I really liked the 1/2 of the first book in the series. After that…
I wont bother recapping what happens because I assume anyone reading this has also read the books, hence the spoiler warning.
On the one hand I appreciate the feminist aspects of the story. Consent, colonialism and sexism are a huge part of the books.
But naritavly they all fall apart. Books 2 and 3 are basically white noise were nothing happens. They are divorced from the POV character lilith and as such have no commentary that goes beyond: humans bad. Very bad. Like holy **** why should we care about any of them bad. But both Akin and Jodahs have very little personality and feel so alien that its hard to relate to.
I would desperately want to know what Lilith thinks about the state the world is in but she doesn’t get a voice anymore. She becomes extremely passive (letting akin in resister custody, not going to mars etc etc).
And then there is the almost fetishistic adherence to biology and genetics. Literally everything about human behavior is genetic according to the Ooloi but they never are proven wrong. When they “breed” Akin to be a good male, its not because they taught him differently. They just removed the patriarchy chromosome, I guess.
The books are memorable, I give them that. But there are so many problematic elements in there that take you out of it. For example there is one line in the first book about how 1 guy tried to r*** a woman right after being awoken. Then its later stated that the 2 became a couple. Its never elaborated on, nor are these main characters the learn more about later. It’s just … there. And that is the problematic part. Because I don’t get what Butler meant with these sorts of stuff.
Or how are we supposed to take that men only reject Ooloi because of basically homophobia? While at the same time there being no lgbt character in the book.
All resisters lose hope once they figure out they can’t have children but a gay couple can’t either and they’d still live on. So how would that factor in? But since its never brought up, we will never know.
Lastly the actual Sin of the Aliens goes mostly unchallenged: the destruction of human culture. The Aliens have no books, no music, no theater. And as such the human hybrids don’t either. Yet nobody calls them out on it.
It… It’s just really frustrating having such an interesting world and then having to sit through yet another boring Alien mind link scene or witness yet another hate crime or sexual assault by the humans, rather than actually digging into the deeper stuff.
by SlaugtherSam