North Wind

The Aleutian Trilogy #2

by Gwyneth Jones

Continues the story of Johnny and Braemar, whose exploits have become legendary and whose faster-than-light drive is desperately sought by different factions, including an alien who may be Johnny's daughter

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy, Science Fiction Fantasy, Aliens

288 pages, Paperback

Published November 15, 1997

About the author

Gwyneth Jones is a writer and critic of genre fiction. She's won the Tiptree award, two World Fantasy awards, the Arthur C. Clarke award, the British Science Fiction Association short story award, the Dracula Society's Children of the Night award, the P.K.Dick award, and the SFRA Pilgrim award for lifetime achievement in sf criticism. She also writes for teenagers, usually as Ann Halam. She lives in Brighton, UK, with her husband and two cats called Ginger and Milo; curating assorted pondlife in season. She's a member of the Soil Association, the Sussex Wildlife Trust, Frack Free Sussex and the Green Party; and an Amnesty International volunteer.

Reviews

[EmBe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Von diesem Roman sind mir die menschenähnlichen Aliens in Erinnerung geblieben. Jones lässt hier die Grenzen zwischen Aliens und Menschen verschwimmen. Es gibt "Mischlinge" und Aleuten, die sich durch chirurgische Eingriffe den Menschen angleichen können. Die Aleuteb haben auch keine Fabriken, ihre Körper sind ihre Fabriken.
Ich habe den Vorgänger-Roman nicht gelesen, das war für das Verständnis des Zweiten auch nicht notwendig.
Ein guter, ideenreicher SF-Roman.

[Henry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting! Jones focuses on the hermaphroditic, seemingly telepathic, Aleutians. Can't remember much about this - but the freaky, weird sex scene!

[Alexandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did not manage to finish the book prior to this one, Gwyneth Jones' White Queen. I am slightly surprised that I finished this one, in that light, but the structure of this novel is definitely easier to cope with, and I think the plot is slightly more straightforward too.

So in White Queen the aliens arrive and it turns out they've been living amongst for rather a long time. The world is a difficult place in which to live anyway - environmental stuff etc - and when the aliens finally decide to make contact there's a conference on women happening ... and for whatever reason, the aliens decide that that is the world government. Which means that all of a sudden (ok, I think it makes months or years) there is an actual real Sex War, at least partly because of the aliens. Stuff happens... etc.

North Wind is told from two main viewpoints. Sid is a human liaison to the Aleutians - the aliens. Bella, also known as Goodlooking, or the librarian, is an invalid Aleutian. Their experiences of the world are very different: because of their expectations of gender, because of their expectations of humanity, because of their expectations of family and other social interactions. Their interactions with each other are immensely complicated for all of these same reasons, and because of the circumstances in which they find themselves.

This novel could have been relatively straightforward. It's an attempt to figure out what is indeed a complex problem, but the actual events along the way are not that Byzantine.

Jones, however, was not interested in writing a relatively straightforward novel. And that's perfectly fine; just don't expect it to be one. Because Jones used this novel to explore concepts of gender, in particular, in detail and in complexity that you don't often get in novel form. Not from widely popular novels that get nominated for the Clarke Award (in 1995) necessarily, anyway. The Aleutians have a very different concept of gender from most of humanity, and the intersection between the two species' expectations and lived experiences highlight, in particular, humanity's limitations.

I found this a difficult book to read partly because of the switching of pronouns, which takes some getting used to; partly because Jones uses narrative ellipses to imply things and sometimes I wasn't fast enough on the uptake. Probably I missed some subtleties from not finishing White Queen (like the issue with Johnny, but that is eventually explained). It's a clever book, and it's an important book, and I want to say it's an ambitious book but so often that phrase gets used in a condescending tone and I really don't mean it like that. I really mean that Jones is doing ambitious and difficult and passionate things. But... I didn't love it. I think it was too difficult for me. I won't be rushing out for Phoenix Cafe, the third in the series. Which makes me a bit sad because I had intended to read all of Gwyneth Jones' work, but I don't have to like everything, I've decided.

Yet another book off the TBR shelf! Go me!

[Kevin Phyland · Rating 3 out of 5]

The alien Aleutians are humanoid but noseless and fundamentally sexless in that they can perform as either. They are not invaders per se but seek to share the planet with humanity. Some of their geoengineering projects have upset humans, in particular the levelling of the Himalayas. They arrived in the midst of what could be called a gender war between Women and Men; not the physical sexes but the concepts, and as such humans of either sex can belong to either sect. If that sounds confusing there are also Half-castes. Humans that self-mutilate to look like Aleutians and form a sort of cult of worship of the Aleutians. who most humans think are immortal. The immortality is chemical, transmitted by tiny commensals from body to body in a memory communication. Bella is disguised as a half-caste but is a crippled Aleutian known as an isolate. Gender-neutral she is variously male to her species and female to humans, with which she can have a kind of pleasurable congress akin to sex. But Bella is not what she seems…to either side, and rumours abound that she is the reincarnate of a famous human with knowledge of a device for instantaneous travel developed by the semi-mythical Peenamunde Buonarotti, a great physicist. But the treasure hunt may not be entirely a fool’s errand and the chance exists that the aliens may leave. Gwyneth Jones has crafted a complex and entertaining sequel to White Queen which rewards close attention.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel may not be about what it appears to be about. It hardly matters. It's the kind of "challenging" read that science fiction can achieve but seldom does. The depiction of the alien Aleutians is one of the best evocations of nonhumans I've read, and their alienness is achieved mainly by a clever comparative tracking at they are constantly pushed up against humans in a state of ongoing missed cues.

Or not. I'll be thinking about this one for some time.

[Nicholas Whyte · Rating 3 out of 5]

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2563889.html

Sorry to say that I pretty much bounce off Jones' prose completely - I remember really enjoying the novella version of Bold As Love, but found both the extended version and White Queen rather tough reading. The same was true here: the identity confusion between several of the main characters confused me too, and I just wasn't really sure what they were trying to achieve. No doubt this reflects my own concentrations levels more than the quality of the prose.

I'll say one thing though: Jones had characters whose concept of gender was completely and pronoun-wrenchingly different from that of their human interlocutors more than twenty years before Ancillary Justice, as of course did Ursula Le Guin more than twenty-five years before that. Those of us who voted for it last year weren't giving Ann Leckie cookies for a new idea, we were applauding a number of familiar tropes combined and given new and startling twists.

[Maria Longley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this one of the series as this is the one I had access to, although I'm now thinking I'll make more of an effort to get a chance to read the other Aleutian books. The alien compound is blown up and the quest commences when Bella and Sid set off through the war torn world and the gender wars sparked off possibly by the aliens showing up. The aliens manage to remain weird and alien which is excellent and the story flows and eddies around events. I'm not sure how much I missed by not having read the White Queen, but I felt like I picked up enough. And it was refreshing to have a Quest Narrative in which destiny isn't immutable... I really should read more GJ, it's always been interesting so far.