Several things drew me to We.  Comparison to 1984 is unavoidable, yet it predates it by several decades. A science fiction dystopia written in 1921 Russia that is still being read and discussed today seems like the type of foundation literature I should be familiar with.

The book is definitely an interesting read, pulling on themes we expect to see in any modern literary dystopia with investigation and discussion of what it means to be an individual.  It is also difficult to read, a short novel that makes use of uncomfortable descriptions and has passages that are undeniably racist.  What remains is to untangle what is relic of the environment in which the book was written, what is an aspect of the horror of the setting, and what is true bias of the author.  Philosophically interesting, but for me the discomfort rides heavy even if took minimal space in the text.

Discussion Fodder:

• What aspects of this book are due to its dystopia setting, and what aspects are due to when and where it was written?
• How are concepts similar or different?  In particular concepts of the beauty, rationality, logic, the soul, etc.
• How reliable is the narrator?  Is he a metric of which we can measure the standard contentment of ciphers, or is he an abnormally content in his world of rational numbers?
• What is the place and purpose of the arts in this story?  How does the formulaic structure of their music and poetry change the impact and role? 
• How does the author talk about physicality?
• The narrator describes a "past" while the author writes from approximately a century ago.  How do his descriptions match the world we live in, and how have things changed?

I don't even know where to start with this review.  I'd been aware of Bitch Planet for some time, and it totally seemed like my jam from what I heard, but I just didn't get around to reading it.  And then I did.  Holy shit.

GO READ BITCH PLANET NOW

Embracing the outrageousness of 70's exploitation films, Bitch Planet channels the irony of a culture that calls women who dare to push against objectification "angry feminists," into a piece about the anger of those who feel the caging bars of cultural expectations.

The comic is magnificent with a sort fervent insanity that reminds me of what drew me into Tank Girl.  There's an embracing of women's bodies as they are, and a celebration of rebellion against controlling gender expectations.

These women have a reason to be angry.  Not quite chattle in a society that explicitly tells them that they are flawed.  Too loud, too religious, too atheist, too extreme.  Not thin enough, not friendly enough, not compliant enough.  Your husband cast you aside for a younger, prettier, woman?  That may be all it takes to end up exiled from Earth, incarcerated as a noncompliant on an auxiliary outpost.

Bitch Planet is angry and feminist, and is glorious.


There's a fantastic interview with DeConnick over on NPR, I strongly recommend listening to it.

Advanced Reader Copy copy courtesy of Image Comics via NetGalley; differences may exist between uncorrected galley text and the final edition.

well, i have a new comic on my pull list

It's on the NYT Best Seller list with the following summary: "In a future not that different from our world, a couple living in a town where residents both serve as prisoners and staff a prison wrestle with monogamy."

Really?  That's what you took from the book?

Yeah, they wrestle with monogamy, but the sex is more something to link them to the greater plots of greed, corruption, desperation, and for-profit prison systems.

I reviewed it back in Aug if people want something a little more accurate than a book about a couple wrestling with monogamy while serving as both prisoners and jailers.

http://libromancersapprentice.blogspot.com/2015/08/book-review-heart-goes-last.html

A dystopian story of desperation, greed, for-profit prisons, and the sex lives of those caught up in it all.

For Stan and Charmaine, the Positron Project seems like a gift from Heaven.  A home of their own and guaranteed jobs, even if it's tempered with alternating months spent as prison inmates, is a vast improvement over living in their car and surviving on Charmaine's meager tips.  The isolation from the world at large seems a small price to pay for safety and security.  But little things don't seem to add up, and when Charmaine begins a torrid affair with Stan's "alternate" a chain of events is set into motion that threatens the secrets of those in charge, and puts Stan and Charmaine in danger.

I didn't fall in love with the story immediately.  The start felt off, disjointed, as it tried to drop me inside both of Stan and Charmaine's lives.  It's when they reached their supposed utopia with all it's cracks that things began to get interesting.  The characters have their flaws, Charmaine may cheat on Stan, but Stan himself stalks the woman he believes to be Charmaine's alternate with intend to force himself upon her.  Stan is pulled into a dangerous game where he's used and sexually abused by a woman pursuing revolution.  The supporting cast has less depth, seen only through Charmaine and Stan's eyes, their true thoughts and motivations hidden from Stan, Charmaine, and the reader.  We see the faces that they present, lacking their thoughts and introspection.

Ultimately as things unraveled I found myself drawn more and more to the story, less willing to put it down.  The Heart Goes Last may push the bounds of believable future, but it also never goes fully into the unbelievable.

Advanced Reader Copy copy courtesy of Doubleday Books via Netgalley; differences may exist between uncorrected galley text and the final edition.