Insomniac Lark

I forget why I went to pick up this book. If I had to guess it was something about language since I like reading about language, how interesting and imprecise it can be. This story deals with our understanding of and perceptions based on language, but perceptions of others in general.

To talk about this book means talking about the twist, but the twist requires some set up. Ro is a member of an alien species that successfully 'jumps' or takes over the consciousness of, another alien race called the 'star eaters' who are able to perceive a rare kind of ore the galaxy runs on, leaving his native body behind in the process, unable to return.

Ro is eager to study the Star eaters' culture and language from the perspective of an insider, while his species wants him to steal ore from the mine to offset ore being taken from them by another race.

Only for Ro to find out that every star-eater has been 'jumped' by someone of some other race. The galaxy's collective understanding of star-eaters has been reinforced through generations of lies and misunderstandings. Everything from speech patterns to cultural aspects has been manufactured by being taking over star-eater bodies and communicating with others who have taken over star-eater bodies. And this has doomed the galaxy as no one who has taken over these bodies can reproduce, so when this last generation dies, so will a lot of other people.

Without the assumption that anyone reading this has read the book it's hard to convey the magnitude of the twist. The line from Ro's culture about only taking over 'three or so' bodies every couple hundred years, that entitlement to the star-eaters' bodies and how every other species doing it is what caused the genocide. It erased the star-eaters entirely, from their language to their culture to knowledge of their reproduction, they exist only in body and in bodies that haven't belonged to them in lifetimes. And no one noticed.

Ro being male as well is an interesting choice given the star-eater race reproduced asexually and is thus considered female by his species. It isn't a choice I feel I can bring new insight into, but body swapping into the opposite sex when reproduction, and forced reproduction at that, is at stake is a decision that many words have likely been written about. I may end up revisiting that point eventually when I own the book and can read it through gendered lenses from the beginning.

Ro, for all his curiosity about the star-eaters and disgust about their cruel treatment isn't exempt from this, having desired to jump into a star-eater body knowing it would over-ride the creature inside it and still thinking himself entitled to that experience. He may not feel entitled to their ore like many of his species, not enough to be comfortable stealing it and enough to prioritize learning and passing on information, but he is does feel entitled to the star-eaters' experiences. The story ends with him and several others trying to figure out what happened to the star-eaters and considering telling themselves a story of the race moving on as their galaxies and billions die, again showing a level of entitlement to telling the race's story even if it comes from a place of curiosity and wanting to make up for his own participation on the genocide rather than greed.