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A review by curgoth
Glasshouse by Charles Stross
5.0
Audiobook re-read.
I didn't find this as mind-opening or insightful as I did the first time I read it. Some of that is that I'm older and have read more non-fiction feminism. This time around, I found the earlier parts of Reeve's time in the Glasshouse to be a tad off, though further on I decided that a fair bit of my concerns were addressed by the project messing with her mind when they put her in.
To an extent, it goes after contemporary gender ideas from an outsider's perspective like Ada Palmer's Too Like The Lightning, but doesn't push it nearly as far. It's more of a direct critique, especially in the beginning.
It also serves as an examination of "okay, but what could you *really* do with Star Trek's transporters?", which is the sort of thing I quite like.
My own reaction to the gender examinations in Glasshouse, in retrospect, remind me of reading The Handmaid's Tale in high school. There's the sudden understanding of the social privilege and physical power I have just by virtue of being born in reasonably healthy cismale body.
Which is where the first chunk of the Experiment feels off for me, now - Robin/Reeve's reactions to becoming cisfemale feel like what a contemporary cisman might feel to suddenly be in that body, and not what a posthuman used to building identities to order might feel. I have decided that there's subtext about this being the result of the Experiment's mental tinkering with the subjects, but I am unsure if that's deliberate on Stross' part or not.
I did still enjoy it, on this time through.
From an audio read perspective, Kevin R. Free does a fine job.
I didn't find this as mind-opening or insightful as I did the first time I read it. Some of that is that I'm older and have read more non-fiction feminism. This time around, I found the earlier parts of Reeve's time in the Glasshouse to be a tad off, though further on I decided that a fair bit of my concerns were addressed by the project messing with her mind when they put her in.
To an extent, it goes after contemporary gender ideas from an outsider's perspective like Ada Palmer's Too Like The Lightning, but doesn't push it nearly as far. It's more of a direct critique, especially in the beginning.
It also serves as an examination of "okay, but what could you *really* do with Star Trek's transporters?", which is the sort of thing I quite like.
My own reaction to the gender examinations in Glasshouse, in retrospect, remind me of reading The Handmaid's Tale in high school. There's the sudden understanding of the social privilege and physical power I have just by virtue of being born in reasonably healthy cismale body.
Which is where the first chunk of the Experiment feels off for me, now - Robin/Reeve's reactions to becoming cisfemale feel like what a contemporary cisman might feel to suddenly be in that body, and not what a posthuman used to building identities to order might feel. I have decided that there's subtext about this being the result of the Experiment's mental tinkering with the subjects, but I am unsure if that's deliberate on Stross' part or not.
I did still enjoy it, on this time through.
From an audio read perspective, Kevin R. Free does a fine job.