part it reads like a textbook and can be quite dry, but if that doesn’t bother you, the unique biological and moral concepts she’s come up with are excellent, often quite gross as well (something about a “graft” in any context grosses me out lol). I also liked this future humanity who so strongly seek knowledge of life in the universe and has strict non-interference policies, emphasizing the importance of respect to all forms of life. This story technically even takes places over possibly hundreds of years, with “time blackout” due to interstellar travel being an important factor in their culture, considering how it affects your job and your relationships, especially with your own children.
chamberofemily's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
isayhourwrong's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
ulalala's review
adventurous
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
purepazaak's review
5.0
the description for this book is ridiculous. every chapter was about her learning a new, completely alien language with a different planetary species. the narrative comes from a scientific point of view and does not focus on the narrator's sexuality whatsoever
theres a couple mentions of her body
theres a huge problem in sci fi where if a woman experiences something, it is read as hyper sexual. this is an important issue to address
THIS BOOK IS ABOUT VISITING AND OBSERVING ALIEN WORLDS WITHOUT BREAKING THE PRIME DIRECTIVE
and unlike star trek the narrator actually TRIES not to break the prime directive
theres a couple mentions of her body
theres a huge problem in sci fi where if a woman experiences something, it is read as hyper sexual. this is an important issue to address
THIS BOOK IS ABOUT VISITING AND OBSERVING ALIEN WORLDS WITHOUT BREAKING THE PRIME DIRECTIVE
and unlike star trek the narrator actually TRIES not to break the prime directive