North Wind

Rating:
Summary: Artistic garbage given form (I'd give 0 stars if I could)
Review: Fascinating exploration of gender, self, difference and all facets of identity. This book is a sequel to "White Queen", but I don't think the order you read them in matters. Set on earth in a future of poverty, virtual reality and a "gender" war between traditionalists and reformists. Two hundred years of a limited alien presence on earth has not improved communications or relations - the humans think the aliens can read their minds - the aliens regard science and human technology as mysticism and magic and are equally paranoid. Their is a temporary ceasefire and a massacre of the aliens, and a disabled librarian survives with a human guide who may not be trustworthy....

Rating:
Summary: one of the best SF books this century
Review: Fascinating exploration of gender, self, difference and all facets of identity. This book is a sequel to "White Queen", but I don't think the order you read them in matters. Set on earth in a future of poverty, virtual reality and a "gender" war between traditionalists and reformists. Two hundred years of a limited alien presence on earth has not improved communications or relations - the humans think the aliens can read their minds - the aliens regard science and human technology as mysticism and magic and are equally paranoid. Their is a temporary ceasefire and a massacre of the aliens, and a disabled librarian survives with a human guide who may not be trustworthy....

Rating:
Summary: Hermaphroditic aliens in a war-torn world
Review: This sequel to the award-winning "White Queen" takes place some years later on an earth torn by the Gender Wars or the Traditionalists versus the Reformers. Earth still accommodates the Aleutians, hermaphroditic aliens who have been lost in space aboard a huge ship-world for countless generations and have now made earth their home.

The Aleutians, whose absolute belief in reincarnation makes them immortal, at least in their own eyes, do not understand earthlings' concern with individual death, which gives them an amusingly skewed vision of war, pollution and disease.

Aleutians communicate almost telepathically through wanderers, bits of themselves which wander from one to another like lice, carrying information. Their technology is also life-based - tools created from their own cells - and they have no interest in earth technology or "dead" matter. They cannot comprehend, for instance, the earthlings attachment to the Himalayas, which the Aleutians would like to level in the interests of climate control.

The protagonists are Sidney Carton, a consciously literary fellow, who may or may not be the Aleutian ally he pretends to be, and Bella, the "isolate" Aleutian crippled among her/his own kind by a lack of wanderers and sought by all sides for reasons she does not understand. Rescued from human attack by Sidney, Bella discovers health and strength in adversity and a surprising talent for human virtual reality games.

The book's adventures through war-torn cities and cultural factions are at times confusing - Jones makes it purposely difficult to determine the sides, and their search for the secret human discovery of faster-than-light travel seems an afterthought - but Jones' vision of alien culture keeps its quirky allure, being both thought-provoking and humorous.

Rating:
Summary: Artistic garbage given form (I'd give 0 stars if I could)
Review: Truely this has to be one of the worst books I have ever read. While i'm sure the gender references would have been interesting and insightful if it wasn't for the fact that a good explanation reveals itself. The main characters where poorly written but that could excusably be called a blessing to mask the fact that the settings where rather abstract. However, I understand that there is a book before this in the series. Perhaps if you had read that beforehand you might not come away so disgusted by this book. If I ever see anyone buy this book i'll slap em' on the wrists and tell them "I'm sorry, you want a book written by someone good"