Hoffman.es@XEROX.ARPA (09/04/84)
NATIVE TONGUE by S. H. Elgin, DAW paperback, August 1984, $3.50 Mini-precis: In 1991, the 25th Amendment assured the supremacy of males in every aspect of life. In the late 22nd and early 23rd century, the 13 families of Linguists are the sole interpreters of the hundreds of alien languages, though non-humanoid languages are beyond even their skills. The book deals with language learning, language inventing, and the cold war between the sexes. Among the topics: The Linguist women have been creating a 'women's language' for generations. The Linguists are indispensable to society and are highly resented. The government has a failing secret crash program to break a non-humanoid language. Mini-review: Recommended. Lots of good ideas in an intriguing environment (mostly within a Linguist enclave). Quite a few well-developed characters and sub-plots. Well written, but occasional sloppy copy-editing (typos). Suzette Haden Elgin is a professor of linguistics and, it says here, author of nine major science fiction and fantasy novels since 1969, though I've never heard of her before. The ideas in this book reminded me of early Ian Watson and of many feminist SF writers. --Rodney Hoffman
betsy@dartvax.UUCP (Betsy Hanes Perry) (09/07/84)
Suzette Hadley Elgin is the author of a fine trilogy about a planet
called Mizzurah; the only title I can remember is the last volume, called
'And Then There'll Be Fireworks'. Mizzurah is a planet settled by
a number of disgusted Appalachians; needless to say, magic works.
I thought it was funny, and the heroine's marvelous. Her name is
Responsible of Brightwater; need I say more?
Ms. Elgin also has written several stories/novellas about the Communipath
worlds, so called because telepaths are used for interstellar communication.
Unfortunately, they tend to burn out and die before they're twenty.
Again, I like the characters very much. (Trivia note: Joanna Russ'
'The Two of Us' is based on the setting of one of Ms. Elgin's Communipath
novels.)
--
Betsy Perry
UUCP: {decvax|linus|cornell}!dartvax!betsy "What is Truth?" said
CSNET: betsy@dartmouth jesting Pilate; and would
ARPA: betsy%dartmouth@csnet-relay not stay for an answer.