Harare Review of Books

196 pages.

Expected publication date: Sept 17, 2022.

Genre: Speculative Fiction.

TW for rape.

Thank you very much to Edelweiss and to Vanderbilt University Press for this DRC.

Humans know about one other intelligent race, the Xhroll, who make contact with a space station when they need help with minor repairs to their spacecraft. In the delegation is an apparently female-presenting alien; Nico, an engineer/mechanic, is keen to have sexual relations with them. Within minutes, it seems, this is accomplished; but Nico then falls pregnant, and the Xhroll, who have a planet-wide fertility crisis, want the baby.

It is very much worth reading the introduction to this work beforehand, as it locates the novel in contemporary feminism, and in Spanish science fiction. It is also very enlightening to read the notes about translation into English from Spanish, the complexities of the differences in grammar, and how the author played with grammar in the writing of the book.

I was entertained and very amused by the whole concept of the book—a man gets pregnant, and, as if this is not horrifying enough *clutches pearls*, he is pregnant by an alien—and I enjoyed how the novel had me thinking about gender constructions. At least, I did, right up until the horrifying scene towards the end, where a “female” character is (TW) raped by a male one. A few hours after finishing the book, I’m still struggling with the incredible violence of that scene, and it has coloured—spoilt?—my feeling about the whole book, and distracted me from all of my other thoughts about it.

It’s difficult for me to explain just how unsettling that scene was to me. I would like to issue a very strong warning: this is a good read, but that scene is truly horrible, especially given the male character’s arc: he is a buffoon, and laughable, until he is not. I did not anticipate that scene, and, to me, there were no hints of it until that point. Be warned.

Read because: This novel is the natural descendant of Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness. Read that too, please.

If you have the stomach for it, read that scene, but I would recommend skipping over it.

My rating remains 8/10, with a strong warning.