Tag: New Legends

Coming of Age in Karhide by Ursula K. Le Guin

Posted on by Paul Fraser

Coming of Age in Karhide by Ursula K. Le Guin (New Legends, edited by Greg Bear & Martin H. Greenberg, 1995) is one of her ‘Hainish’ stories, the most famous example of which is The Left Hand of Darkness. This story also takes place on the world of Gethen, a.k.a Winter, and, after some accomplished and elegant scene setting, the piece soon becomes a coming-of-age story about of one of the children of this planet, Sov Thade Tage em Ereb. Because Sov is an androgynous Gethenian, the process of growing up involves, in part, a fascination with the concept of “kemmer,” the periods after adolescence when Gethenians change into males or females to reproduce:

No, I hadn’t thought much about kemmer before. What would be the use? Until we come of age we have no gender and no sexuality, our hormones don’t give us any trouble at all. And in a city Hearth we never see adults in kemmer. They kiss and go. Where’s Maba? In the kemmerhouse, love, now eat your porridge. When’s Maba coming back? Soon, love. And in a couple of days Maba comes back, looking sleepy and shiny and refreshed and exhausted. Is it like having a bath, Maba? Yes, a bit, love, and what have you been up to while I was away?  p. 290 (Year’s Best SF, edited by David Hartwell)

Eventually Sov ages enough to show the first signs of kemmer, which involves temporary physical changes and some discomfort, something Sov later discusses with a friend called Sether, who is going through the same thing:

We did not look at each other. Very gradually, unnoticeably, I was slowing my pace till we were going along side by side at an easy walk.
“Sometimes do you feel like your tits are on fire?” I asked without knowing that I was going to say anything.
Sether nodded.
After a while, Sether said, “Listen, does your pisser get. . . .”
I nodded.
“It must be what the Aliens look like,” Sether said with revulsion. “This, this thing sticking out, it gets so big . . . it gets in the way.”
We exchanged and compared symptoms for a mile or so. It was a relief to talk about it, to find company in misery, but it was also frightening to hear our misery confirmed by the other. Sether burst out, “I’ll tell you what I hate, what I really hate about it—it’s dehumanizing. To get jerked around like that by your own body, to lose control, I can’t stand the idea. Of being just a sex machine. And everybody just turns into something to have sex with. You know that people in kemmer go crazy and die if there isn’t anybody else in kemmer? That they’ll even attack people in somer? Their own mothers?”
“They can’t,” I said, shocked.
“Yes they can.”  p. 295

After a brief visit to the Fastness, which appears to be some spiritual seat of higher learning (and where Sov learns how to “untrance” and sing), the remainder of the story follows Sov’s first visit to the kemmerhouse. We see how the Gethenian sexual change is triggered (Sov becomes a female after being exposed to the male pheromones of one of the cooks at her Hearth), and learn of the various lovers she takes afterwards.
This a very well written piece (there is so much textual detail that it almost feels like a tapestry) but the story is ultimately little more than an extended alien biology lesson (although the kemmer process will be of interest to those that have read The Left Hand of Darkness).
*** (Good). 7,950 words.

The Day the Aliens Came by Robert Sheckley

Posted on by Paul Fraser

The Day the Aliens Came by Robert Sheckley (New Legends, edited by Greg Bear & Martin H. Greenberg, 1995) gets off to a quirky start when an alien Synestrian (they appear similar to humans but have faces that look as if they have melted) comes to the writer’s door wanting to buy a story. They come to a deal and, when the writer finishes the story, he takes it to the alien and gets the latter’s notes:

[The] Synester said, “this character you have in here, Alice.”
“Yes, Alice,” I said, though I couldn’t quite remember writing an Alice into the story. Could he be referring to Alsace, the province in France? I decided not to question him. No sense appearing dumb on my own story.
“Now, this Alice,” he said, “she’s the size of a small country, isn’t she?”
He was definitely referring to Alsace, the province in France, and I had lost the moment when I could correct him. “Yes,” I said, “that’s right, just about the size of a small country.”
“Well, then,” he said, “why don’t you have Alice fall in love with a bigger country in the shape of a pretzel?”
“A what?” I said.
“Pretzel,” he said. “It’s a frequently used image in Synestrian popular literature. Synestrians like to read that sort of thing.”
“Do they?” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “Synestrians like to imagine people in the shape of pretzels. You stick that in, it’ll make it more visual.”
“Visual,” I said, my mind a blank.
“Yes,” he said, “because we gotta consider the movie possibilities.”
“Yes, of course,” I said, remembering that I got sixty percent [of the movie rights].  p. 356 (Year’s Best SF, edited by David Hartwell)

This extract pretty much sums up the quirky, offbeat tone of the story. Unfortunately the following scenes are equally as odd: we learn that his wife is also an alien; a family of Capellans turn up in their house as uninvited guests; the writer’s home is burgled when they are out but the Capellans just watch; the Capellan’s baby is kidnapped and they don’t seem to care; the couple watch a show where a man eats small aliens that congregate on his plate; the couple’s baby arrives before the wife goes into labour; etc.)
This just seems like random, pointless nonsense, and seems typical of what I’ve read of Sheckley’s late period work. I don’t know if he forgot how to write normal stories, or whether he was attempting to write some kind of modernist or post-modernist humour but, either way, it’s not worth your time.
– (Awful). 3,800 words.