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League of Peoples #2
Commitment Hour
A twenty-year-old musician living on a serene patch of Earth in the twenty-fifth century, when most of the planet's population has departed for other more technologically advanced worlds, Fullin must make the most important decision in life--what sex to b
343 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
18 people are currently reading
482 people want to read
About the author
James Alan Gardner
65 books279 followersRaised in Simcoe and Bradford, Ontario, James Alan Gardner earned Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Applied Mathematics from the University of Waterloo.
A graduate of the Clarion West Fiction Writers Workshop, Gardner has published science fiction short stories in a range of periodicals, including The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and Amazing Stories. In 1989, his short story "Children of the Creche" was awarded the Grand Prize in the Writers of the Future contest. Two years later his story "Muffin Explains Teleology to the World at Large" won an Aurora Award; another story, "Three Hearings on the Existence of Snakes in the Human Bloodstream," won an Aurora and was nominated for both the Nebula and Hugo Awards.
He has written a number of novels in a "League of Peoples" universe in which murderers are defined as "dangerous non-sentients" and are killed if they try to leave their solar system by aliens who are so advanced that they think of humans like humans think of bacteria. This precludes the possibility of interstellar wars.
He has also explored themes of gender in his novels, including Commitment Hour in which people change sex every year, and Vigilant in which group marriages are traditional.
Gardner is also an educator and technical writer. His book Learning UNIX is used as a textbook in some Canadian universities.
A Grand Prize winner of the Writers of the Future contest, he lives with his family in Waterloo, Ontario.
A graduate of the Clarion West Fiction Writers Workshop, Gardner has published science fiction short stories in a range of periodicals, including The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and Amazing Stories. In 1989, his short story "Children of the Creche" was awarded the Grand Prize in the Writers of the Future contest. Two years later his story "Muffin Explains Teleology to the World at Large" won an Aurora Award; another story, "Three Hearings on the Existence of Snakes in the Human Bloodstream," won an Aurora and was nominated for both the Nebula and Hugo Awards.
He has written a number of novels in a "League of Peoples" universe in which murderers are defined as "dangerous non-sentients" and are killed if they try to leave their solar system by aliens who are so advanced that they think of humans like humans think of bacteria. This precludes the possibility of interstellar wars.
He has also explored themes of gender in his novels, including Commitment Hour in which people change sex every year, and Vigilant in which group marriages are traditional.
Gardner is also an educator and technical writer. His book Learning UNIX is used as a textbook in some Canadian universities.
A Grand Prize winner of the Writers of the Future contest, he lives with his family in Waterloo, Ontario.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 56 reviews
June 28, 2011
This book was pure joy for me to read. I loved everything about it -- the world, the characters, the very idiosyncratic voice. After I came down from my reading high I found myself poking holes in some of the assertions about the world, suspect of the ways Gardner chose his characters to discourage the reader from thinking about aspects of it, but that didn't dampen my love for the experience. However, I cannot talk about the book without spoiling something that the back cover plays very coy with: the nature of the Commitment. It's revealed on page two, but if you don't want that spoiled, don't read any further. (Also, don't read any other reviews; I've only seen one that avoided the spoiler.)
---
The Commitment Fullin must make is choosing his gender for the rest of his life. This year he is male; but last year he was female, and in fact every summer of his life he has gone off with his gods and had his gender switched. Every person of Tober Cove spends their childhood this way, learning what it means to be both male and female (all aspects of each -- sexual exploration is encouraged, and in every person's last year as a female she bears a child), and then at twenty each person must commit to one gender or the other for the rest of his/her life.
(Technically, a person can also commit to "both" and become a hermaphrodite; but 150 years ago that choice was outlawed, and any person that chooses both is immediately exiled from the community and can be killed on site if they return.)
So this book is one in the long line of SF novels that looks at gender roles -- one of my favorite SF conversations to have.
It's a first-person narrative, and that narration is, I think, the best thing about the book. Fullin is an incredibly well-realized character with a very distinct voice I found completely charming. The first page is an absolute gem; I'd quote it here, but that would take up way too much space. He's also a bit of a jackass, and the fact that I still loved reading him makes Gardner's achievement more impressive. And through a quirk I will not spoil, we also get to be inside Fullin's head as a woman. She is much more likable than he is; she is also, in both obvious and subtle ways, a very different person than Fullin as a man.
One of the many things that make Fullin different in each gender is that Tober Cove has very strict gender roles -- stricter than the rest of the world, where the gender-switching does not take place. Men fish and hunt; women are caregivers. Men are politicians; women are priestesses. But, because the characters have practiced both roles all their lives, the system is not dystopic; after all, if you really want to be Mayor someday, you can just choose to be male at your Commitment ceremony. If you want to be Mayor and a stay-at-home Mom, well, the Mocking Priestess has a saying: "You can get what you want most in life; not even the gods can guarantee you get your second choice too."
There isn't anything tremendously groundbreaking about the treatment of gender here; most of the book focuses on the lost third choice, and what that loss has done to warp an otherwise utopic society. Still, I loved the way Gardner handled it because many of the characters were so conscious of the processes at work; Leeta, the Mocking Priestess, and Fullin-as-a-woman all have wonderful moments where they become exasperated at the outsiders' confusion about how gender works in Tober Cove and break character, so to speak; they fill their roles to the hilt, but they do it consciously, because that keeps their society in balance.
That self-awareness isn't only limited to gender roles either. This is science fiction, for all the talk of gods and demons, and the characters know that too. The gender-switching process is a technological rather than mystical one, and generally in books like this the process of discovering the technology underlying the religion causes people to lose faith; I loved the way Gardner created characters whose faith is elastic. Early in the book an outsider dismisses the solstice dance as "charming" neo-Paganism, but Fullin responds with:
"Everyone knows its not hard to make the gods sound ridiculous. It just takes sarcasm, exaggeration, and a determination to be vulgar. . . But that's kid's stuff. . . After a while, as with most things at thirteen, the memory of how you behaved makes you squirm; even if you know that seasons come from a tilting planet whirling around the sun, the old stories still mean something to you. . . The gods aren't jokes; they're people you walk around with every day. Insulting them is like insulting family."
And the religion the characters follow, neo-Pagan or not, artificially constructed or not, is one I can believe keeps the characters warm at night. The solstice dance; the way the Patriarch's Man and the Mocking Priestess balance each other; the whole ritual Hush for Mistress Snow; Gardner shows how those pieces, so easily mocked, bind the community together. It's not a perfect community -- people are people, and every community has its misfits, its damaged souls; and, of course, there is the unsightly scar of the outlawed third choice. And as I mentioned at the beginning, Gardner shaped his world very conveniently so he would not have to address a significant chunk of his characters' identity -- their sexual identity. But my overall experience was one of warmth, and hope, and joy, and I loved that.
---
The Commitment Fullin must make is choosing his gender for the rest of his life. This year he is male; but last year he was female, and in fact every summer of his life he has gone off with his gods and had his gender switched. Every person of Tober Cove spends their childhood this way, learning what it means to be both male and female (all aspects of each -- sexual exploration is encouraged, and in every person's last year as a female she bears a child), and then at twenty each person must commit to one gender or the other for the rest of his/her life.
(Technically, a person can also commit to "both" and become a hermaphrodite; but 150 years ago that choice was outlawed, and any person that chooses both is immediately exiled from the community and can be killed on site if they return.)
So this book is one in the long line of SF novels that looks at gender roles -- one of my favorite SF conversations to have.
It's a first-person narrative, and that narration is, I think, the best thing about the book. Fullin is an incredibly well-realized character with a very distinct voice I found completely charming. The first page is an absolute gem; I'd quote it here, but that would take up way too much space. He's also a bit of a jackass, and the fact that I still loved reading him makes Gardner's achievement more impressive. And through a quirk I will not spoil, we also get to be inside Fullin's head as a woman. She is much more likable than he is; she is also, in both obvious and subtle ways, a very different person than Fullin as a man.
One of the many things that make Fullin different in each gender is that Tober Cove has very strict gender roles -- stricter than the rest of the world, where the gender-switching does not take place. Men fish and hunt; women are caregivers. Men are politicians; women are priestesses. But, because the characters have practiced both roles all their lives, the system is not dystopic; after all, if you really want to be Mayor someday, you can just choose to be male at your Commitment ceremony. If you want to be Mayor and a stay-at-home Mom, well, the Mocking Priestess has a saying: "You can get what you want most in life; not even the gods can guarantee you get your second choice too."
There isn't anything tremendously groundbreaking about the treatment of gender here; most of the book focuses on the lost third choice, and what that loss has done to warp an otherwise utopic society. Still, I loved the way Gardner handled it because many of the characters were so conscious of the processes at work; Leeta, the Mocking Priestess, and Fullin-as-a-woman all have wonderful moments where they become exasperated at the outsiders' confusion about how gender works in Tober Cove and break character, so to speak; they fill their roles to the hilt, but they do it consciously, because that keeps their society in balance.
That self-awareness isn't only limited to gender roles either. This is science fiction, for all the talk of gods and demons, and the characters know that too. The gender-switching process is a technological rather than mystical one, and generally in books like this the process of discovering the technology underlying the religion causes people to lose faith; I loved the way Gardner created characters whose faith is elastic. Early in the book an outsider dismisses the solstice dance as "charming" neo-Paganism, but Fullin responds with:
"Everyone knows its not hard to make the gods sound ridiculous. It just takes sarcasm, exaggeration, and a determination to be vulgar. . . But that's kid's stuff. . . After a while, as with most things at thirteen, the memory of how you behaved makes you squirm; even if you know that seasons come from a tilting planet whirling around the sun, the old stories still mean something to you. . . The gods aren't jokes; they're people you walk around with every day. Insulting them is like insulting family."
And the religion the characters follow, neo-Pagan or not, artificially constructed or not, is one I can believe keeps the characters warm at night. The solstice dance; the way the Patriarch's Man and the Mocking Priestess balance each other; the whole ritual Hush for Mistress Snow; Gardner shows how those pieces, so easily mocked, bind the community together. It's not a perfect community -- people are people, and every community has its misfits, its damaged souls; and, of course, there is the unsightly scar of the outlawed third choice. And as I mentioned at the beginning, Gardner shaped his world very conveniently so he would not have to address a significant chunk of his characters' identity -- their sexual identity. But my overall experience was one of warmth, and hope, and joy, and I loved that.
May 31, 2019
After enjoying the hell out of Expendable, I started this book with anticipation, and much to my chagrin found myself bored 100 pages in. Here we have a backdrop of the League of Peoples, a galaxy spanning collective of alien races, and we are stuck on fucking Earth, dealing with the lives of humans left behind who perceive the aliens as gods. How fucking boring. I get what Gardner was doing with the exploration of gender roles, and the concepts of non-binary gender, but really, this story could have been told without even being part of the League of Peoples universe behind it. The real problem was that I failed to muster the slightest interest in the characters, I never cared about their plight or emotions, or even whether they lived or died. I don't even think this is necessarily a bad book, I just didn't much care. The ending had a fairly decent climax, but by then it was far to late to arouse much of my interest, and I just wanted to be finished. I hope the next book in the series is better, cause I've got a whole stack.
December 31, 2022
This is a League of Peoples SF story, but not an Expendables story. Therefore, it's harder for me to appreciate, and the next time that I read the series featuring Festina Ramos I might possibly skip this one.
The exploration of gender roles, particularly of people who are non-binary, was more novel and therefore interesting at the 1998 publication. Sensitive readers nowadays, though, may not be able to get past what the characters say and do about non-conforming people. However, I did manage to finish the book, and I learned that the payoff is appropriate and neither wrong nor un-True... the author is not the characters.
And the characters are much more interesting than they seem at first. And the plot develops in intensity, and we readers discover that the stakes are higher, than we had thought.
I do recommend it. But I can't quite round up to four stars because that would, in context of Gardner's other books, rank it too high.
The exploration of gender roles, particularly of people who are non-binary, was more novel and therefore interesting at the 1998 publication. Sensitive readers nowadays, though, may not be able to get past what the characters say and do about non-conforming people. However, I did manage to finish the book, and I learned that the payoff is appropriate and neither wrong nor un-True... the author is not the characters.
And the characters are much more interesting than they seem at first. And the plot develops in intensity, and we readers discover that the stakes are higher, than we had thought.
I do recommend it. But I can't quite round up to four stars because that would, in context of Gardner's other books, rank it too high.
November 16, 2010
CLUNKY.
He had a cool idea, a society where you change gender every year till you're 20 and then you have to pick one (or both)...but then he went and did absolutely nothing interesting with it.
The characters were flat, there was basically no insight into gender roles whatsoever, and pretty much everything that could have been really thought-provoking or challenging just...wasn't.
He had a cool idea, a society where you change gender every year till you're 20 and then you have to pick one (or both)...but then he went and did absolutely nothing interesting with it.
The characters were flat, there was basically no insight into gender roles whatsoever, and pretty much everything that could have been really thought-provoking or challenging just...wasn't.
October 13, 2021
I've never reviewed a book before so sorry if this isn't a good review; But I LOVED this book!! I found it on a slow day at the bookstore I worked at and I was immediately hooked. The beginning is a bit slow which I prefer as a reader, Our main character unlikeable in the beginning but when looking at their environment they grew up in it made sense. Fullin was a person raised in tober cove, of course they'd have the same mentality as the ones who raised them, of course they'd be disgusted at the sight of a Neut.
As a nonbinary person I feel this book is great, I felt seen with the idea of being able to commit as something other than male or female. While it's not met as gracefully as I wish it could have been it was understandable given my reasoning above.
I had never read anything else from this series and yet I was able to keep track of what was happening , I was never once confused with anything. Another thing is this book was an easy read for someone like me who is very dyslexic. I didn't have to re-read paragraphs as often as other books and when taking breaks I could easily jump back in.
I could go on and on about every detail, like the world building or how I loved every characters names but my review is betting long. All and all this was an amazing read, very much would re read often.
As a nonbinary person I feel this book is great, I felt seen with the idea of being able to commit as something other than male or female. While it's not met as gracefully as I wish it could have been it was understandable given my reasoning above.
I had never read anything else from this series and yet I was able to keep track of what was happening , I was never once confused with anything. Another thing is this book was an easy read for someone like me who is very dyslexic. I didn't have to re-read paragraphs as often as other books and when taking breaks I could easily jump back in.
I could go on and on about every detail, like the world building or how I loved every characters names but my review is betting long. All and all this was an amazing read, very much would re read often.
June 3, 2012
Well, this was an unusual book. I read it right after "Expendable," the first in Gardner's League of Peoples series. Word to the wise, this book is not a continuation of Festina Ramos' story.
It does, however, take place in the same universe. On old Earth, where a small village allows its people to switch sexes from one year to the other until their 20th birthday, when they can settle on their ultimate choice. You see this all through the eyes of our lead character Fullin, who moves from one gender through the other in the course of the narrative. You don't get to the nuts and bolts of just how this gender change takes place until the end of the novel.
It's an odd sort of book, and got me thinking more about gender then anything else I've read (and that includes the book Middlesex). Don't go into this expecting your traditional sci-fi narrative, until maybe the last few chapters of the book. I could see this being something useful to read if you're an English major writing a paper on gender studies, or are just curious in general, but it's not exactly a great summer read or anything. It's a bit too heavy and thematic for my tastes, and wanders quite a bit from the sci-fi classics.
It does, however, take place in the same universe. On old Earth, where a small village allows its people to switch sexes from one year to the other until their 20th birthday, when they can settle on their ultimate choice. You see this all through the eyes of our lead character Fullin, who moves from one gender through the other in the course of the narrative. You don't get to the nuts and bolts of just how this gender change takes place until the end of the novel.
It's an odd sort of book, and got me thinking more about gender then anything else I've read (and that includes the book Middlesex). Don't go into this expecting your traditional sci-fi narrative, until maybe the last few chapters of the book. I could see this being something useful to read if you're an English major writing a paper on gender studies, or are just curious in general, but it's not exactly a great summer read or anything. It's a bit too heavy and thematic for my tastes, and wanders quite a bit from the sci-fi classics.
August 19, 2017
A friend had recommended this one to read. I read this one mostly while on holiday and would read a bit here and there. I had a really hard time getting into it and I am not sure if it was because I was only reading it in short bursts or if it was because of the story itself (I don't know) I just felt there was a lot of explaining to the book's world, and less story being told.
The friend asked me what I thought about the story while I was in the middle of reading it. I mentioned the above and she said, "I felt the same way. Just keep reading. The last quarter will get interesting." She was right. The last quarter picked up and that's when things came full circle. I had my predictions already made on how I thought the story was going to end and was pleasantly mistaken. I love a good surprise and appreciated how the story just delivered it.
The friend asked me what I thought about the story while I was in the middle of reading it. I mentioned the above and she said, "I felt the same way. Just keep reading. The last quarter will get interesting." She was right. The last quarter picked up and that's when things came full circle. I had my predictions already made on how I thought the story was going to end and was pleasantly mistaken. I love a good surprise and appreciated how the story just delivered it.
March 4, 2014
Had some interesting social issues that might have been more risqué back when it was published, but over all it was just okay. The writing was very simplistic (almost seemed like a YA novel except for the subject matter), the protagonist was mostly annoying. The other characters, although mostly pretty two dimensional, at least provoked some sympathy. Read this for my book group.
October 13, 2015
interesting story line. but the selfishness of the main character is hard to swallow...
June 15, 2023
I read this when it first came out in the 90s and I thought it was remarkably open minded and "progressive" at the time. It made me think a lot about presumed gender roles and the part culture plays in how those assigned-male or assigned-female (cis or trans) behave and choose how to live their lives which was not something I did a lot of in my 20s at all. As a GenX'er and a relatively sheltered one at that this book presented a whole 'nother way of thinking about those subjects.
Fast forward 25 years and this book strikes me as remarkably quaint and anachronistic and more than a little troubling. The underlying theme of "walk a mile in another person's moccasins" is still there but it isn't as fleshed out as it could have been. The protagonist was annoying and immature for a 20 year old raising a child of their own. He also kept referring to non-binary people as "it". One of the characters who did not conform to a binary choice was written as sad, weird, and somehow deranged. Do not get me started on the 60+ year old man and his questionable relationship choices and how no one in what is written as an incredibly tight community ever called him on said relationship choices which brings me inevitably to how the patriarchal nature of the governance and religion of Tober's Cove was the driving force behind all the gender-based nonsense. And then there is the "nosy dude from the Big City" who shows up and upsets everyone's apple carts with his own disrespectful behavior as he laughs up his sleeve at all the backwoods hillbillies.
And the timeline did not make sense. For 300 some years, Tober's Cove people would freely choose "neut" with no overt issues and people would, presumably do whatever job they felt called to. Suddenly 150 years ago some random with a chip on his shoulder changes ALL of society and says it's the will of the "gods"? Really? No one, not one person, kicked against that? Really? REALLY?
Definitely problematic.
There were things I enjoyed about the book. I wish the ending had not been so abrupt. A chapter or two to round out how the main characters faced the inevitable at home would have been nice.
Narration could have been better but it wasn't bad.
Story: 2.25
Narration: 2.5
Total: 2.37 Stars
Fast forward 25 years and this book strikes me as remarkably quaint and anachronistic and more than a little troubling. The underlying theme of "walk a mile in another person's moccasins" is still there but it isn't as fleshed out as it could have been. The protagonist was annoying and immature for a 20 year old raising a child of their own. He also kept referring to non-binary people as "it". One of the characters who did not conform to a binary choice was written as sad, weird, and somehow deranged. Do not get me started on the 60+ year old man and his questionable relationship choices and how no one in what is written as an incredibly tight community ever called him on said relationship choices which brings me inevitably to how the patriarchal nature of the governance and religion of Tober's Cove was the driving force behind all the gender-based nonsense. And then there is the "nosy dude from the Big City" who shows up and upsets everyone's apple carts with his own disrespectful behavior as he laughs up his sleeve at all the backwoods hillbillies.
And the timeline did not make sense. For 300 some years, Tober's Cove people would freely choose "neut" with no overt issues and people would, presumably do whatever job they felt called to. Suddenly 150 years ago some random with a chip on his shoulder changes ALL of society and says it's the will of the "gods"? Really? No one, not one person, kicked against that? Really? REALLY?
Definitely problematic.
There were things I enjoyed about the book. I wish the ending had not been so abrupt. A chapter or two to round out how the main characters faced the inevitable at home would have been nice.
Narration could have been better but it wasn't bad.
Story: 2.25
Narration: 2.5
Total: 2.37 Stars
May 28, 2020
Using a researcher doing ethnographic research in a science fiction novel immediately evokes the work of Ursula K. Le Guin’s Hanish Cycle of books, and having the story about gender and a society where people alternate genders immediately evokes Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness. Indeed, Le Guin’s parents were famous anthropologists Theodora and Alfred Louis Kroeber, which is perhaps why her explorations of culture are so powerful. Gardner’s work reads as a love letter to Le Guin, examining her ideas and giving another perspective to a gender-alternating culture.
Yet, Gardner’s exploration of gender takes a different path than Le Guin’s, and where Le Guin doesn’t explore the notion of taboos in society (something that people have critiqued The Left Hand of Darkness for because it ignores the treatment of LGBTQ2IA people as other in our own society), Gardner explores taboo and violence against sexual minorities by featuring a society that technically allows people to choose to be “neut”, but lynches them, kills them, or drives them out of their society violently. Where Le Guin takes a utopian view toward gender diversity, Gardner brings in the realities of human violence and bigotry.
Like Le Guin, Gardner’s Commitment Hour is about a gender experiment – partially his own use of Sci Fi as theory to rethink and critique gender, but also to examine what it would mean to have to choose gender.
To read a more detailed version of my review, go to my website at https://speculatingcanada.ca/2020/05/...
Yet, Gardner’s exploration of gender takes a different path than Le Guin’s, and where Le Guin doesn’t explore the notion of taboos in society (something that people have critiqued The Left Hand of Darkness for because it ignores the treatment of LGBTQ2IA people as other in our own society), Gardner explores taboo and violence against sexual minorities by featuring a society that technically allows people to choose to be “neut”, but lynches them, kills them, or drives them out of their society violently. Where Le Guin takes a utopian view toward gender diversity, Gardner brings in the realities of human violence and bigotry.
Like Le Guin, Gardner’s Commitment Hour is about a gender experiment – partially his own use of Sci Fi as theory to rethink and critique gender, but also to examine what it would mean to have to choose gender.
To read a more detailed version of my review, go to my website at https://speculatingcanada.ca/2020/05/...
June 27, 2017
The setting is a future Earth with less technology (generally.) In particular, a village which has a mythology and pantheon of gods it believes influences things. What makes this particular village of interest is that its rituals and gods have children (age 1 - 20) switch from one gender to the other each summer solstice. The two main characters are just reaching age 20, at which time each person is to choose the gender with which he/she will live the rest of his/her life.
Although the book is not truly a "mystery novel," there are three "mysteries" which the reader encounters. (At least for readers who don't take the story too much for granted) there's the mystery of how a person changes their sex as well as their perspective each year. Then there are two visitors to the village from a more technological area - whose identities, agendas, etc. must be learned. And later on in the book there is a murder in need of explanation.
The book makes one think about gender issues in general. It also deals with social outcasts - people who are hermaphroties. It also presents examples of political power and manipulation, bullies, differences between public and private behavior, etc.
Although the book is not truly a "mystery novel," there are three "mysteries" which the reader encounters. (At least for readers who don't take the story too much for granted) there's the mystery of how a person changes their sex as well as their perspective each year. Then there are two visitors to the village from a more technological area - whose identities, agendas, etc. must be learned. And later on in the book there is a murder in need of explanation.
The book makes one think about gender issues in general. It also deals with social outcasts - people who are hermaphroties. It also presents examples of political power and manipulation, bullies, differences between public and private behavior, etc.
February 16, 2024
I still remember finding this book on a shelf in Goodwill as a teenager over 15 years ago, popping it open for a quick look, and getting hooked immediately. I loved the themes, and was so easily transported by the narration. I'd never seen a story like it. This book also led me to reading the rest of the League of Peoples series, which has since become my favorite book series of all time. Every few years I like to reread the series, and as great as the other books are, this one is still my favorite of the bunch.
July 26, 2024
My rating system: I begin with one star being equivalent to a rating of "C-". Progressing upwards, I add ½ star for each step, up to the maximum 5 stars, which is equivalent to a rating of "A+". I reserve ½ star for BOMBS, there being no option of zero or negative stars. As a result, I maximize my rating space for good books, and don't squander half or more of that rating space on books that are of marginal quality.
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Thus my rating of 3 stars for "Commitment Hour" is equivalent to "B-", which I think is accurate. It is perhaps even marginally generous, but 2 stars strikes me as too low. The novel does have a great deal of depth, and some truly fascinating ideas, and well-developed characters. There is a well-developed plot, and even an interesting murder mystery. Recommended - but my favourites in this series (so far - I am only in the middle of the 5th in the series - "Ascending") are "Expendable" (the first novel) and "Vigilant" (the third in the series).
The series is "The League of Peoples" - and "Commitment Hour" is the most loosely connected of these novels to the series. (This is rather like the way, for example, that "Inversions" in Iain M. Banks "Culture" series - they are part of the series, but only in a sort-of fashion).
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Thus my rating of 3 stars for "Commitment Hour" is equivalent to "B-", which I think is accurate. It is perhaps even marginally generous, but 2 stars strikes me as too low. The novel does have a great deal of depth, and some truly fascinating ideas, and well-developed characters. There is a well-developed plot, and even an interesting murder mystery. Recommended - but my favourites in this series (so far - I am only in the middle of the 5th in the series - "Ascending") are "Expendable" (the first novel) and "Vigilant" (the third in the series).
The series is "The League of Peoples" - and "Commitment Hour" is the most loosely connected of these novels to the series. (This is rather like the way, for example, that "Inversions" in Iain M. Banks "Culture" series - they are part of the series, but only in a sort-of fashion).
April 12, 2019
I'm enjoying this series so much I'm not sure whether to move right on to the next book, or take a break for a bit.
Loved this one, not least because my father lives on the "Bruise" Peninsula :-) Lots of fun worldbuilding around that.
I was afraid that this series would end up all being about the same characters, so I was glad that we moved on to a different world and different characters. Interesting concepts, and societies...I'm looking forward to the rest of the series.
Loved this one, not least because my father lives on the "Bruise" Peninsula :-) Lots of fun worldbuilding around that.
I was afraid that this series would end up all being about the same characters, so I was glad that we moved on to a different world and different characters. Interesting concepts, and societies...I'm looking forward to the rest of the series.
December 5, 2024
A very odd story. I wouldn't want to try to explain it if someone asked me what I was reading. But it works; the characters are intriguing and the story kept my interest enough. The primary character is quite flawed, which lends the book credibility. The penultimate chapter was quite shocking. It left me wondering if life was going to continue as before after all that happened at the end. The story achieves and interesting balance between science and religion.
October 17, 2018
I really like the ideas around cloning and sharing experiences of multiple bodies. This has been one of my favourite SciFi topics so far, and this is one of the more clever ideas: instead of more of the same, give people a taste of different sides. I wish this was actually possible.
could-not-finish
August 23, 2019I couldn't finish this book. The first book was great. This one is a sarcastic version of a dystopian Earth and I found it extremely boring. I'd read a couple of paragraphs and then find else something to do. I don't know what this has to do with the League of Peoples series. To me, nothing.
June 21, 2025
As a trans person I absolutely loved this. I didn't fully understand what was happening for a while, but when I clued in, this book became an instant favorite. I'm going to recommend this book to all my friends as a must-read!
November 8, 2017
I like the concept but it was a really slow start for me, which made it a tough read overall.
November 21, 2017
I like Gardner's style of writing and humour. His characters are always interesting and carry this book about gender bending ideas. Good read.
January 18, 2018
Get On With It!
Way too slow and repetitive.
Way too slow and repetitive.
February 8, 2018
Very interesting story. Usually I won't read Fantasy, but this one had great imagination. Too much violence though or I might have made it a 5. Quite interesting being able to choose one's sex.
May 5, 2019
Not an uninteresting premise, but an awfully slow start. It takes a while book to get through 12 hours in a certain day.
May 6, 2020
Super duper slow in the beginning and middle. Had to force myself to keep reading. Which is weird cause I loved the Expendables. Aw well. I liked the ending though.
dnf
July 5, 2020Don’t really dislike it but it’s not really hooking me versus the author’s Spark/Dark books.
December 19, 2021
Quite different.
February 27, 2023
ok, expendable is better.
April 11, 2012
Quite an oddly interesting read. The bizarre nature of the novel's subject matter, a village whose inhabitants switch sexes every year until the age of 20, is what initially piqued my interest. This is not to say that I've ever had the urge to alter my own sex mind you, but rather I was curious to see how the author would pull off such a feat.
How weird would it be to change your sex on a yearly basis. Seriously, think about that for a second. To wake up one morning and find your body completely altered? To have vague recollections of your past year living as a man, but now finding yourself in a woman's body, feeling a woman's thoughts and desires. This is what the natives of Tober Cove deal with every year until the age of 20, when they finally need to make a choice as to which sex they would like to live out their remaining years as; male, female, or hermaphrodite (or as the locals call it, "Neut"). In order to ensure that each inhabitant has experienced every possible aspect of each sex prior to their "Commitment Day", the day they choose their final sex, each citizen is impregnated in their late teen years so that they can even experience the child birthing process. Yep, you read that correctly, and oddly enough, it makes sense considering the circumstances.
To make this tale even a bit more odd is the fact that the locals of neighboring cities and villages do not experience this same sex shifting phenomenon. What exactly is going on in Tober Cove? A well renowned scientist travels to the village to answer this very question, and thus all hell breaks loose as he begins unraveling the mystery.
In addition to the inquisitive scientist, the story focuses on the discrimination towards those who chose to become hermaphrodites ("Neuts") as well as the twisted story of two locals that are facing their "Commitment Day." They also happen to be lovers with two children of their own, which of course adds some additional intrigue. What happens if they both choose to commit as the same sex?? Yes my friends, drama ensues.
In my earlier days I used to devour Science Fiction novels at a rather rapid pace, but nowadays my tastes have typically shifted away from this genre. That being said, I did find this novel to be oddly entertaining and I'm glad I decided to crack it open. While the story did seem to drag on at times (the entire novel takes place over the course of one day) I think James Alan Garner did an admirable job of portraying the world through the eyes of characters who are faced with a very different type of lifestyle. The added mystery surrounding why the annual sex shifting occurs in the first place also helped keep me interested until the book's final pages. This definitely won't be everyone's cup of tea, but if you go into it with an open mind you may just enjoy it.
How weird would it be to change your sex on a yearly basis. Seriously, think about that for a second. To wake up one morning and find your body completely altered? To have vague recollections of your past year living as a man, but now finding yourself in a woman's body, feeling a woman's thoughts and desires. This is what the natives of Tober Cove deal with every year until the age of 20, when they finally need to make a choice as to which sex they would like to live out their remaining years as; male, female, or hermaphrodite (or as the locals call it, "Neut"). In order to ensure that each inhabitant has experienced every possible aspect of each sex prior to their "Commitment Day", the day they choose their final sex, each citizen is impregnated in their late teen years so that they can even experience the child birthing process. Yep, you read that correctly, and oddly enough, it makes sense considering the circumstances.
To make this tale even a bit more odd is the fact that the locals of neighboring cities and villages do not experience this same sex shifting phenomenon. What exactly is going on in Tober Cove? A well renowned scientist travels to the village to answer this very question, and thus all hell breaks loose as he begins unraveling the mystery.
In addition to the inquisitive scientist, the story focuses on the discrimination towards those who chose to become hermaphrodites ("Neuts") as well as the twisted story of two locals that are facing their "Commitment Day." They also happen to be lovers with two children of their own, which of course adds some additional intrigue. What happens if they both choose to commit as the same sex?? Yes my friends, drama ensues.
In my earlier days I used to devour Science Fiction novels at a rather rapid pace, but nowadays my tastes have typically shifted away from this genre. That being said, I did find this novel to be oddly entertaining and I'm glad I decided to crack it open. While the story did seem to drag on at times (the entire novel takes place over the course of one day) I think James Alan Garner did an admirable job of portraying the world through the eyes of characters who are faced with a very different type of lifestyle. The added mystery surrounding why the annual sex shifting occurs in the first place also helped keep me interested until the book's final pages. This definitely won't be everyone's cup of tea, but if you go into it with an open mind you may just enjoy it.
December 20, 2016
Commitment Hour is a removal from the galactic exploration and politics of Expendable, towards an investigation of a very unusual small town. Tober Cove is a unique town, where children switch genders each year until they age of 20, where they must commit to one gender for the rest of their life. Fullin is a talented young musician, trying to avoid his soon-to-be jilted lover, when on the night before commitment he's visited by a powerful Spark Lord and a hated Neuter exile from his village, come to investigate the nature of Tober Cove.
The investigation of gender roles is in scifi in inextricably linked the Ursula K LeGuin, and Gardner builds on that tradition with a surprisingly egalitarian examination of the differences between men and women, and the benefits that experiencing both sides of the gender duality might bring*. Tabor Cove slots cleverly into the larger League of People's universe as an unethical science experiment set up on Old Earth and abandoned. I really enjoyed the details of the 400 years of history since first contact, and the authenticity of the small town culture.
That said, while the protagonist of this book felt believable as a person, Fullin was also a miserable brat. Fullin was so much obviously better as the female self, and his partner Cappie likewise as a male, that it was almost painful watching them walk towards locking themselves into the wrong gender. The actual timeline of the book was only a day, perhaps the worst day in anyone's life, and I'm surprised Fullin kept it together as well as he did. The book ends with a titanic shift in the nature of the Tabor's Cove, which is left unresolved.
This book is stylish, but I'm not sure how much I enjoyed reading it, or what exactly it had to say.
*Note: some people with really strong opinions about the Right Way that genders are may be offended, particularly trans activists and/or opponents, or gay people, of whom there are none in the novel. Fullin lives under the rule of particularly shitty patriarchal religion, but I'm not sure that Watsonian explanation holds up.
The investigation of gender roles is in scifi in inextricably linked the Ursula K LeGuin, and Gardner builds on that tradition with a surprisingly egalitarian examination of the differences between men and women, and the benefits that experiencing both sides of the gender duality might bring*. Tabor Cove slots cleverly into the larger League of People's universe as an unethical science experiment set up on Old Earth and abandoned. I really enjoyed the details of the 400 years of history since first contact, and the authenticity of the small town culture.
That said, while the protagonist of this book felt believable as a person, Fullin was also a miserable brat. Fullin was so much obviously better as the female self, and his partner Cappie likewise as a male, that it was almost painful watching them walk towards locking themselves into the wrong gender. The actual timeline of the book was only a day, perhaps the worst day in anyone's life, and I'm surprised Fullin kept it together as well as he did. The book ends with a titanic shift in the nature of the Tabor's Cove, which is left unresolved.
This book is stylish, but I'm not sure how much I enjoyed reading it, or what exactly it had to say.
*Note: some people with really strong opinions about the Right Way that genders are may be offended, particularly trans activists and/or opponents, or gay people, of whom there are none in the novel. Fullin lives under the rule of particularly shitty patriarchal religion, but I'm not sure that Watsonian explanation holds up.
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