From /tmp/sf.17355 Fri Jun 4 00:08:47 1993 Path: lysator.liu.se!isy!liuida!sunic!pipex!bnr.co.uk!bnrgate!nott!torn!howland.reston.ans.net!wupost!udel!news.intercon.com!psinntp!dg-rtp!sheol!dont-reply-to-paths From: pathetic@Panix.Com (Brian Youmans) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Subject: "Rainbow Man" by MJ Engh Approved: sfr%sheol@concert.net (rec.arts.sf.reviews moderator) Message-ID: Date: 27 May 93 01:39:25 GMT Lines: 38 Rainbow Man by M. J. Engh (1993, Tor, $17.95 hc, 253 pp.) M. J. Engh (of Arslan fame) is back with another book concerned with gender, morality, sexuality, and power. As usual, she finds unusual ways of looking at things, and this book is much different from her previous books. RM is set in a future where barely-sub-light traders move between settled human worlds tenuously in touch with each other. Liss, a "starshipper", decides to get off her ship at the pleasant, even utopian world Bimran - a lightly populated world with a gentle climate and friendly, helpful people. When she applies for a visitor's permit, however, she finds that she, as an infertile female, is classed as a man on Bimran - and due to her colorful clothes the natives take to calling her "Rainbow Man". Not much actually happens in this book. What there is is a slow process of Liss discovering just how Bimran society works - and why it works that way. Liss and the reader have to deal with questions about what is morality and goodness, is punishment necessary, can you love someone whose beliefs you disagree with? What is the function of religion in a society, and what should it be? I'm not going to tell you much about the plot, because there isn't very much of it to tell. But I'll say that for me the 250 pages went very quickly; you want to find out how Liss' story comes out. Engh leaves a lot of philosophical questions unanswered, but you can tell where her sympathies lie... Read it - recommend it - it's a shoo-in for a Nebula nomination for next year, and I'd like to see it on the Hugo ballot. - Brian Youmans %A Engh, M. J. %T Rainbow Man %I Tor %O hc, $17.95 %C NY %P 253 %D 1993 %G ISBN 0-312-85468-4