Feminist Science Fiction Fans discussion

He, She and It (published under the title Body of Glass outside the USA) is an award-winning feminist science fiction/cyberpunk novel by Marge Piercy, published in 1991. Winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Best Science Fiction in the United Kingdom,[1] the novel examines gender roles, human identity and AI, political economy, environmentalism, love, and storytelling through a suspenseful plot, set in a post-apocalyptic America, of the romance between a human woman and the cyborg created to protect her community from corporate raiders. (Thanks wikipedia!)

Romance and cyborgs! What more could you want.

This is a great book! I am surprised not that many people have read it yet. Marge Piercy is is an excellent writer. The character development is great, even the android's.

I love Marge Piercy's writing. I'm only about 80 pages into He, She and It but it is fabulous so far.

This is an entertaining and thought-provoking book. The character building is great, and the pacing is fairly good, but it started to drag for me just after midway through. I find it hard, personally, to connect with female characters that are largely driven by connections to their children, and I struggled a bit with Ari's inclusion in the tale, particularly towards the end (view spoiler)[after he is kidnapped by Yod and Shira and brought back to Malkah's house. I also felt a bit weird about how quickly Shira forgave Yod for killing Josh. It didn't feel like a realistic reaction. (hide spoiler)]

Overall the story was just a touch too romantical for me, but I thought the world building was great. The idea of creating a cyborg capable of independent thought with the limited intended use of a weapon is interesting. I thought Shira's actions at the very end were also very interesting.

I liked that there were so many strong female characters (does anyone else find it annoying that 'strong' female characters are labelled as such but 'strong' male characters are just 'male characters' as if the 'strong' is implied?) I particularly liked Nili.

Anyone else make progress on this yet?

I loved it, although I found Shira's attachment to Gadi to be annoying. 1) So much obsession about a boy. 2) Gadi just seemed annoying, self-centered, and silly. I loved Nili, but why would she sleep with such a dip? At least she didn't find him obsession-worthy like Shira did.

I liked Shira's progression as an individual, but yeah (view spoiler)[ her reaction to Josh's death was a little weird. But I agree that it was her fault, not Yod's. But should the bonds of motherhood excuse anything? I don't think so. (hide spoiler)]

Shira's Gadi obsession is definitely redic. I loved how Piercy's writing really made Gadi come alive as a character, but he sure was detestable. And (view spoiler)[the bonds of motherhood definitely don't justify murder and kidnapping. Josh had every right to be a part of Ari's life, and the fact that Shira was so obsessed with her own distance from Ari should not have made it ok for her to kidnap him. Piercy clearly tried to show that Shira was relieved to have Ari living with her again post-kidnapping, but the kid was just a blip in the background for the rest of the story, I felt. He was the main motivator for one of the major events of the story but then he just kind of... fizzled out. (hide spoiler)]