Yzabel / September 22, 2017

Darkover Landfall by Marion Zimmer Bradley

My rating: [rating=1]

Blurb:

Darkover, a planet of wonder, world of mystery, has been a favourite of science fiction readers for many years. For it is a truly alien sphere – a world of strange intelligences of brooding skies beneath a ruddy sun, and of powers unknown to Earth. In this new novel, Mario Zimmer Bradley tells of the original coming of the Earthmen, of the days when Darkover knew not humanity. This is the full bodied novel of what happened when a colonial starship crashlanded on that uncharted planet to encounter for the first time in human existence the impact of the Ghost Wind, of the psychic currents that were native only to that world, and of the price that every Earthling must pay before Darkover can claim for itself.

Review:

Erf. I’ve started re-reading this series, because I remember how much I loved it when I was a teenager… but damn, I didn’t remember this one was so bad. (Or is it because I sometimes used to like shite as a teenager, and that was part of it?)

The story in itself is not uninteresting, all the more since it’s THE origins book in the Darkover series, but the relationships… especially the way women are viewed and treated… Wow. That was one special level of bad.

[I can sort of accept a patriarchal society, women being treated as wombs, etc. in the more ‘medieval-like’ novels of the series, because 1) it fits a certain conception of ‘dark ages obscurantism’, as cliché as that may be, and 2) as far as I remember, in those books, it was often presented as something that isn’t so good: while it does remain infuriating, it’s part of the conflict underlying those narratives.

I can sort of accept a patriarchal society, women being treated as wombs, etc. in the more ‘medieval-like’ novels of the series, because 1) it fits a certain conception of ‘dark ages obscurantism’, as cliché as that may be, and 2) as far as I remember, in those books, it was often presented as something that isn’t so good: while it does remain infuriating, it’s part of the conflict underlying those narratives.

Here, though, in a group of engineers, colonists, space crew, scientists, where men and women have similar levels of skills, with gender equality laws on Earth? Nope. Doesn’t sit with me. Especially not as soon as pregnancies enter the picture, and give yet another reason for males (and some women!) to be patronising, chalk every reaction to ‘she’s pregnant’, veer towards gaslighting at times (because obviously, the guys in the story know better than Judy Lovat who’s the father of her child), and go spouting crap about how not wanting children is some sort of mental illness. Camilla’s arc was particularly painful, because, yes, she is being reduced to a walking womb, what’s with the doctor even threatening to sedate her during her pregnancy (actually, it does happen once), like some kind of stupid, ignorant being who needs to be locked for her own good. Empowering much, right?

So basically, you get accidentally pregnant (not through any fault of hers—ghost wind was to blame, same for her partner), while you thought your contraceptive was doing its job, you don’t want to have a child, but you’re denied an abortion. OK. Not cool. In the context of colonists stranded on a hostile planet, that poses an interesting conundrum (= it’s obvious that either they need to spawn as much as possible, or they’ll die in one or two generations). However, was it really necessary to lay it in such rude and demeaning ways? The Battlestar Galactica reboot has a similar subplot, but the episode about it was at least treated with much more gravitas and moral ambiguity.

It is also important to note that, no, Camilla didn’t sign up for this, so treating her as a spoiled kid throwing a tantrum was inappropriate. Putting it back into context: she’s an engineer and programmer, she signed up to be part of the ship’s crew during the trip, not to be a colonist meant to help populate a new planet. And even in the event of staying on that colony, it would’ve been in a society where she would’ve had a few years to make the decision.

I have no idea if anyone considers this book as a ‘feminist’ work, but if you do, please stop. This is not feminist, it’s patriarchy at its worst: insidious.

[To be fair, I didn’t remember this book as being the best in the series either, nor my favourite at all, so I’m still going to try rereading 2-3 others.]