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Title: Commitment Hour by James Alan Gardner ISBN: 0-380-79827-1 Publisher: Eos Pub. Date: 01 April, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.61 (18 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: An interesting look at a culture of sex-changing humans
Comment:
Set in the same universe as Gardners's Expendable, Commitment Hour takes place in a small village on post-emigration Earth, where the inhabitants have one unique feature- they change sex each year until age twenty, when they must choose male, female or hermaphrodite. CH traces this most important day in two people's lives, and it turns out to be a bit more wild than they expected.
There are enough surprises in the book that telling much more of the plot would involve spoilers. Overall, it's a pretty good effort- the world is nicely worked, and the two main characters seem fairly well realized. The book falls down a bit on the rest of the characters- the Spark Lord especially seems to be amazingly clueless/stupid for a scientist, and many of the others seem to be cardboard cutouts used only to move the plot along.
One point I did appreciate- those who choose hermaphrodite are tremendously oppressed, usually driven from the village or killed. It would have been very easy to make the hermaphroditic characters saints, just to drive home the "Discrimination is bad" angle. Many other writers would have done this but Gardner wisely avoids this trap.
For those who haven't read it, pick up Gardner's other book, Expendable. Although the book becomes sillier as it progresses, the first fifty pages are just screamingly funny.
Rating: 4
Summary: A most unusual story of gender roles in society
Comment: James Alan Gardner's Commitment Hour certainly isn't your run-of-the-mill science fiction novel. The author provides an interesting and sometimes uncomfortable look at the role of gender in society, but I'm not sure he is entirely successful, nor am I sure if there was some highly perceptive point he was trying to make or if he found any real answers to his own questions in this regard. The first few chapters failed to spark my interest, but in time Gardner did manage to bring a sense of life to the story and create something interesting albeit ultimately somewhat unfulfilling.
The setting is twenty-fifth century earth, a somewhat primitive and naturalistic era borne of the fact that some seventy percent of the population has left for other planets in the wake of alien visitation; the technology of man's past has largely been abandoned, its relics consigned to the stuff of legend. The aliens and the facts of the big migration are only mentioned and never really emphasized; rather, it is the unique society of Tober Cove that demands all of the author's attention. Like most new earth societies, Tober Cove is a land of farmers and fishermen; here, a priestess marks the changing of seasons in primitive rituals and the law is upheld by a representative of the legendary Patriarch. Tober Cove is unique in one regard, however; here, the children alternate their sex between male and female for the first twenty years of their lives, after which time, at the crucial Commitment Hour, each one chooses whether to live as a male, a female, or - on rare occasions - both. Neuts are rare indeed, for those who choose a hermaphroditic life are banished from the land and threatened with instant death should they return.
Fullin stands on the brink of his Commitment Hour choice, as does his life's partner Cappie. Fullin is confused enough by his feelings toward Cappie, feelings which vary significantly from year to year as his sex changes, but life gets infinitely more confusing when a scientist comes to witness and study the Commitment Hour ceremonies, bringing alongside him a Neut banished from Tober Cove twenty years earlier. Murder and other disquieting horror visits the village, and by the time Fullin and Cappie are ready to be flown to the mysterious Birds Home to make their final commitments, dramatic change indeed is blowing in the wind. It is only in the final chapters that a real science fiction element enters the story, but this mainly serves as a means for wrapping up the gender study the novel basically consists of.
The story can be confusing at times, and the mixing and confusion of sexual perspectives never truly delivers any revelations of insight. The fact that Fullin, ostensibly a male at this time, is troubled by homosexual feelings from both sides of the gender line, combined with the whole society's antipathy toward Neuts, strikes a discordant chord, and few of Gardner's sexual questions find answers in his strikingly unusual conclusion. Commitment Hour is a strange novel, a book of probing questions without ultimate answers, but such is the very state of society itself. Some readers will no doubt find this novel an uncomfortable read, but its novelty and sense of unusual purpose make of it a story worth pursuing and pondering over.
Rating: 4
Summary: Future choices
Comment: It's the future and in a backward place on Earth a small town goes about its daily activities. Fullin, the musician hero, is about ready to make the committment - the decision as to which sex they will be the rest of their lives. Only strangers appear from afar and over time he finds out that reality is not what it appear nor what he could even imagine. Allegedly a citizen went off and returned 24 hours a different sex. The reality of this was something different. Without giving away the plot it involves cloning, brain wave transferance, three sexes and experiments by an advanced civilization.
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Title: Vigilant by James Alan Gardner ISBN: 0380802082 Publisher: Eos Pub. Date: 01 March, 1999 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Hunted by James Alan Gardner ISBN: 0380802090 Publisher: Eos Pub. Date: 01 July, 2000 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Trapped by James Alan Gardner ISBN: 0380813300 Publisher: Eos Pub. Date: 01 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Ascending by James Alan Gardner ISBN: 0380813297 Publisher: Eos Pub. Date: 30 October, 2001 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Expendable by James Alan Gardner ISBN: 038079439X Publisher: Eos Pub. Date: 01 March, 1999 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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