is this anything

static art under the cut:

Part of why I'm going on about this is that scholars will (or used to) regularly deny that for example china has a mythology, because of this very rigid notion that only accepts a homogenous mythology as mythology, and, well, if china doesn't have mythology then europe doesn't either.

It's also worth being critical about how useful the term is. I don't know much about ancient greece, but I don't think putting like an epic poem set before a backdrop of (what was thought to be) a historical event in the same category as plays that were part of ritual worship and stories for kids makes much sense, and it's hard to see what exactly that tells us about what it meant to be a person living in like 400 BC in athens. Not that I'm saying there is no relation, just saying that it's maybe more complicated than the mythology defining the people or culture.

I'm not against using the term "myth" but it should be used critically, especially wrt the singular myth defines a singular people thing, after all even religion, which is much more direct in creating a cohesive identity than "mythology," is subject to radically different interpretations.

People calling this book slow-paced in other reviews is kind of sending me. It switches view points like every 10 pages. That barely leaves room for anything to happen slowly.

Anyway, this book is almost perfect. Ann Leckie's sci-fi writing stands out because she isn't just interested in writing characters or concepts, but genuinely takes interest in how communities and hierarchies work and how the people involved in them connect to that and each other. I'm always fascinated by how she tries to capture historical moments of a fictional place and how these moments intersect with people who are, if not ordinary, still people. Nobody does it like her.

However, I still have criticisms. I really liked the choice to have a narrator who is explicitly addressing readers, but it feels like she didn't quite want to completely commit to the bit. Part of the fun of this style of narration is to have forewords and afterwords detailing how the text came to be published and speculating about inaccuracies and bias. I won't fault the book for not including that, but the direct and sometimes (entertainingly) patronizing sections addressing the reader being followed by hyper detailed accounts of who said what undercut each other and the latter undercuts the way the narration speculates about the motivations and feelings of the characters (instead of just stating them), which I really appreciated. It's a very welcome change of pace at a time where most people seem to talk about sci-fi and fantasy literature as if its sole purpose was to construct and showcase clearly defined character arcs (or, in the case of sci-fi, be a cautionary tale if it can't do that).

And yes, I did love Jonr and his consoror, too, how could I not? The feeling of being a teenager who is not allowed to be a woman and doesn't feel like they have a place in the world deeply resonates with me as a trans woman (though ofc the latter part is pretty universal for teenagers), even if that is probably(?) not intended. (There is a part in the latter half of the book in which the narrator says sth along the lines of "I think I have already explained that Jonr didn't really want to be a woman anyway" when all they, the narrator, had impressed upon me was that Jonr had given up hope to ever become a woman, which I, for example, had done, too, when I was a teenager/in my early 20s. But that's neither here nor there. Far be it from me to say that any character I can relate to I need to be able to relate to completely, just pointing out common experiences. Though ofc Jonr should transition. Whatever.) As always with Ann Leckie, there is a lot to talk about wrt how sex-gender works in the story and how it is portrayed. The most obvious thing is that for the consorority sex-gender functions almost as a caste system with completely reversed roles: those who become men are confined to domestic and service work while women are basically matriarchs (though we only ever meet one woman from the consorority, so it's hard to tell). This is also said to be the case for the wider society of the planet, albeit with less strict division of labor; less of a caste system and more roles and expectations. Jonr and his relationship to his consoror demonstrate that. However, the other men important to the story are Serque Tais, the patriarch of a powerful family and company, and his son Iono, whose relationship with his nonbinary consort (the neo-pronoun "sie" is written exactly like the word for "she" in german, pronounced "ze" to make matters worse, which always makes these english neo-pronouns have unintended connotations to me) plays out exactly like an almost stereotypical rich guy social climber wife relationship, even though his consort is neither a woman nor a wife. Why do these patriarchs not face sexism, if they are the apparently rare men in power who aren't confined to the domestic sphere? An oversight, or is the city in fact a clashing of wildly different sex-gender norms and expectations? I don't know. It's just interesting, because Leckie certainly doesn't shy away from portraying women (and nbs) as positioned in dominant roles and engaged in abusive behaviour, so it feels deliberate.

Anyway read the book it's abt religion, starvation and noble overlords. (Why is the Lord of the Radch a Lord? To draw attention to the fact that Radch hierarchies are no less fucked up and hierarchichal than societies in which men exist? No, no forget it… read the book.)