Master of None

by N. Lee Wood

- N. Lee Wood is the author of "Looking for the Mahdi (Ace, 1996), "Faraday's Orphans (Ace, 1997), and "Bloodrights (Ace, 1999). "Looking for the Mahdi was selected as a "New York Times Notable Book and was also short listed for the Arthur C. Clarke Award.- The author's blend of sociology, feminism, and science fiction is reminiscent of such classics as Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale (Houghton Mifflin, 1986), Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Left Hand of Darkness (Ace, 1969), and Sheri S. Tepper's "The Gate to Women's Country (Doubleday, 1988).

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Fantasy, Feminism, Gender, Speculative Fiction

400 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2004

About the author

N. Lee Wood is the author of Faraday's Orphans and Looking for Mahdi, both published by Gollancz/Vista in 1996. She sold her first ever novel in Romania and hasn't stopped being published since. She is a frequent visitor to British and European conventions, and travels extensively from her home in Paris. She is married to Norman Spinrad, who shares her enthusiasm for Europe in general, and Romania in particular.

N. Lee Wood is the author of "Looking for the Mahdi (Ace, 1996), "Faraday's Orphans (Ace, 1997), and "Bloodrights (Ace, 1999). "Looking for the Mahdi was selected as a "New York Times Notable Book and was also short listed for the Arthur C. Clarke Award.- The author's blend of sociology, feminism, and science fiction is reminiscent of such classics as Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale (Houghton Mifflin, 1986), Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Left Hand of Darkness (Ace, 1969), and Sheri S. Tepper's "The Gate to Women's Country (Doubleday, 1988).

Reviews

[Emalee · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting read. I was hoping it was about a woman only world but was instead about a matriarchal society that controlled men and held them at a lesser status. I did not know what the trajectory of the story was which I found enjoyable - lots of interesting twists and details that built toward what felt certainly like a conclusion, but not a climax. I would recommend it. I really liked the main character, Nathan Crewe.

[Bethany Salway · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm finding it hard to rate this one. On one hand, I saw a lot of flaws in the story. On the other hand, I couldn't put it down. I can see how some reviewers might describe the pace as slow, since world-building and character development are the author's primary focus. The book is a series of loosely related, chronological events that define one character's experience. Given the jepardous setting, however, these events are far from mundane! I was never bored.

The social premise was well thought out and thoroughly explored. For the most part, I found Wood's world entirely believable. [With this one exception: A society would never "milk and slaughter" their male children as described in the ancient Vanar texts. Woman aren't stupid; they would have to notice that a male infant looks and behaves exactly the same as a female infant. As a woman who has carried a fetus to term, I can attest to the absurdity of this idea. If my offspring had come out of the womb purple, with fuzzy spots, and genitalia on each limb, I would still have defended it with my life, and tried to kill anyone who wanted to take it from me.]

Historically, there were many societies where woman were oppressed by men, and few or none where the opposite was true. Presumably, this is due to the physical superiority of men giving them an edge in primeval power struggles. I've often thought that - were technology to remove that component - a female dominated culture would be as likely as any other. "Master of None" makes an exciting exploration of that possibility.

Most of my grievances with the book are personal--in that either the characters did something I didn't like, or that the situation was just all-around disturbing. On the whole, I had a positive experience. This is a book that I will be haunted by for awhile, reflect on occasionally, and definitely never read again.

Character Development 9/10
Writing Style 7/10
Plot 5/10

[Laurian · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was really long winded. I think that the world building was good and some of the character development was well done. But the book was more about the point being made rather than telling the story, which led to passages and plot points that were unnecessary. At times, it also felt a bit like being smacked too many times with the author's main focus - it wasn't delicate. All that to say that it was enjoyable and interesting, definitely worth a read.

[Debdanz · Rating 3 out of 5]

This exceedingly (tediously?) descriptive novel abruptly wrapped up 390pgs of slogging narrative in fewer than 10 pages. But it was a satisfyingly good enough ending.

[Betsy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I add a lot of obscure backlist SFF to my list and a LOT of the time, I am disappointed. But I keep doing it because every so often, I find a gem.

[Utopía · Rating 4 out of 5]

Master of None is the story of Nathan, a botanist who finds himself lost on a matriarchal planet called Vanar where men have an inferior position in society, and he is forced to live under their rules.

The best:

The worldbuilding: It’s pretty good. The author created a new language and culture for the planet. I have a soft spot for speculative fiction set in matriarchal societies and role-reversal stories. This novel has both, so it is my cup of tea! I’m glad that I found it.

The writing style: The author has a beautiful writing style. Besides the complexity of the story, the narrative was always engaging, and I couldn’t put the book down.

The main character: I liked the main character, most of the time. Nathan is a bit of spoiled brat, kind of rebellious but not too much, fearful, flawed and bit insecure. He gives man written by a woman vibes, but I suppose that is one of the reasons that I like him.

Things I didn’t like:

The women characters: When I’m reading a story about a matriarchal society, I expect to read a lot about awesome women doing awesome stuff. I was longing for that in this book. None of the women characters seem to be that interesting. I thought that Pratina could be a
good character, being the love interest (for a while) a pilot and all of that, but she just vanishes halfway through the book, and we don’t hear about her anymore until she is briefly mentioned again at the end, because she seemed to have helped Nathan to sort out some things, but we are just told about it and not shown anything. It seems that the author wanted to give Nathan a love interest, but at some point she changed her mind and didn’t want to develop that romantic subplot anymore. Instead, the main character is forced to marry someone else who is a rich girl from a very influential family who controls a lot of the business in Vanar. But apart from birthing a daughter and sleeping with Nathan and her other husbands a couple of times, she does nothing at all.

The end: The “great reveal” of the story was disappointing AF and the fact that the main character had to shout out his findings and the message of the book to a big crowd makes it even worse. Obviously, the message of the book, in case you didn’t realise is: Equality is best. Women could be as bad and violent as men. Ok. I got it, I suppose. But I don’t believe that a group of women would exert the kind of violence that they did in the past, according to the ancient records of the planet that Nathan found in the library. The proof is in the plot of the book itself. The author makes a great deal of saying all the time how oppressed and sad all the male characters in this book are, but it didn’t feel real. The men couldn’t choose what women would marry them, but they seemed to be ok with that. None of them thought of rebellion until the MC arrives, and even after that, none of them seemed that interesting in changing much. Even Nathan had a much harder life in his native war-oriented and patriarchal planet where he had to endure real violence versus the comfortable life that he had in Vanar. He rebelled multiple times against his adoptive family, his wife, and even the oppressive matriarchal authorities, but at the end of the day he was always alright. They all seem to admire his courage and allowed him to do whatever he wanted. So that’s it!

[Marsha Valance · Rating 3 out of 5]

A captive botanist attempts to reform a matriarchal society from within.

[Jeannejude · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cultural exploration and character development is more central than a moving plot; for me this is not a problem, but if you're looking for a story where events and plot drives the story - this will not appeal

[James Willey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wanted to give this one 3.5 stars but to me it was a slow developing tale. Its a tale of gender reversal with females all powerful. It seemed the male-female relationship was modeled on the Islamic veiw of the sexes.

[Kelsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had surprisingly erotic parts. Fascinating sci-fi.