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A review by booksthatburn
Shades and Silver by Dax Murray
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
*I received a free review copy in exchange for an honest review of this book.
“Shades” and “Silver” are a pair of stories set in a world where each person choses their metal(s) and crafts their horn when they come of age. It’s a society without delineations of gender, and part of why it works so well is that it’s not trying to use metal horns to replicate some version of gender. Instead, the horns are a social signifier, a rite of passage, and a way of claiming one’s own identity and declaring some aspect of personality to the community. These are all things that gender facilitates in many parts of our world, but this novella illustrates very well how something else can fill those social needs, especially in a fantasy setting unconstrained by actual abilities.
Things I love, in no particular order: The discussions of the aftermath of a traumatic brain injury, the feeling of a gap between who you could’ve been, if this hadn’t happened, and the reality of living with the person that does exist, and making some kind of peace with that; The horns are a thing that has many of the social functions that are filled by gender in the real world, but are not attempting to be a one-to-one parallel. If anything, the parallels are fluent and aspirational, something someone chooses, informed by their past, but not bound by it, deeply related to who they are as they come of age. In "Silver", there’s an exploration of what happens when you have to fake this thing that everyone else has, that they just assume you’ll be able to do too, and how hard it can be to know, if it’s safe to tell, and when other people have a vested interest, in you continuing to fake it.
“Shades” and “Silver” are a pair of stories set in a world where each person choses their metal(s) and crafts their horn when they come of age. It’s a society without delineations of gender, and part of why it works so well is that it’s not trying to use metal horns to replicate some version of gender. Instead, the horns are a social signifier, a rite of passage, and a way of claiming one’s own identity and declaring some aspect of personality to the community. These are all things that gender facilitates in many parts of our world, but this novella illustrates very well how something else can fill those social needs, especially in a fantasy setting unconstrained by actual abilities.
Things I love, in no particular order: The discussions of the aftermath of a traumatic brain injury, the feeling of a gap between who you could’ve been, if this hadn’t happened, and the reality of living with the person that does exist, and making some kind of peace with that; The horns are a thing that has many of the social functions that are filled by gender in the real world, but are not attempting to be a one-to-one parallel. If anything, the parallels are fluent and aspirational, something someone chooses, informed by their past, but not bound by it, deeply related to who they are as they come of age. In "Silver", there’s an exploration of what happens when you have to fake this thing that everyone else has, that they just assume you’ll be able to do too, and how hard it can be to know, if it’s safe to tell, and when other people have a vested interest, in you continuing to fake it.
Content Warnings
Minor: Injury/Injury detail and Emotional abuse