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The Archivist
The planet of Guna is ruled by a powerful matriarchy. Science is banned, and all of its secrets are locked into the Forbidden Archive. The Archivist of the City holds the key, and he has a plan for revolution which he shares with a pavement child, Cal.
380 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1989
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August 11, 2017Read this decades ago in the last century and for some reason remembered it recently and noticed no one had posted a review.
Anyway a piece of science fiction written by a woman - she imagines a city-state on a planet where a Mother goddess is worshipped and most of the societies are matriarchal - I know this kind of thing is called speculative fiction but even so there ought to be limits of plausibility or something. Anyhow feeling the unnaturalness of all this, in this city-state a man plots a putsch to overthrow the woman dominated society and government, promoting the worship of a sado-masochistic male creator god instead . But men perhaps aren't as clever as they would like to think and eventually all reverts to its proper pear shape.
Along the way there is an in world meta-fictional game, romance and Dumas style impersonation, an interstellar mission from Plant Earth , and some other stuff.
Anyway a piece of science fiction written by a woman - she imagines a city-state on a planet where a Mother goddess is worshipped and most of the societies are matriarchal - I know this kind of thing is called speculative fiction but even so there ought to be limits of plausibility or something. Anyhow feeling the unnaturalness of all this, in this city-state a man plots a putsch to overthrow the woman dominated society and government, promoting the worship of a sado-masochistic male creator god instead . But men perhaps aren't as clever as they would like to think and eventually all reverts to its proper pear shape.
Along the way there is an in world meta-fictional game, romance and Dumas style impersonation, an interstellar mission from Plant Earth , and some other stuff.
November 7, 2025
Gill Alderman was a microelectronics researcher turned science fiction writer. I have no idea if she's still around, as that's about all you can find on her. The Archivist was her debut novel and follows the life of Cal, a pariah of sorts who gains notoriety in a sprawling underworld of thieves, artists, prostitutes, and a colorful array of misfits and eccentrics, mainly for his beauty. Cal lives in a matriarchal and brutal city that has lapsed back to feudalism. At the onset, Alderman's world makes for compelling reading: exotic, drug-laden, and bizarre characters are to be found here that remind one heavily of Delany's protagonists in Babel-17 and Dhalgren. Cal can be thought of as a Dorian Gray of sorts, whose story really begins when he meets his Lord Henry, Magon Nonpareil, better known as The Archivist.
Magon's aim is to introduce a new religion recognizing the now forgotten male population as he aims to undermine the existing gynarchy alongside Cal and a few others in his conspicuous cabal. Alderman's relationships are complex, emotions are fickle and hard to understand at first glance. Characters orbit each other in patterns of attraction and repulsion that feel alien to conventional narrative romance. This opacity works in the novel's favor at first but intriguing complexity devolves into complication.
As a writer, Alderman composes hypnotic passages with the occasional flare of beauty and excitement. But as she takes us through Cal's journey, the halls of his memory, and yet another yonder vista that needs florid rendering, her writing becomes fatiguing. Her sentences blur and yawn, causing the mind to drift.
The Archivist has insights, but they are buried in a dance of what appear to be arbitrarily chosen symbols and metaphors, making them hard to take with you. Transformations, names and places are frequently conjured and dropped, which gives the novel's lore a distancing effect. She is by no means a bad writer, and in fact, scattered pieces of her novel show a propensity toward originality. But perhaps in the hands of an editor who could give her story the dimension it needed, more linear shapes and less curvature, we wouldn't be left with this aqueous form that can feel like a quest for nowhere when it clearly is not.
In my estimation, Alderman wrote a novel of genuine ambition disrupted by fleetingly composed thoughts and self-indulgence that endlessly peels away layers that never end. A fascinating attempt worth trying if you can tread water for a few days.
Magon's aim is to introduce a new religion recognizing the now forgotten male population as he aims to undermine the existing gynarchy alongside Cal and a few others in his conspicuous cabal. Alderman's relationships are complex, emotions are fickle and hard to understand at first glance. Characters orbit each other in patterns of attraction and repulsion that feel alien to conventional narrative romance. This opacity works in the novel's favor at first but intriguing complexity devolves into complication.
As a writer, Alderman composes hypnotic passages with the occasional flare of beauty and excitement. But as she takes us through Cal's journey, the halls of his memory, and yet another yonder vista that needs florid rendering, her writing becomes fatiguing. Her sentences blur and yawn, causing the mind to drift.
The Archivist has insights, but they are buried in a dance of what appear to be arbitrarily chosen symbols and metaphors, making them hard to take with you. Transformations, names and places are frequently conjured and dropped, which gives the novel's lore a distancing effect. She is by no means a bad writer, and in fact, scattered pieces of her novel show a propensity toward originality. But perhaps in the hands of an editor who could give her story the dimension it needed, more linear shapes and less curvature, we wouldn't be left with this aqueous form that can feel like a quest for nowhere when it clearly is not.
In my estimation, Alderman wrote a novel of genuine ambition disrupted by fleetingly composed thoughts and self-indulgence that endlessly peels away layers that never end. A fascinating attempt worth trying if you can tread water for a few days.
August 29, 2024
I enjoyed the scenic storytelling, and the worldbuilding, but by jove did I get lost reading this. At times I wasn't quite sure how things had progressed, and certain things remainder unexplained, like what the face or the rosies actually did. A wonderful read, and an interesting plot, albeit I would not classify this as a romance as the author seems shy in describing anything at all, we are simply meant to believe they are in love ( I would argue it was some sort of gross infatuation and power struggle rather than love). The political message inside is fun though.
February 8, 2019
5/10. Otro libro que cayó en mis jóvenes manos gracias a los libros de restos, que leí, y olvidé título y autor.
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