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A review by a_sullivan16
The Geek Feminist Revolution by Kameron Hurley
4.0
3.5 stars rounded up to 4 for that lovely epilogue, which I'm glad she ended up including!
Happy new year! So glad I kicked it off with another installment in the Hurleyverse.
Much of my rating/feelings towards this book are based on the latter - feelings. I came across Hurley's work mid-2022 and it changed my outlook not just on my own creative writing, but where I want to go, what I want to do, etc. So to open this deeply personal book and learn the remarkable way she pursued her master's degree, her terrifying autoimmune disease, her rallying cries for universal healthcare, and her "grim optimism" only ratified my respect for her. The entire experience was very serendipitous; I just finished playing the Mass Effect trilogy for the first time in November, and here she is, echoing my exact feelings on the series.
This isn't a collection designed to explicitly educate or break down feminist theory. It's the ruminations of a seasoned genre professional, backed up with personal experience and one of the sharpest tongues I've ever had the pleasure of reading. As a writer, it really resonated with me, but it might not have the same impact for someone working in another medium.
The collection isn't perfect, though, far from it. I think the essays are trapped in her blog-writing format (which she is very adept with!) and the collection suffers as a whole for it. The sections are not evenly weighted; the Geek and Revolution sections seemed to bleed subject material into the other pretty frequently. I liked her tone - biting, casual, sarcastic, and wry - but it evoked some of the same criticisms I had with "The Light Brigade;" it couldn't always deliver the profound points Hurley was aiming for.
I also didn't care for her inclusion of trans/nonbinary folks. And this critique would come with a lot more weight if I weren't familiar with her other works, wherein her gender politics, I think, are nothing short of brilliance. Her constant reference to her male contemporaries in the sci-fi space ignoring HALF of their community and audience was often uncomfortable for me. I deeply identify with her GNC/non-binary characters (Taigan being a personal favorite) and I didn't think she was accurately representing us in these essays. Again, this would hurt a lot more if her real work, the fiction she's based her life around, wasn't so spectacular. I just think it was an oversight that should've been rectified in editing for this collection. We were there on the page, but often as an overemphasized addition and not an obvious original tenet of the piece.
I would not have enjoyed this book if I wasn't familiar with her work already, so I caution all readers to check out her Worldbreaker series before reading this. You can feel her passion for that trilogy leaking in these pages -- I think she was working on Empire Ascendant during this time (which I think is the best out of the 3!). But overall, it left a good taste in my mouth. I'm eager to meet the challenge Hurley has presented me with, to go beyond her, tread the ground she placed beneath my feet as a storyteller and a creative, and to push back the established narrative that seeks to erase what it defines as "abnormalities."
Happy new year! So glad I kicked it off with another installment in the Hurleyverse.
Much of my rating/feelings towards this book are based on the latter - feelings. I came across Hurley's work mid-2022 and it changed my outlook not just on my own creative writing, but where I want to go, what I want to do, etc. So to open this deeply personal book and learn the remarkable way she pursued her master's degree, her terrifying autoimmune disease, her rallying cries for universal healthcare, and her "grim optimism" only ratified my respect for her. The entire experience was very serendipitous; I just finished playing the Mass Effect trilogy for the first time in November, and here she is, echoing my exact feelings on the series.
This isn't a collection designed to explicitly educate or break down feminist theory. It's the ruminations of a seasoned genre professional, backed up with personal experience and one of the sharpest tongues I've ever had the pleasure of reading. As a writer, it really resonated with me, but it might not have the same impact for someone working in another medium.
The collection isn't perfect, though, far from it. I think the essays are trapped in her blog-writing format (which she is very adept with!) and the collection suffers as a whole for it. The sections are not evenly weighted; the Geek and Revolution sections seemed to bleed subject material into the other pretty frequently. I liked her tone - biting, casual, sarcastic, and wry - but it evoked some of the same criticisms I had with "The Light Brigade;" it couldn't always deliver the profound points Hurley was aiming for.
I also didn't care for her inclusion of trans/nonbinary folks. And this critique would come with a lot more weight if I weren't familiar with her other works, wherein her gender politics, I think, are nothing short of brilliance. Her constant reference to her male contemporaries in the sci-fi space ignoring HALF of their community and audience was often uncomfortable for me. I deeply identify with her GNC/non-binary characters (Taigan being a personal favorite) and I didn't think she was accurately representing us in these essays. Again, this would hurt a lot more if her real work, the fiction she's based her life around, wasn't so spectacular. I just think it was an oversight that should've been rectified in editing for this collection. We were there on the page, but often as an overemphasized addition and not an obvious original tenet of the piece.
I would not have enjoyed this book if I wasn't familiar with her work already, so I caution all readers to check out her Worldbreaker series before reading this. You can feel her passion for that trilogy leaking in these pages -- I think she was working on Empire Ascendant during this time (which I think is the best out of the 3!). But overall, it left a good taste in my mouth. I'm eager to meet the challenge Hurley has presented me with, to go beyond her, tread the ground she placed beneath my feet as a storyteller and a creative, and to push back the established narrative that seeks to erase what it defines as "abnormalities."