Reading the Bones

Xenolinguist Guild

by Sheila Finch

This skillful and entertaining exploration of language and cross-cultural communication presents a portrait of sentient beings in the midst of discovering written language. The Xenolinguists are a guild of alien-language translators who travel the galaxy. Translator Ries Danyo is a down-on-his-luck lingster, so far gone he's hooked on zyth. Once a promising talent, he's fallen to interpreting for the deputy commissioner's wife on her shopping sprees in the Freh bazaar. But when a Freh uprising leads to murder, Danyo must lead the commissioner's daughters to safety on a journey that irrevocably changes the Frehti language and the future of Krishna itself.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Fiction, Ebooks, Novella

199 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Sheila Finch was born in London, England, and attended Bishop Otter College before coming to the United States in 1957, where she did graduate work in medieval literature and linguistics at Indiana University. She has lived in California since 1962, and teaches Creative Writing, and the Literature of Science Fiction at El Camino College in Torrance. She also runs workshops in fiction writing each summer at Idyllwild Arts Academy in the San Jacinto Mountains. She has three daughters, six grandchildren, and two cats, all of whom supply enough ideas to keep a writer busy. She has published seven science fiction novels. The first one, "Infinity's Web," won the Compton Crook Award, and the most recent, "Tiger in the Sky," won the San Diego Book Award for best juvenile fiction. She has published short stories in F&SF, Amazing Stories, Asimov's, Fantasy Book, and a number of anthologies, as well as several articles about science fiction. "Reading the Bones," won the Nebula Award for best novella of 1998.

Librarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name

Reviews

[Megan Baxter · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had a very up and down relationship with this little novella. At the beginning, I was irritated with it, then I mellowed and decided it wasn't that bad, and by the end of the book, had gotten thoroughly aggravated again. In the end, it feels like something with a lot of potential, but with a trick ending that undermines most of what has gone before, and some troublesome colonialism to boot.

Note: The rest of this review has been withheld due to the changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision here.

In the meantime, you can read the entire review at Smorgasbook

[Maja · Rating 1 out of 5]

First off, it's extremely obvious that this is a novella turned into a novel: the first part (which I assume is the original novella) works reasonably well as a story. The rest is unnecessary addition, and not well-executed either. At the end of it I'm not sure what the themes were supposed to be about, or how the entire structure was supposed to come together.
Finally, for a book written by someone with a linguistics degree, this story doesn't make great use of its linguist characters, and I'm frankly offended by some of the plot elements and linguistic descriptions.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent linguist-stranded-amongst-aliens variant, but, yes, the implicit colonialism and explicit human-savior bit really are elephants in the room...as is the bizarre sudden claim of a non-interference policy in the middle of a scenario with blatant interference.

[Meryl · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had so many issues with this book. I almost didn't finish it, but I kept going because I was curious. But the story left a bad taste in my mouth all the way through.

We start, of course, with the Refrigerator Wife, because MANPAIN. Moving on from there we had the troubling issues of colonialism. Several of the characters comment throughout the book about how they can't take X or Y action because it will interfere with the native population's development.

Um. Bit late for that.

The humans have established an outpost on the world of the Freh (the native inhabitants). Human Freh interactions include:

- trading
- development of a pidgin language
- hiring the population as maids and house help.

This is not seen as interference for some reason. If you're not twitching already, there's also the moment where the main character refers to the Freh as "aborigines" and "creatures" in the same breath.

Not only that, the Freh refer to the human spaceships as "flying farm carts". Why, if the humans had been there for so many years, would the Freh not be aware of spaceships and have a name for them? Either the author is suggesting they are too stupid to make this intellectual leap, or the humans deliberately withheld information from the natives and encouraged ignorance and superstition.

But all this pales in the face of the White Saviour narrative which forms the bulk of the book. Basically:


- humans are asked to help develop a written language because the Freh can't do it themselves;
- one of the humans is raised by the aliens (not sure exactly how an alien could wet-nurse a human child, but this is the least of my complaints with this book);
- the human alone is given the task that will save the Freh, rather than the Freh working together to save themselves;
- ONLY SHE CAN SAVE THEM. Even though she was raised by the Freh from three years old, she has greater intelligence and understanding than her peers. Because she is human. Because race determines your inelligence level, don't you know? (That was sarcasm.);
- the human treats them like lesser beings;
- the human's sister returns and she is the one to save them.
- at no time do any of the humans attempt to explain to the Freh what is happening to them and how to fix it.

Very unimpressed. And this was published in 2003. I'd like to say we've come a long way from here, but these tropes still exist.

It's a pity, because the story behind the Freh was fascinating, and the guild of linguists and all the worldbuilding made for an interesting universe.

[Jenny · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book came as part of a Humble Bundle of eBooks. Almost didn't get past the first chapter. If I wanted an uncritical look at colonialism and traditional gender roles..l well, I would never want that.

This book read like it was written 30-40 years ago. I checked mid-read to check, and was shocked that it wasn't

The humans on the planet are colonists, the governor's wife lives to shop and wears clothes that don't suit the climate, the children are cared for by Freh servants, and the Freh (the original inhabitants of the planet) are understood to be lazy and simple people.

All of the tropes of colonialism hold until the humans realize that they did not understand the Freh at all.

Some of the language stuff was interesting, but it was brief. Meanwhile, two human sisters need to "save" the Freh. It was tedious.

[Wilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting story with a focus on language and culture. It's nice to have a book where the main characters are translators, though as the book progresses advanced technology sort of steals the show and takes the focus away from just learning unfamiliar language and culture through experience. There are some interesting ideas that aren't too closely examined, and maybe that's for the best in terms of the story, but still feels a bit disappointing. I've also seen others make the very valid point that it's disappointing that the book ends mainly with actions by humans, rather than the aliens who are sort of the real focus. It can seem a bit uncritical in treatment of them as backwards and undeveloped - especially after the initial descriptions which are understandably coloured by the prejudices of the human colonists.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short fiction. I liked the writing style. I liked the idea of stories about people who specialize in alien languages. I liked the idea of an alien race making its first attempt at a written version of its language. Up to a point, I liked the greater character development of the main character. However, I felt the conceptual aspects of the story were limited (as may be necessary in a work of short fiction) and I think the story would appeal more to readers who are more character-oriented than I am. I felt that a couple of plot threads were not clarified as much as I'd like. And the ending will appeal more to some readers than others.

[Max Pinton · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to share what must be one of the most typo-riddled paragraphs I've seen in a published book:

The Freh holding the three-edged knife crimson with [someone's] blood jabbered nercously. The Other assassins reverted to familiar native behavoif, shoving each other in their hast to scamble out the open window through which they's entered.

Five typos in two sentences! I honestly wondered if I had had a stroke. Was this just a problem with the Humble Bundle edition?

[elbren · Rating 3 out of 5]

some typos
interesting story, some "white savior" trope play

[tomlinton · Rating 4 out of 5]

The moving finger writes
and having
for the first time
writ
is ritually chopped off
and added to the alphabet

Interesting speculation
about the origins
of written language
in this Hugo Award Novella
expanded from a short story