Hello, Friday Fiction Fans! Today’s review is an interesting take by Arthur. Please enjoy…
Someone, I suppose, is needed to write reviews that do little other than repeat the book blurb. Although, I tend to find the book blurbs sufficient for that purpose. But I certainly am not that person and this is not that review.
I love books that deal with cultures. I love science fiction because it means one can invent cultures and then play with them. And I love this book, Fledgling by Mr. and Mrs. Steve Miller because it does exactly that for several different cultures. These cultures range from an oppressively ‘safe’ academic matriarchy (which turns out not to be very safe) to a rather unexplained anti-foreigner totalitarian society that reveres spaceship pilots, to the planet-spanning culture of pilots themselves, to the (extremely important but mostly subtle or off-stage) culture of the planet of Liad… in which ones clan and ones honor are of paramount importance.
Fortunately (or unfortunately, you be the judge) I also love picking apart the various inconsistencies of these various cultures. What works and what doesn’t, and why. So I loved thinking about how the matriarchal and academic society evolved an oppressive ‘safety’ system that ended up being rather unsafe for anyone that fell outside of the norm. However, their inability to understand the psychological devastation that would be entailed in a child being ripped from their home life with a mother and father to completely different quarters without that father seems mystifying. How could maternal academics manage to miss such a thing?
Or, could a planet that valued its economy really afford to have every single tourist be required to have a guide at all times? Surely the cost would be staggering.
As this book is part of a series, the most fascinating culture is that of ‘Liad’, a planet and race apart from the ‘Terrans’ that this book mostly concerns. Over this series, we learn many interesting things about this culture. Some seem workable, others questionable, and still others fundamentally contradictory.
For the purposes of this review, the issues of marriage and child raising are fundamental. On both Liad and the matriarchal planet ‘marriage’ as an institution bears little resemblance to the institution that we are accustomed to (and, from a Christian perspective, that actually exists as created by God).
Casual sexual liaisons aside, ‘marriage’ exists on Liad as a series of contracts, arranged typically by the head of the clan, designed to produce children for the clan (eventually one child for each clan, which is the typical math error that modern writers fall into) and for which issues of love and sexual attraction are decidedly secondary, and which lasts only until the child has been produced. ‘Marriage’ on the matriarchal planet is far otherwise. Children are produced artificially, so ‘marriage’ is for physical pleasure and status. But, again, arranged and contracted for, and for a limited duration… as long as the pleasure and status issues continue.
And, indeed, ones first sexual pairing is even more along the same lines… arranged by the mother (the father’s being unimportant), under contract, and with the purpose of sexual initiation and status.
Except (and isn’t it always interesting when an author does this) for the main characters. By and large, while they may (have) engaged (d) in these artificial, contractual, sexual pairings… their own sex and married life tends to break the mold. From book to book main character after main character finds it impossible or undesirable to engage in the required contractual sexual pairing until the authors have managed to find their ‘lifemate’, with whom they will permanently bond and produce children which they will raise together. All without actually undermining the nature of the society’s sexual contracts.
As Christians, I think we owe it to our society to examine the fundamental nature of what we believe, and not merely wave our hands tamely at the blasphemous elements in our society. If we do not understand what marriage actually is, the fundamentally created nature of men and women, the importance of both to children, and this like, how are we to preach the gospel in a heathen age?
(NB: The names that I have given the authors here are different from how they appear on the cover of their books. In this age of political correctness and wokeism I make this choice intentionally and with malice aforethought. If you are confused as to why perhaps you need to read the review again.)
