Ethan of Athos
4 stars
This book is the logical extension of the exploration of "uterine replicator" technology. We see Betans and Barrayarans using them to have safer and more egalitarian pregnancies. We see Cetagandans using them in the previous book to design humans differently. And, here in this book, the planet Athos is using them to perpetuate their remote society made up only of men.
(And yeah, yeah, this story was written in 1986, and so we'll just handwave over what the fate of poor trans folks or non-gay men might be on this planet. On this planet, women are sort of treated as mythological demons that have hypnotized galactic men with their wiles. This book is written in a way to make Ethan come off as comically naive, but the religious indoctrination here is horrifying if you think about it to any degree.)
Ethan is the earnest straight man (:drum:) in this comedy …
This book is the logical extension of the exploration of "uterine replicator" technology. We see Betans and Barrayarans using them to have safer and more egalitarian pregnancies. We see Cetagandans using them in the previous book to design humans differently. And, here in this book, the planet Athos is using them to perpetuate their remote society made up only of men.
(And yeah, yeah, this story was written in 1986, and so we'll just handwave over what the fate of poor trans folks or non-gay men might be on this planet. On this planet, women are sort of treated as mythological demons that have hypnotized galactic men with their wiles. This book is written in a way to make Ethan come off as comically naive, but the religious indoctrination here is horrifying if you think about it to any degree.)
Ethan is the earnest straight man (:drum:) in this comedy routine who is sent off to figure out what happened to their shipment of ovarian tissue for the uterine replicators on Athos. He's never left his planet until now. He's never seen a woman before. He also tries to recruit people to Athos and earnestly doesn't understand why nobody else wants to move to his religious men-only remote planet. Understandably, this book has a good bit of explicit homophobia (but also some fatphobia). That said, it's largely background radiation to the story, rather than something any of the protagonists are doing themselves directly.
All things told, this book holds up as a lot of fun on a reread. Ethan is out of his depth even before he gets captured by some Cetagandans who then attempt to murder Ethan when he doesn't know anything. He gets rescued by Elli Quinn (of the Dendarii Mercenaries, also an absolute delight) who is trying to kill the Cetagandans and chasing what they're after. We also get some interesting worldbuilding for Kline Station, in terms of station life, biocontrol, and newt ecology. Overall, I would pitch this as a spy/heist story that weaves in sociological observations and stars an earnest-but-naive protagonist.
