A Paradigm of Earth

by Candas Jane Dorsey

An emotionally wounded woman finds connection, community, and her own sense of humanity in this powerful and beautifully written novel. Morgan Shelby has lost her parents, her lover, and her joy in life. She has inherited a sprawling old house whose upkeep is beyond her means, and she doesn't notice when the aliens land--she's busy recruiting tenants and fighting depression. Then she's hired to raise Blue, an infant alien sent to learn about Earth. Blue's government watchdogs aren't happy about the unconventional Morgan's influence on Blue, and no one in the household is ready for the ways in which Blue disrupts their lives and questions their assumptions about what it means to be human.

Genres: Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Aliens, LGBT, Science Fiction Fantasy, Fiction

368 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2001

About the author

Candas Jane Dorsey (born November 16, 1952) is a Canadian poet and science fiction novelist.
Born and still living in Edmonton, Alberta, Dorsey became a writer from an early age, and a freelance writer since 1980. She writes across genre boundaries, writing poetry, fiction, mainstream and speculative, short and long form, arts journalism and arts advocacy. Dorsey has also written television and stage scripts, magazine and newspaper articles, and reviews.

Dorsey currently teaches, does workshops and readings. She has served on the executive board of the Writers' Guild of Alberta and is a founder of SF Canada. In 1988, Dorsey received the Aurora, Canadian science fiction and fantasy award.

Dorsey was editor-in-chief of The Books Collective (River, Slipstream and Tesseract Books) from 1992 through 2005.

- Source: Wikipedia

Reviews

[Richard Derus]

It's been almost 20 years since I read this. I want to re-read it in 2020.

[Althea Ann · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've anticipated reading this book for a long time. Dorsey's Black Wine was a book that I seriously loved, and kept recommending to people for years. Sadly, this book not only didn't live up to the expectations created by Black Wine, it frankly just wasn't very good. The premise sounds intriguing - an alien comes to earth to learn about humanity, and ends up in a co-op household full of non-conformists and artists. I liked a lot of the concepts - how the main character explores different types of love for different people through sexuality, etc. And some of the language and imagery is lovely. Still, maybe it has something to do with its near-contemporary setting (rather than the remote world of Black Wine), but the book felt more like a socio-political lecture than a novel. The messages, rather than working smoothly through the metaphors of fantasy, were very in-your-face and clunky. The characters felt like their traits were imposed on them by using a checklist (black, gay, disabled, lesbian, dancer, artist, etc.), rather than stemming from the experiences of real people. The protagonist's emotions were spoken of at great length, but didn't feel convincing. The antagonist was even more mystifying - with motivations which were nearly completely opaque, and unconvincing when admitted in an awkwardly-stuck-in, cliched confessional. The plot lacked tension, even when dramatic events were occurring. This may sound harsh, and it's probably much harsher than it would have been if I hadn't fully expected to be giving this book 5 stars - but I can't even come close to doing so.

[Mely · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent depiction of depression, excellent character interaction, interesting stuff on gender, a murder mystery that wandered in from some completely different book. I am not as impressed with Morgan as most of her roommates are, but it doesn't ruin things.

[Tentatively, Convenience · Rating 3 out of 5]

review of
Candas Jane Dorsey's A Paradigm of Earth
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - August 23, 2012

I got this bk marked down in price. It'd been marked down twice. I saw it on sale cheap at at least 2 bkstores. It seemed they were desperate to get rid of it. That's often a very good sign to me. My own bk, Not Necessarily NOT Very Important ( http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25... ), was remaindered almost immediately. I bought many of my favorite Mothers of Invention records in the cut-out bin at a supermarket. The sadly predictable thing about this particular bk being sold off cheap is that a probable reason for it is the way in wch the 'outsiderness' of the characters is treated.

W/ that aside, for the moment, I'm going to plunge ahead here & call this 'women's sci-fi'. Having written that, I'm already irritated w/ myself for doing so but I STILL think it's appropriate. I don't really LIKE or ENDORSE dividing any product or activity into 'men's' & women's' but I'm doing it here ANYWAY. What gives?! I certainly don't want to repeat the mistake of the SF author who wrote that 'only a man could write this' in reference to the writings of 'James Tiptree, Jr' only to have it turn out that Tiptree, the man, was actually Sheldon, the woman. What if Dorsey is actually a 'man'?

Nonetheless, I find myself strongly associating this bk w/ the work of other women SF writers: perhaps most notably Joan Slonczewski's A Door into Ocean, Pamela Sargent's Watchstar ( http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/86... ), Ursula K. LeGuin's Always Coming Home, etc.. But what's the generalization to be made here? Do I think that all SF written by women inevitably share certain characteristics? NO. I wdn't put LeGuin's The Lathe of Heaven in w/ the list I just made - nor wd I put Tiptree's Brightness Falls from the Air there (others might). Are there works written by men that I might include in the list? Perhaps.. but I can't think of any at the moment.

When I 1st started reading A Paradigm of Earth I admit to being bored & even.. not caring that much to bother finishing it. Back in the 1970s when friends of mine & I got kicked out of a gay bar for "dancing too weird" (the norm was popping amyl nitrite & pretending to go down on yr partner) I used to say that I looked forward to when being hetero wd be a perversion (see Anthony Burgess' The Wanting Seed) since I was hetero but also a blatant pervert par excellence. Since then, the subcultures I move in have almost become queer-normative enuf for that dream to come true. The relevance here being that the main character here is bisexual & the world in wch she lives is the-world-in-wch-mainstream-society-somehow-thinks-it-has-the-right-to-poke-its-nosiness-into-the-consensual-sexual-practices-of-people-it-tries-to-scapegoat. So why was I bored? B/c it reeked too much of preachiness for political correctness - something that I've been inundated w/ enuf for a lifetime. BUT, it got better.

In other words, at 1st I was afraid this was a work of 'This-is-how-you-shd-think' more than it was a work of the imagination. The human-interest-story-in-wch-there-is-introduced-the-being-from-outer-space struck me as a bit thin. But, then, I ultimately liked it. Maybe the worst part about it was that the villain was so damned obvious from the get-go that it amazed me that it actually turned out to be them b/c there was no surprise to be had from THAT.

Back to the utterly unacceptable generalization that I'm fumbling for: why is this 'women's sci-fi'? B/c emphasis is more on experiences usually associated w/ women than w/ men?: the main character is a health-care worker turned child-care worker for an 'alien'. Even the rules of the commune she sets up I associate w/ the dreary matriarchal dictatorships that I've personally encountered (sorry (NOT), I'm an anarchist - I'm against patriarchy AND matriarchy).

In the end, I think the characters were well-developed & not oversimplified (except for, perhaps, the villain - the author might be advised to see the movie Licensed to Kill (1997) by Arthur Dong for a realistic look at gay bashers) & the grey areas of the interactions between the 'outsiders' & the powers-that-be were sensitively portrayed (Shd that be 'sensitivelyportrayed'? That phrase has been so overused that it practically deserves to become a compound word).

I even liked this in spite of the almost inevitable sex-w/-the-alien plot development that might've been fresh when Philip José Farmer wrote about it & was, at least, challenging when William S. Burroughs explored it, & wch might've been somewhat thrilling in Andrzej Zulawski's 1981 film Possession but wch is now well on its way to being a queer-normative cliché aimed at a demographic of people who think they've somehow invented the idea.

In short, this was too much of an 'alternative'-community-explored w/ too little of thinking-outside-the-new-box to really be more sci-fi than just-another-novel-about-social-manners-w/-some-murders-&-an-extra-terrestrial-thrown-in but at least it was well done enuf to get a 3 star rating from me anyway.

[Stephen Poltz · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had a lot of things going for it: interesting concept, interesting characters, decent plot. Where it failed for me was in the pacing. It was too slow for me. It spent a lot of time in the main character’s head. Granted, the book is about depression, among other things. I think judicious editing could have made it seem less plodding. The book was nominated for several awards, including the Gaylactic Spectrum Award in 2002.

Come visit my blog for the full review…
http://itstartedwiththehugos.blogspot...

[Brian Gaston · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a good literary book but the plot was plodding and it was a slow read.

[Blair · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although the book is basically about a first-contact experience, it isn't as science-fiction as it might sound. More about the central character finding peace, and finding herself, after her parents deaths, it turns in to a kind of a romance story.

Set in a near-future Canada where many social gains made in the last 30 years seem to have been lost, the book explores relationship negotiation among a group of people living in a communal living situation. The author never really explains what happened that caused the massive shift to the right in Canadian politics. I found that a bit unsettling at first but understanding why, or even understanding "what" the new rules were was not central to the story. In fact, I wonder if it was intentional to give the reader the same sense of uncertainty that the story's main characters are living in.

In the end there was a murder mystery, some really interesting examination of human nature, and a multitude of interesting romances.

"And now it is easy to admit it to anyone, for Blue is gone, and if I learned anything
from what has been done by those who hate, I learned that there's no sense in keeping any secrets.

The only way to be strong is to be completely vulnerable - and if they believe that, I can tell them what it was like."

[Res · Rating 2 out of 5]

SPOILERS

Problematic but original.

Morgan Sue is a little hard to take; it's inevitably going to be tricky to write from the POV of a person with depression, and the book does critique her self-involvement, a little, but not much. And the other characters are forever telling her what an inspiration she is to them or what peace she has or whatever.

I have a problem with the antagonist, John -- we're told that he does various things wrong (doesn't do his share of the chores, is very rude to Jakob the gay dancer, etc.) but we don't see this happen, and I never did see any reason for John to commit the murders he commits, nor did I see any reason for him not to just start at the center and kill Morgan, the alien, or both.

The alien, Blue, is nicely realized, as is the police officer who watches over them (thus I was especially disappointed to see him take advantage of the new repressive laws to torture a suspect and to hold a spying co-worker indefinitely without trial).

[Tracy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. Dorsey is once again astounding - even more so than Black Wine. For as much as I love to read, it is the rare book that holds my attention for prolonged stretches of time. I read this one in two days.

Beautifully written, wonderful characters, great story, thematic depth, this book has everything. Dorsey's style is delightful, and would be enjoyable to read even if she didn't have much to say. It is well-crafted, well-paced, and sprinkled with captivating images and wonderful turns of phrase. It is also rife with allusions to other works, which is quite fun (though I'm sure I missed a lot of them). And she has a lot of interesting things to say on top of it.

Morgan is a fully-realized person, laid bare in such a way that her story is compelling. The story itself is a fascinating take on "first contact." It's a bit like Stranger in a Strange Land meets Rent.

[Lorina Stephens · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Paradigm of Earth, by founder, and fellow SF Canada member Candas Jane Dorsey, is a remarkable work of literary science fiction.

Although the premise of first contact is not new, Dorsey brings to the discussion a complex, poetic exploration of what it means to be human. Through the characters of Blue, one of twelve aliens dropped on Earth to become the essence of humanity, and his mentor, Morgan, a woman immobilized with grief, Dorsey incarnates a story part CanLit, part SF, part crime mystery. Her characters are vivid and compelling, avoiding stereotype. Her premise suspends all disbelief with facility and elegance. The writing is tight and yet poetic; the pacing deceptively brisk. Further, Dorsey unfolds her tale without devolving to the kitsch tech-speak which is the failure, and alienation, of so many popular SF writers, and as a result Dorsey creates an emotional environment that will bring a tender heart to tears.

If you love the work of Ursula K. LeGuin, you will fall in love with this story by Candas Jane Dorsey.

[Flexanimous · Rating 3 out of 5]

'A paradigm of Earth' is set in Canada, in a dystopian near-future. It's not the type of dystopia where children have to fight each other to the death, but a rather more humdrum and believable one where social progress has gone backwards, and homosexuals are treated like deviants once more.

The main plot involves an alien who has landed on Earth to learn about humanity, and ends up being taught by a bisexual woman and her housemates, all of whom exist on the fringes of this stiflingly conservative society.

The main idea is not a particularly novel one, and there were parts where it felt rough, like a bit more editing was needed, but overall it was a thoughtful and engaging book.

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this one from a catalog a few years ago and it sat on the shelf, but it turned out to be another good book to read as a young widow.

Don't read this if you have hang-ups about...you know, sex. The main character is a lesbian and the other characters are a hodge-podge group of outcasts. She is dealing with the death of her last living parent - her father - and she kind of just starts her life over from ground zero - moves to a new place, gets a new job, meets/raises an alien, and changes from her experience. There is a lot I'm leaving out here in case you want to read it.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Black Wine got all the awards, but I think this is almost better. She writes embodied SF in a way I've rarely seen - the characters' physical being informs the ideas and is an inextricable part of characterisation and plot. She has a very exact way of describing emotions - I kept having shocks of recognition. And it's impressive to have written a near-future not-quite-dystopia ten years ago that is even more politically and technologically realistic now than it was then.

[Ravenna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Candas Jane Dorsey is a Canadian and a feminist science fiction author.
Her style is inimicable, more poetry than prose, and to see the world through an alien life form, as it develops in our culture, taking on gender roles and ideals of those around "her," provides (as good SF should) great insight into our own human nature and irretrievable development.

[Elizabeth · Rating 1 out of 5]

I can't say anything bad about this book, it just didn't catch my interest. I found it hard to follow.

Perhaps I should have given it more of a chance, but I followed my "give a book at least 50 pages before you toss it" rule and it failed.

Could be me and my mood right now, but this one didn't grab me. I may revisit someday.

[George Manley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found the introspective dialogue of the narrator very interesting, especially as it very similar to my own. I also liked the fact that the story did not start or stop with the visit of the alien, that the real story was the experience of the narrator and how her life changed from the interaction with the alien.

[Jennie · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's a three-star book in terms of quality, I think--with solid prose-level writing if not always equally solid storytelling--but I'm taking off a star because the very distant way point of view is written in it is kind of the opposite of what I tend to be looking for in a book.

[michelle]

09/30/07

[Shivanee Ramlochan]

Recommended by McKinley M. Hellenes.

[Marsha Valance · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautifully crafted allegory about acceptance, in the framework of a murder mystery.