The Unraveling
Benjamin Rosenbaum
In the distant future somewhere in the galaxy, a society has emerged where everyone has multiple bodies, cybernetics has abolished privacy, and individual and family success within the rigid social system is reliant upon instantaneous social approbation.
Young Fift is an only child of the staid gender, struggling to maintain their position in the system while developing an intriguing friendship with the poorly-publicized bioengineer Shria–somewhat controversial, since Shria is bail-gendered.
In time, Fift and Shria unintentionally wind up at the center of a scandalous art spectacle which turns into the early stages of a multi-layered revolution against their strict societal system. Suddenly they become celebrities and involuntary standard-bearers for the upheaval.
Fift is torn between the survival of Shria and the success of their family cohort; staying true to their feelings and caving under societal pressure. Whatever Fift decides will make a disproportionately huge impact on the future of the world. What’s a young staid to do when the whole world is watching?
Young Fift is an only child of the staid gender, struggling to maintain their position in the system while developing an intriguing friendship with the poorly-publicized bioengineer Shria–somewhat controversial, since Shria is bail-gendered.
In time, Fift and Shria unintentionally wind up at the center of a scandalous art spectacle which turns into the early stages of a multi-layered revolution against their strict societal system. Suddenly they become celebrities and involuntary standard-bearers for the upheaval.
Fift is torn between the survival of Shria and the success of their family cohort; staying true to their feelings and caving under societal pressure. Whatever Fift decides will make a disproportionately huge impact on the future of the world. What’s a young staid to do when the whole world is watching?
- Genres Science Fiction LGBT Fiction Queer Fantasy Science Fiction Fantasy Speculative Fiction
408 pages, Hardcover
First published June 8, 2021
About the author
Benjamin Rosenbaum
70 books51 followersBenjamin Rosenbaum has been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, BSFA, Sturgeon, and World Fantasy Awards. He is the author of _The Unraveling_, a queer far-future coming-of-age novel, the short story collection _The Ant King and Other Stories_, and the Ennie-nominated Jewish historical fantasy tabletop roleplaying game _Dream Apart_. His stories have been translated into 25 languages.
He is the co-host of the podcast _Mohanraj and Rosenbaum Are Humans_.
Originally from Arlington, VA, he lives near Basel, Switzerland with his wife and children.
Author photo (c) 2017 Portrait Playtime.
He is the co-host of the podcast _Mohanraj and Rosenbaum Are Humans_.
Originally from Arlington, VA, he lives near Basel, Switzerland with his wife and children.
Author photo (c) 2017 Portrait Playtime.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 54 reviews
Siavahda
April 30, 2021
HIGHLIGHTS
~leave all your notions about gender at the door
~ever wanted to be in two places at once? HOW ABOUT SIX???
~would you like a tail??? you can have a tail
~‘I don’t want to lead a revolution I just want to maybe kiss my friend’
~the Clowns are Up To Something
~spoons
Oh, how I adore this strange, wonderful phantasmagora of a book.
…And I’ve been sitting here staring at the screen for minutes upon minutes, wondering how on earth to describe it.
Well, let’s start with that, I guess: Fift’s world is not ours. The story takes place far, far in humanity’s future, and on another, apparently long-since-terraformed, planet. Here, everyone has multiple bodies, which they inhabit and direct simultaneously; everything everyone does is visible to anyone who looks them up in the Feed; and the concept of ‘men’ and ‘women’ is nowhere to be found. Instead Fift’s society is divided up into Staids and Vails, which have nothing whatsoever to do with a person’s (extremely customisable) biology; instead, gender is assigned to newborns by the nearly-all-powerful Midwives. Violence and crime are so rare as to be the stuff of legend, food and clothing are created and available at the push of a button, and humanity has conquered disease: Fift and the others of zir generation are expected to live to be 900 years old.
It’s a utopia. A very odd-looking, but apparently genuine, utopia.
Except, obviously, it’s a lot more complicated than that.
Read the rest at Every Book a Doorway!
~leave all your notions about gender at the door
~ever wanted to be in two places at once? HOW ABOUT SIX???
~would you like a tail??? you can have a tail
~‘I don’t want to lead a revolution I just want to maybe kiss my friend’
~the Clowns are Up To Something
~spoons
Oh, how I adore this strange, wonderful phantasmagora of a book.
…And I’ve been sitting here staring at the screen for minutes upon minutes, wondering how on earth to describe it.
Well, let’s start with that, I guess: Fift’s world is not ours. The story takes place far, far in humanity’s future, and on another, apparently long-since-terraformed, planet. Here, everyone has multiple bodies, which they inhabit and direct simultaneously; everything everyone does is visible to anyone who looks them up in the Feed; and the concept of ‘men’ and ‘women’ is nowhere to be found. Instead Fift’s society is divided up into Staids and Vails, which have nothing whatsoever to do with a person’s (extremely customisable) biology; instead, gender is assigned to newborns by the nearly-all-powerful Midwives. Violence and crime are so rare as to be the stuff of legend, food and clothing are created and available at the push of a button, and humanity has conquered disease: Fift and the others of zir generation are expected to live to be 900 years old.
It’s a utopia. A very odd-looking, but apparently genuine, utopia.
Except, obviously, it’s a lot more complicated than that.
Read the rest at Every Book a Doorway!
David Moles
May 13, 2021
(Full disclosure: I’ve known Ben for years and have been waiting impatiently for this novel ever since reading the first drafts of pieces of it that never made it past the cutting-room floor. It was worth the wait.)
The Unraveling is a lot.
It’s a timeless forbidden romance, a gonzo queer space opera in the tradition of Samuel R. Delany, Geoff Ryman, and Gwyneth Jones, a moving coming-of-age story about going against the expectations of family and society to be true to yourself in troubled times.
It’s an incisive dissection of the human necessity to organize people and the world into categories and systems, and a thoughtful meditation on the history, propensities, and ultimate destiny of humanity.
It’s also clever, charming, fast-paced, and an extraordinary amount of fun. The opening chapters are a lot to take in—people with multiple bodies and multiple points of view, unfamiliar genders with unfamiliar pronouns, a whole world and society to unpack in just a few pages—but stick with it long enough to get to know Fift and Shria and you won’t be able to put it down.
The Unraveling is a lot.
It’s a timeless forbidden romance, a gonzo queer space opera in the tradition of Samuel R. Delany, Geoff Ryman, and Gwyneth Jones, a moving coming-of-age story about going against the expectations of family and society to be true to yourself in troubled times.
It’s an incisive dissection of the human necessity to organize people and the world into categories and systems, and a thoughtful meditation on the history, propensities, and ultimate destiny of humanity.
It’s also clever, charming, fast-paced, and an extraordinary amount of fun. The opening chapters are a lot to take in—people with multiple bodies and multiple points of view, unfamiliar genders with unfamiliar pronouns, a whole world and society to unpack in just a few pages—but stick with it long enough to get to know Fift and Shria and you won’t be able to put it down.
Zvi
June 17, 2021
Like nothing else. A grand queer coming-of-age story set in a far-future world: there are two genders which don't map at all to male/female. People are multiply-embodied. The processes of thinking, group consensus, seeing the world, sex, mother- and father-hood, age, and professions are completely different. The people in it are all-too-human: they argue (boy, do they argue), get into trouble, placate, try to do their best, struggle with their passions and the baggage from their childhood, do the wrong thing for the right reasons, and generally make a mess of things, as we all do. Fift, our hero(ine), grows up and makes mistakes and changes, but all for love and passion, even though there are huge social consequences. I will re-read this after racing through it once. If you're interested in the different, the strange, the queer, the passionate: check this book out.
Maria
Read
May 19, 2021I dunno if you've read the novel SENSE AND SENSIBILITY by Jane Austen, but while reading this book, I was reminded of this Regency romance. Now, you must be wondering, what on earth does a Regency romance have anything to do with a sci-fi set in a secondary world?
The connection lies in the two books' protagonists. While the Regency romance has two sisters who are vastly different in temperament; one being sense (as in serious and sedate in emotions) and the other being sensible (back then this word meant sensitive). Elinor Dashwood is as serious and sedate in emotions as Marianne Dashwood is impulsive and passionate. These two temperaments are the basis of THE UNRAVELING, a groundbreaking sci-fi by author Benjamin Rosenbaum.
In THE UNRAVELING, there are two genders in this world, the Staids and the Vails. Now, if you google their meanings, you'll find that Staid means serious, conventional, unadventurous, solemn, somber, stiff, uptight. So yeah, the Staids are the gender who are like Elinor Dashwood. Meanwhile, the Vails are the Marianne Dashwood; passionate, hot-blooded, sentimental, sensitive. Vail also means, according to Google, "take off or lower (one's hat or crown) as a token of respect or submission", aka the Vails are seen as something of a lower status than the somber Staids. Though there isn't any strict order for the two to mingle or even mate, it is forbidden for the Staids to display emotional outbursts and the Vails to engage in physical violence outside designated areas, referred to as "the mats".
Anyway, this will be a polarizing book. I mean it. Firstly, because it's written in neo-pronouns, no he/she. Instead, the Staids use ze/zir/zir/zirs/zirself; the Vails use ve/vir/vem/virs/vemself. For me, it was tough to not read he/she, rather ze/ve. The first time I began to read it, I only made it to chapter 2 before I had to stop and let my brain stew this in. That took me a week. I returned to the book a week later, dumping all my preconceived notions of gender and sex and bodies and privacy of mind and family structure out the door. I began again and this time, it took me less than two days to finish.
Yeah, the story sucked me in. At its heart, THE UNRAVELING is a story of two themes; gender identity, and individual vs community. In a world where your place is determined immediately after birth and forever, in a world where you're rigidly stuck in one temperament and denied a chance to express yourself as you like, do things as you like, without any privacy inside even your head, life can become suffocating. So it becomes for our protagonist, 16yo staid Fift Brulio Iraxis. Born, gendered, and raised in a cohort (alternate word for "family" in this world) of close to ten parents, Fift often feels suffocated by the lack of privacy, lack of freedom, and lack of any chance to choose things for zirself. The same thing zir best friend, Shria, feels as well. Gendered as a Vail, vir cohort already makes a huge mistake when ve was a child, having another child without the consent of their community. That's right! In this world, to have a child, you'll need consent and approval from your community. If not and you still birth a child, the Midwives, who assign gender to a child upon birth, take away the child and bring them up as a midwife for future. While this community connection can be good, it has its dark sides. If a cohort doesn't abide by the ridiculous rules imposed by the Midwives, the latter holds the power to disband any rule-breaking cohort and take away their child too. Also in this world, a child's mind and activities can be constantly monitored by their parents, no matter how many bodies the child possesses (yup, here everybody possess more than one body, almost like clones, except they share one mind). So the chapters contain lots of head-hopping, another thing that can confuse and frustrate and irritate readers, thus further dividing their opinions about this book. Personally, it was somewhat tough to constantly head-hop almost every paragraph, but it became easier for me when I began to imagine the events in my head the way movies and shows with multiple parallel timelines are shown onscreen simultaneously. Maybe this tip can help you read it better? 🙂
Anyway, the story begins when Fift and Shria accidentally find themselves in the middle of an unprecedented revolutionary riot during a festivity and the inappropriate affection they display toward each other. Complicated by Fift's stubborn refusal to conform to societies ridiculous rules that demand from zir to end zir friendship with Shria, they find themselves at the precipice of a revolution that not only threatens to tear them apart, but also tear apart their respective cohorts, their communities, even the fabric of this Midwives-controlled world. An interesting weave of utopia and dystopia, THE UNRAVELING both changes and challenges our ideas of gender, identity, personality, and family. Again, this book is full of conflicting tug-of-war between a sense of community and a sense of individuality. How far would you go to retain your individuality? Can you survive without a community? Can you have individuality within a community?
Another cool thing about this book is that the pressure and expectations to conform to this world's standard of gender identity is eerily similar to our own. In real life, anything other than male or female is considered an oddity. Although at present, the binaries of gender identity has been pushed and broken a few many times, the idea still stands. In THE UNRAVELING, you'll find similar rigid, arbitrary expectations and pressure from society. The Staids cannot express emotions, the Vails cannot access into the Long Conversation, a detailed, erudite collection of this world's intellects. Although unlike ours, this society does not bestow gender identity based on one's sex, the dark side of the binaries still stands. Gender identity in our world is assumed upon arbitrary attributes, same as the world of this book. The author does not reveal what makes the Midwives assign one child Staid gender and another child Vail, and by keeping this vague and somewhat arbitrary, the author is asking us to ask those same questions to ourselves, about our society's way of assigning gender to a person. Just the same way Vails can be stoic and Staids can be expressive and both can be both or neither, men can have vagina and women can have penis and both can have both or neither as well.
With such deep thematic exploration, this book will divide people. Some will love it, some will hate it, some will hate it with love, some will love it with hate. But it'll make all its readers think and perform some serious brain work to figure out the machinations of this book's world.
Thank you, NetGalley and Erewhon Books, for providing me with an eARC in exchange for my honest opinion.
The connection lies in the two books' protagonists. While the Regency romance has two sisters who are vastly different in temperament; one being sense (as in serious and sedate in emotions) and the other being sensible (back then this word meant sensitive). Elinor Dashwood is as serious and sedate in emotions as Marianne Dashwood is impulsive and passionate. These two temperaments are the basis of THE UNRAVELING, a groundbreaking sci-fi by author Benjamin Rosenbaum.
In THE UNRAVELING, there are two genders in this world, the Staids and the Vails. Now, if you google their meanings, you'll find that Staid means serious, conventional, unadventurous, solemn, somber, stiff, uptight. So yeah, the Staids are the gender who are like Elinor Dashwood. Meanwhile, the Vails are the Marianne Dashwood; passionate, hot-blooded, sentimental, sensitive. Vail also means, according to Google, "take off or lower (one's hat or crown) as a token of respect or submission", aka the Vails are seen as something of a lower status than the somber Staids. Though there isn't any strict order for the two to mingle or even mate, it is forbidden for the Staids to display emotional outbursts and the Vails to engage in physical violence outside designated areas, referred to as "the mats".
Anyway, this will be a polarizing book. I mean it. Firstly, because it's written in neo-pronouns, no he/she. Instead, the Staids use ze/zir/zir/zirs/zirself; the Vails use ve/vir/vem/virs/vemself. For me, it was tough to not read he/she, rather ze/ve. The first time I began to read it, I only made it to chapter 2 before I had to stop and let my brain stew this in. That took me a week. I returned to the book a week later, dumping all my preconceived notions of gender and sex and bodies and privacy of mind and family structure out the door. I began again and this time, it took me less than two days to finish.
Yeah, the story sucked me in. At its heart, THE UNRAVELING is a story of two themes; gender identity, and individual vs community. In a world where your place is determined immediately after birth and forever, in a world where you're rigidly stuck in one temperament and denied a chance to express yourself as you like, do things as you like, without any privacy inside even your head, life can become suffocating. So it becomes for our protagonist, 16yo staid Fift Brulio Iraxis. Born, gendered, and raised in a cohort (alternate word for "family" in this world) of close to ten parents, Fift often feels suffocated by the lack of privacy, lack of freedom, and lack of any chance to choose things for zirself. The same thing zir best friend, Shria, feels as well. Gendered as a Vail, vir cohort already makes a huge mistake when ve was a child, having another child without the consent of their community. That's right! In this world, to have a child, you'll need consent and approval from your community. If not and you still birth a child, the Midwives, who assign gender to a child upon birth, take away the child and bring them up as a midwife for future. While this community connection can be good, it has its dark sides. If a cohort doesn't abide by the ridiculous rules imposed by the Midwives, the latter holds the power to disband any rule-breaking cohort and take away their child too. Also in this world, a child's mind and activities can be constantly monitored by their parents, no matter how many bodies the child possesses (yup, here everybody possess more than one body, almost like clones, except they share one mind). So the chapters contain lots of head-hopping, another thing that can confuse and frustrate and irritate readers, thus further dividing their opinions about this book. Personally, it was somewhat tough to constantly head-hop almost every paragraph, but it became easier for me when I began to imagine the events in my head the way movies and shows with multiple parallel timelines are shown onscreen simultaneously. Maybe this tip can help you read it better? 🙂
Anyway, the story begins when Fift and Shria accidentally find themselves in the middle of an unprecedented revolutionary riot during a festivity and the inappropriate affection they display toward each other. Complicated by Fift's stubborn refusal to conform to societies ridiculous rules that demand from zir to end zir friendship with Shria, they find themselves at the precipice of a revolution that not only threatens to tear them apart, but also tear apart their respective cohorts, their communities, even the fabric of this Midwives-controlled world. An interesting weave of utopia and dystopia, THE UNRAVELING both changes and challenges our ideas of gender, identity, personality, and family. Again, this book is full of conflicting tug-of-war between a sense of community and a sense of individuality. How far would you go to retain your individuality? Can you survive without a community? Can you have individuality within a community?
Another cool thing about this book is that the pressure and expectations to conform to this world's standard of gender identity is eerily similar to our own. In real life, anything other than male or female is considered an oddity. Although at present, the binaries of gender identity has been pushed and broken a few many times, the idea still stands. In THE UNRAVELING, you'll find similar rigid, arbitrary expectations and pressure from society. The Staids cannot express emotions, the Vails cannot access into the Long Conversation, a detailed, erudite collection of this world's intellects. Although unlike ours, this society does not bestow gender identity based on one's sex, the dark side of the binaries still stands. Gender identity in our world is assumed upon arbitrary attributes, same as the world of this book. The author does not reveal what makes the Midwives assign one child Staid gender and another child Vail, and by keeping this vague and somewhat arbitrary, the author is asking us to ask those same questions to ourselves, about our society's way of assigning gender to a person. Just the same way Vails can be stoic and Staids can be expressive and both can be both or neither, men can have vagina and women can have penis and both can have both or neither as well.
With such deep thematic exploration, this book will divide people. Some will love it, some will hate it, some will hate it with love, some will love it with hate. But it'll make all its readers think and perform some serious brain work to figure out the machinations of this book's world.
Thank you, NetGalley and Erewhon Books, for providing me with an eARC in exchange for my honest opinion.
August 23, 2021
Benjamin Rosenbaum has been writing this book (or versions of it) for close to 20 years, and although we are only the most tenuous of acquaintances, I've been hearing about it for about half that time, so I was really excited to hear that it had been published.
Sadly, it didn't benefit from that many years of thought and care; in fact, I suspect he might have written a much better book if he had spent less time on it.
Let me start with what's good about it:
1) It is incredibly well executed (and you'll see below why that's remarkable.
2) The story at its heart is moving and compelling.
3) The social changes that stem in large part from the human story are plausible and fascinating.
Doesn't that sound like a good book? But ... in all my years as a science-fiction reader, I have never read a book that was this overcomplicated, and the complications all serve to distance the reader from the story. In one ordinary-length novel, Rosenbaum has:
--two completely new genders, which do not map at all onto male and female, and which have their own pronouns;
--something called a "polysomatic network" which results in most people, including the protagonist having somewhere between three and ten bodies which operate separately, can be in different places at the same time, but (mostly) share consciousness and experience
--a completely original family structure which is not gender-based
--names and family designations so strange to contemporary readers that they have to be intentionally strange (and sometimes funny)
--a pervasive descendant of the Internet which allows anyone to watch anyone else (except in some specific situations) and which allows everyone to know exactly how many people are watching them at any time
--internal "agents" which anyone can consult at any time for information or advice (a "social context agent," a "public behavior agent," and a host of factual agents)
--multi-hundred year lifespans which make our 16-year-old protagonist barely a baby, although ze is acting like a teenager right out of Romeo and Juliet.
--an authoritarian society which rigidly controls reproduction, gender norms, and social behavior
If that weren't enough, the viewpoint character is an anomaly because ze is clearly queer by the gender norms of zir time, and because ze isn't very good at integrating zir three bodies. See what I mean? Reading that sentence already throws you out of the story into tracking the pronouns and trying to figure out what the three-body thing would be like. And the whole book is like that: as a reader, I would get interested in the story for a page or two and then be thrown out again, because I had to remember which sets of pronouns were which, where everyone's extra bodies were, which of the protagonist's many parents were being consistent or inconsistent with which parenting ideas, etc., etc.
I so want to read a version of this book in which Rosenbaum rings two or three changes on what we're used to and then tells the same story. And I did want to finish it, because I admired his ability to handle all these factors, and I wanted to know how it ended. I did find the ending disappointing because the main story "ends" about 30 pages before the book does, and then there's a comparatively short, unsatisfying coda that gives us some sense of what happens to the protagonist and zir (love interest? crush? obsession?) after the fact.
Maybe Rosenbaum has worked through his overcomplication and can show us something more accessible and equally powerful on his next try?
Sadly, it didn't benefit from that many years of thought and care; in fact, I suspect he might have written a much better book if he had spent less time on it.
Let me start with what's good about it:
1) It is incredibly well executed (and you'll see below why that's remarkable.
2) The story at its heart is moving and compelling.
3) The social changes that stem in large part from the human story are plausible and fascinating.
Doesn't that sound like a good book? But ... in all my years as a science-fiction reader, I have never read a book that was this overcomplicated, and the complications all serve to distance the reader from the story. In one ordinary-length novel, Rosenbaum has:
--two completely new genders, which do not map at all onto male and female, and which have their own pronouns;
--something called a "polysomatic network" which results in most people, including the protagonist having somewhere between three and ten bodies which operate separately, can be in different places at the same time, but (mostly) share consciousness and experience
--a completely original family structure which is not gender-based
--names and family designations so strange to contemporary readers that they have to be intentionally strange (and sometimes funny)
--a pervasive descendant of the Internet which allows anyone to watch anyone else (except in some specific situations) and which allows everyone to know exactly how many people are watching them at any time
--internal "agents" which anyone can consult at any time for information or advice (a "social context agent," a "public behavior agent," and a host of factual agents)
--multi-hundred year lifespans which make our 16-year-old protagonist barely a baby, although ze is acting like a teenager right out of Romeo and Juliet.
--an authoritarian society which rigidly controls reproduction, gender norms, and social behavior
If that weren't enough, the viewpoint character is an anomaly because ze is clearly queer by the gender norms of zir time, and because ze isn't very good at integrating zir three bodies. See what I mean? Reading that sentence already throws you out of the story into tracking the pronouns and trying to figure out what the three-body thing would be like. And the whole book is like that: as a reader, I would get interested in the story for a page or two and then be thrown out again, because I had to remember which sets of pronouns were which, where everyone's extra bodies were, which of the protagonist's many parents were being consistent or inconsistent with which parenting ideas, etc., etc.
I so want to read a version of this book in which Rosenbaum rings two or three changes on what we're used to and then tells the same story. And I did want to finish it, because I admired his ability to handle all these factors, and I wanted to know how it ended. I did find the ending disappointing because the main story "ends" about 30 pages before the book does, and then there's a comparatively short, unsatisfying coda that gives us some sense of what happens to the protagonist and zir (love interest? crush? obsession?) after the fact.
Maybe Rosenbaum has worked through his overcomplication and can show us something more accessible and equally powerful on his next try?
Plots and Reviews
August 10, 2021
Dear Readers, Aliens and Creatures, What in the abandoned void is happening?!
Official title: The Unraveling
My title: When Children go Wild
Author: Benjamin Rosenbaum
Publisher: Erewhon
Fav character: Pip / Have
Type: Book
4.7/5
.
The author put a considerable amount of work into this story, and it shows in its layered reality, detailed pronoun use, intricate family structures and multiple story perspectives. It also raises an intriguing discussion on gender and sexual identities.
In this world, humans have travelled to the far regions of the universe and have created a society which resides underground, has two genders (which basically describe whether you are a fiery person or a calm person 💁) is governed by public opinion through the all-seeing ‘feed’ of your life’s actions, has an economy which focuses on public opinion and influence, consists of neural linked clones of a person, people with orange, red, blue, green, lilac skin hues, but little to no darker shades. Disappointmentttttt.
Since humans now live until they’re about 800+ years old, what is considered childhood is separated into two parts and can go until you’re about 80. What is more, being born means that your PARENTS (sometimes 80+ of them - one ‘mother’, other are all fathers) received special permission and are deemed suitable by the Midwife Mafia.
Fift, a Staid with Vailish tendencies, will challenge all of this on his quest to becoming best friends with benefits 😒 and maybe cohorts with Shria. Zir will bring down the whole system of the world because zir parents said zir should wait a bit before talking to Shria - talk about a TANTRUM.
A book full of amazing and fantastical things, much food for thought, colourful characters and wild wild children who cannot consider consequences.
I recommend. The world building is amazing, even if the children are frustrating.
(Much more on blog). 😬
Official title: The Unraveling
My title: When Children go Wild
Author: Benjamin Rosenbaum
Publisher: Erewhon
Fav character: Pip / Have
Type: Book
4.7/5
.
The author put a considerable amount of work into this story, and it shows in its layered reality, detailed pronoun use, intricate family structures and multiple story perspectives. It also raises an intriguing discussion on gender and sexual identities.
In this world, humans have travelled to the far regions of the universe and have created a society which resides underground, has two genders (which basically describe whether you are a fiery person or a calm person 💁) is governed by public opinion through the all-seeing ‘feed’ of your life’s actions, has an economy which focuses on public opinion and influence, consists of neural linked clones of a person, people with orange, red, blue, green, lilac skin hues, but little to no darker shades. Disappointmentttttt.
Since humans now live until they’re about 800+ years old, what is considered childhood is separated into two parts and can go until you’re about 80. What is more, being born means that your PARENTS (sometimes 80+ of them - one ‘mother’, other are all fathers) received special permission and are deemed suitable by the Midwife Mafia.
Fift, a Staid with Vailish tendencies, will challenge all of this on his quest to becoming best friends with benefits 😒 and maybe cohorts with Shria. Zir will bring down the whole system of the world because zir parents said zir should wait a bit before talking to Shria - talk about a TANTRUM.
A book full of amazing and fantastical things, much food for thought, colourful characters and wild wild children who cannot consider consequences.
I recommend. The world building is amazing, even if the children are frustrating.
(Much more on blog). 😬
Piyali Mukherjee
August 15, 2021
A literary masterclass in world building
I cannot overstate how much I loved what this book does. It's so strange to me that the story itself doesn't pan out to a fulfilling end (will probably become a series?). But the fact that I reached that sort of narrative dissatisfaction alone through the complexity of a multi-bodied neo-pronoun gender defined society is a miracle itself. It's one thing to say a story is about gender, and switch up a few pronouns, and call it a day. It's another to really make a story about gender enforcement, perceptions, how that frames a society's other channels such as economic means of subsistence, language, culture and the notion of attachment.
I love the style of the storytelling as well. The interludes do a lot to really ground the reality of the world and the work. Rosenbaum taps into the common fragility of a teen romance and gender confusion so gently and appropriately, that the wonders of the world aside, you can really relate to these characters.
Strongly recommend to anyone who loves non-traditional science fiction, and deep down inside has experienced the pain of a teen crush that they never really got over.
I cannot overstate how much I loved what this book does. It's so strange to me that the story itself doesn't pan out to a fulfilling end (will probably become a series?). But the fact that I reached that sort of narrative dissatisfaction alone through the complexity of a multi-bodied neo-pronoun gender defined society is a miracle itself. It's one thing to say a story is about gender, and switch up a few pronouns, and call it a day. It's another to really make a story about gender enforcement, perceptions, how that frames a society's other channels such as economic means of subsistence, language, culture and the notion of attachment.
I love the style of the storytelling as well. The interludes do a lot to really ground the reality of the world and the work. Rosenbaum taps into the common fragility of a teen romance and gender confusion so gently and appropriately, that the wonders of the world aside, you can really relate to these characters.
Strongly recommend to anyone who loves non-traditional science fiction, and deep down inside has experienced the pain of a teen crush that they never really got over.
Thomas
June 16, 2021
Rosenbaum, Benjamin. The Unraveling. Erewhon, 2020.
If science fiction has one persistent structural issue, it is exposition. How much information does a reader need to understand, say, life on a distant planet in the far future? Some writers, such as Kim Stanley Robinson, provide large infodumps that orient the reader but break the narrative flow. In The Unraveling, Benjamin Rosenbaum operates very differently. His approach is to require a reader to gather information about his narrative world inductively. The narrative thus proceeds without interruption, but it risks confusing some readers. This is especially true in The Unraveling, because Rosenbaum is at pains to put the trans in trans-human. Our protagonist, Fift, has five parents and three bodies in which Fift is simultaneously conscious. Gender is no longer divided into male and female, because one’s genitals and their associated plumbing are now a fashion choice, easily combined and changed. Gender is now divided into staid and vail, each with its own set of pronouns. Reproduction is now a group decision, and interactions between staid and vail genders is strictly limited by community secrets and taboos. Understanding how all this works (or doesn’t work) engages more of the reader’s attention than the plot. One hardly notices, for example, that buried somewhere in it is a rather good coming of age story. The only book to which I can compare The Unraveling is Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed. That is rarified company for a novel to share. It’s worth the work. 4 strong stars.
If science fiction has one persistent structural issue, it is exposition. How much information does a reader need to understand, say, life on a distant planet in the far future? Some writers, such as Kim Stanley Robinson, provide large infodumps that orient the reader but break the narrative flow. In The Unraveling, Benjamin Rosenbaum operates very differently. His approach is to require a reader to gather information about his narrative world inductively. The narrative thus proceeds without interruption, but it risks confusing some readers. This is especially true in The Unraveling, because Rosenbaum is at pains to put the trans in trans-human. Our protagonist, Fift, has five parents and three bodies in which Fift is simultaneously conscious. Gender is no longer divided into male and female, because one’s genitals and their associated plumbing are now a fashion choice, easily combined and changed. Gender is now divided into staid and vail, each with its own set of pronouns. Reproduction is now a group decision, and interactions between staid and vail genders is strictly limited by community secrets and taboos. Understanding how all this works (or doesn’t work) engages more of the reader’s attention than the plot. One hardly notices, for example, that buried somewhere in it is a rather good coming of age story. The only book to which I can compare The Unraveling is Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed. That is rarified company for a novel to share. It’s worth the work. 4 strong stars.
May 4, 2021
I think the best recommendation for a book, is whether when you get to the end you immediately pick it up and read it again.
Which I did with the Unraveling, like about 4 or 5 times in a row now!
Rosenbaum loves genre fiction but then he loves to flip it, invert it, transform it and let it leap over itself. There are so many ideas, deeply woven into the far future setting of the Unraveling that it' easy to lose track of that it's basically a heart driven, human story about love, belonging, making your own way, growing up and asserting one's own identity apart and alongside one's family.
The characters are fully realized people with wonderful rich relationships to each other which is what really makes a book sing.. AND yes... even though they are networked to one another, have 3-6 bodies, 4-12 parents, with genders established with something closer to the Myers Briggs than by one's genitals, in a universe is populated with Orphan tech ambassadors vainly struggling to keep us from destroying ourselves... despite all of those differences, the protagonists Fift and Shria remind us of what it' like to be young idealistic and brave.
An absolute instant classic in my opinion. A brilliant, splendid, and transformational first novel.
Which I did with the Unraveling, like about 4 or 5 times in a row now!
Rosenbaum loves genre fiction but then he loves to flip it, invert it, transform it and let it leap over itself. There are so many ideas, deeply woven into the far future setting of the Unraveling that it' easy to lose track of that it's basically a heart driven, human story about love, belonging, making your own way, growing up and asserting one's own identity apart and alongside one's family.
The characters are fully realized people with wonderful rich relationships to each other which is what really makes a book sing.. AND yes... even though they are networked to one another, have 3-6 bodies, 4-12 parents, with genders established with something closer to the Myers Briggs than by one's genitals, in a universe is populated with Orphan tech ambassadors vainly struggling to keep us from destroying ourselves... despite all of those differences, the protagonists Fift and Shria remind us of what it' like to be young idealistic and brave.
An absolute instant classic in my opinion. A brilliant, splendid, and transformational first novel.
Wealhtheow
May 3, 2023
Fift is born into a world solar systems and millennia far from ours, in which life is long, reputation is wealth, most everyone inhabits multiple bodies simultaneously, and gender (Staid or Vail) is completely separate from physical form. Fift is still considered a child, but then ze and zir bestie Shria are caught up in a riot and become a lightning rod for revolution.
Ambitiously weird. I always appreciate when people imagine truly different ways of life. I found parts of this book frustrating (notably the bits when Fift and all zir parents are all talking at each other intermixed with lines of what Fift's other bodies are experiencing or saying elsewhere in particular, plus I didn't figure out what was wrong with Fift and Shria being romantically involved when plenty of other Staid and Vails were--turns out intergender romances are taboo for those under ~100), but my confusion and annoyance with all the input was probably actually part of the message. Overall, totally worth reading.
Ambitiously weird. I always appreciate when people imagine truly different ways of life. I found parts of this book frustrating (notably the bits when Fift and all zir parents are all talking at each other intermixed with lines of what Fift's other bodies are experiencing or saying elsewhere in particular, plus I didn't figure out what was wrong with Fift and Shria being romantically involved when plenty of other Staid and Vails were--turns out intergender romances are taboo for those under ~100), but my confusion and annoyance with all the input was probably actually part of the message. Overall, totally worth reading.
June 30, 2021
I am not usually a hard sci-fi reader, but I loved this book and couldn't put it down.
You may experience some culture shock while reading the first couple chapters, as this world is so far in the future and so much is different: people with multiple bodies; genders that don't map to our world's male and female (or to physical biological characteristics at all); cohorts of as many as 80 adults parenting a small number of children together; a feed where everyone can see each other almost anytime they want; a social system in which birth order is paramount...and more.
So it's a lot to get used to, but once you experience the bond between the main characters, Fift and Shria, you will be hooked on them and on the revolutionary things happening in their world. And like the best science fiction, spending some time in the world of The Unraveling will forever influence how you see our world.
You may experience some culture shock while reading the first couple chapters, as this world is so far in the future and so much is different: people with multiple bodies; genders that don't map to our world's male and female (or to physical biological characteristics at all); cohorts of as many as 80 adults parenting a small number of children together; a feed where everyone can see each other almost anytime they want; a social system in which birth order is paramount...and more.
So it's a lot to get used to, but once you experience the bond between the main characters, Fift and Shria, you will be hooked on them and on the revolutionary things happening in their world. And like the best science fiction, spending some time in the world of The Unraveling will forever influence how you see our world.
W.L. Bolm
August 2, 2021
This is the best book I've read this year. It's about a complacent society on the edge of unraveling, but more importantly, it's about two teens finding themselves and bracing up against the expectations of society and their families. It's about love and gender and the messiness inherent in both. It's the best sci fi I've read in a long while.
Rain Ashley
April 24, 2021
This was a very challenging read for me but I'm happy I persevered. The concept of the story is very unique and intriguing it takes us to a very distant future where humans are allowed to clone themselves having the same consciousness in each body through a polysomatic network. Inhabitants of the Nation of Fullbellly are able to live up to 500+ years of age and are segregated according to gender, ratings, and cohorts by a governing body called the Midwives.
The story follows Fift, a sixteen-year-old, 3 bodied Staid, whose parents are composed of seven Fathers and a Mother. She was born through natural birth and was the Only Child of the family. The story tells us about her life as a Staid, the rules she must always follow, and the struggles she experienced during Her First Childhood.
I honestly struggled reading the first few chapters of the book describing the multiple actions taken by the characters in a scene and the gender pronouns used. But as I go along, I was able to read it smoothly taking note that their world is set in the distant future where their language not just their civilization has evolved.
If you love reading books about sci-fi, love, and friendship, family life, and strong-willed characters, I would definitely recommend this book to you.
I'm grateful to the author, the publisher, and Netgalley for allowing me to read and review the ARC of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Merged review:
This was a very challenging read for me but I'm happy I persevered. The concept of the story is very unique and intriguing in that it takes us to a very distant future where humans are allowed to clone themselves having the same single consciousness through a polysomatic network. Inhabitants of the Nation of Fullbellly are able to live up to 500+ years of age and are segregated according to gender, ratings, and cohorts by a governing body called the Midwives.
The story follows Fift, a sixteen-year-old Staid whose parents are composed of seven Fathers and a Mother. She was born through natural birth and was the Only Child of the family. The story tells us about her life as a Staid, the rules she must always follow, and the struggles she experienced during Her First Childhood.
I honestly struggled reading the first few chapters of the book describing the multiple actions taken by the characters in a scene and the gender pronouns used. But as I go along, I was able to read it smoothly taking note that their world is set in the distant future where their language not just their civilization has evolved.
If you love reading books about sci-fi, love, and friendship, family life, and strong-willed characters, I would definitely recommend this book to you.
I'm grateful to the author, the publisher, and Netgalley for allowing me to read and review the ARC of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
The story follows Fift, a sixteen-year-old, 3 bodied Staid, whose parents are composed of seven Fathers and a Mother. She was born through natural birth and was the Only Child of the family. The story tells us about her life as a Staid, the rules she must always follow, and the struggles she experienced during Her First Childhood.
I honestly struggled reading the first few chapters of the book describing the multiple actions taken by the characters in a scene and the gender pronouns used. But as I go along, I was able to read it smoothly taking note that their world is set in the distant future where their language not just their civilization has evolved.
If you love reading books about sci-fi, love, and friendship, family life, and strong-willed characters, I would definitely recommend this book to you.
I'm grateful to the author, the publisher, and Netgalley for allowing me to read and review the ARC of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Merged review:
This was a very challenging read for me but I'm happy I persevered. The concept of the story is very unique and intriguing in that it takes us to a very distant future where humans are allowed to clone themselves having the same single consciousness through a polysomatic network. Inhabitants of the Nation of Fullbellly are able to live up to 500+ years of age and are segregated according to gender, ratings, and cohorts by a governing body called the Midwives.
The story follows Fift, a sixteen-year-old Staid whose parents are composed of seven Fathers and a Mother. She was born through natural birth and was the Only Child of the family. The story tells us about her life as a Staid, the rules she must always follow, and the struggles she experienced during Her First Childhood.
I honestly struggled reading the first few chapters of the book describing the multiple actions taken by the characters in a scene and the gender pronouns used. But as I go along, I was able to read it smoothly taking note that their world is set in the distant future where their language not just their civilization has evolved.
If you love reading books about sci-fi, love, and friendship, family life, and strong-willed characters, I would definitely recommend this book to you.
I'm grateful to the author, the publisher, and Netgalley for allowing me to read and review the ARC of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Jon
July 31, 2021
Well, dang. This book is an excellent test of reading comprehension, specifically trying to figure things out from context clues. It is both entertaining and baffling, and I wonder how many gender studies classes will make it required reading. I am extremely impressed.
July 2, 2021
Reminded me of a modern Ursula K. Le Guin. Amazing world building, exploring altarnate forms of gender, economy, and technology.
Sally Boots
July 5, 2022
This book took me by surprise. It takes place in a startlingly original future setting, in which people have more than one body and gender has completely different parameters than what we have in our current universe. Against this backdrop, a young person struggles to define themself in the face of uncomfortable societal expectations. At first, I found the book's made-up lingo disorienting, but that fell away as the book went along because the characters and plot were so engaging—they were both classic and totally original. By the end, I found myself thinking, "This is brilliant."
Geoff Clarke
July 2, 2022
I don't know how many science fiction books I've read in my life. 1,500? 2,000? None of them compares to this book. There were clearer books, better-plotted books, more lyrical books. But none that looked at the far future, created a working society, then critiqued that society, all in the background of an action-packed plot. There's love (eros, philia, storge), pain, discourse, and the inventiveness of teenagers.
The author has a talent for humor along with his talent for large-idea works and worldbuilding. I'll be thinking about what this book is "about" for a long time.
The author has a talent for humor along with his talent for large-idea works and worldbuilding. I'll be thinking about what this book is "about" for a long time.
Mariah Wamby
April 11, 2021
“Maybe it’s better to be miserable for a century, if at the end you—you win joy built on honest foundations.”
I received an eARC of The Unraveling by Benjamin Rosenbaum from Netgalley and Erewhon Books. Here is my personal and honest review!
🪢 The Unraveling is the story of young Fift who is trying to find a way in a world where advancements in biodiversity have changed the constructs of gender to a system that is almost unrecognizable. Is following a path outside of the strict regulations of gender worth risking Fift’s family and freedom?
The Unraveling was a great concept that just failed in the execution. In Fift’s world most people are able to split their consciousness between multiple (typically three?) bodies. This concept is so cool, but led to a super confusing reading experience. Fift’s POV was constantly shifting between bodies mid sentence and so often I was just left lost. I understand trying to convey the feeling of being split, but it was just a little too convoluted to be enjoyable for me. That being said a lot of the commentary and societal constrictions of gender was interesting, you just had to suffer through a lot of confusion to get to it.
This one gets two stars from me! 🪢
I received an eARC of The Unraveling by Benjamin Rosenbaum from Netgalley and Erewhon Books. Here is my personal and honest review!
🪢 The Unraveling is the story of young Fift who is trying to find a way in a world where advancements in biodiversity have changed the constructs of gender to a system that is almost unrecognizable. Is following a path outside of the strict regulations of gender worth risking Fift’s family and freedom?
The Unraveling was a great concept that just failed in the execution. In Fift’s world most people are able to split their consciousness between multiple (typically three?) bodies. This concept is so cool, but led to a super confusing reading experience. Fift’s POV was constantly shifting between bodies mid sentence and so often I was just left lost. I understand trying to convey the feeling of being split, but it was just a little too convoluted to be enjoyable for me. That being said a lot of the commentary and societal constrictions of gender was interesting, you just had to suffer through a lot of confusion to get to it.
This one gets two stars from me! 🪢
Aidan Falk
January 27, 2023
The Unraveling was an extraordinary work of sci-fi. It’s one of my favorite books of the year and is an example of what this genre is capable of and why I love it so much.
In The Unraveling, Rosenbaum creates a very foreign world that stretches the readers imagination while also dealing with important contemporary ideas. The themes of performance and surveillance were ingenious in a far future setting that completely actualizes Foucault’s panopticon. This was especially powerful when paired with the book’s careful examination of queer identity and gender politics. I loved this book and cannot believe it doesn’t already have a wider readership.
In The Unraveling, Rosenbaum creates a very foreign world that stretches the readers imagination while also dealing with important contemporary ideas. The themes of performance and surveillance were ingenious in a far future setting that completely actualizes Foucault’s panopticon. This was especially powerful when paired with the book’s careful examination of queer identity and gender politics. I loved this book and cannot believe it doesn’t already have a wider readership.
Nore
Read
October 18, 2021Just a note to myself: I tried it, I couldn't get into it, I gave myself permission to not read a book where the main character is named Fift.
Sade
October 25, 2022
I'm pretty sure this book was intended to make A Statement - probably about gender roles and nonconformity, maybe about the wisdom of rebellious youth, I don't know. Unfortunately, the author got so deeply into building this ?future? world and its theoretically sort of human inhabitants that he (ve? ze?) never really got around to telling a story. After I'd finished it - mostly through dogged determination, surely not enjoyment - I discovered a glossary at the back. That might have helped make some sense out of it while I was reading; but by the time I got to it, I didn't even care enough to do more than glance.
Here are the things that can be said with some certainty about this tale: it's set in a future. Maybe ours, maybe not; it's hard to tell. The characters, with one exception whose exceptionality is never made clear, are humanoid - that is, they have arms and legs and faces. But in this future or whatever it is, they have developed the ability to not only alter their appearance on a whim - purple skin with flaming orange eyebrows aren't just for Thundercats anymore! - but also to have multiple (?cloned?) bodies, which all share the same consciousness. More or less.
And oh yes - gender has been completely redefined. And I do mean *completely*. Aside from one parent whose birthing apparatus is rather amazingly still a womb, cervix, and vagina, there are neither men nor women in this world. Instead, the two genders consist of Staids and Vails. Neither adheres to what we might recognize as 'masculine' or 'feminine', but gender roles seem more rigidly defined than our own era. Staids are apparently the custodians of the lore/knowledge/traditions of this culture; they pass it along via something called the Long Conversation, much as rabbis devote themselves to the Torah. Vails, on the other hand, are strictly forbidden from knowing anything about this Conversation, to the point where references to its obscure and complex commentaries cannot be spoken in their presence.
And then along come our heroes(heroines?) to shake everything up. Do they fall in love? It seems so, but then again, this seems somehow taboo. Do they get involved in some sort of artistic endeavour that changes everything? Well, the cover says so; but aside from an overly descriptive and rather impossible-sounding parade, we never learn much about that artistic statement. Instead, we get descriptions of designer genitals. We get names that are as silly as they are long, and never any hint of what the names mean. We get far too many whining, petulant arguments amongst Fift's parenting cohort - couples are no longer A Thing in the future, I guess; everyone lives in some variety of polycule. In short, we have absolutely nothing to serve as a touchstone, nothing familiar, nothing we might relate to other than the woes of young lovers.
How did this society get to be the way it is? Dunno. Why are Fift and Shria's actions so shocking? Because the author said so. Who is the alien, what makes them alien, how can anyone even tell when people are scarlet and silver and have beards and breasts? Ya got me, champ. Reading this book was like wading through a muddy bog with shoulder-high weeds on every side. It takes forever to get anywhere, and when you do, it looks no different from where you started. If there was an intent behind setting this in such a society, it got lost the first time someone took out a spoon for no reason we're ever allowed to know. If you subscribe to spoon theory, be advised it will take more of them than you may have to spare to make any sort of sense out of this one. I recommend giving it a miss.
Here are the things that can be said with some certainty about this tale: it's set in a future. Maybe ours, maybe not; it's hard to tell. The characters, with one exception whose exceptionality is never made clear, are humanoid - that is, they have arms and legs and faces. But in this future or whatever it is, they have developed the ability to not only alter their appearance on a whim - purple skin with flaming orange eyebrows aren't just for Thundercats anymore! - but also to have multiple (?cloned?) bodies, which all share the same consciousness. More or less.
And oh yes - gender has been completely redefined. And I do mean *completely*. Aside from one parent whose birthing apparatus is rather amazingly still a womb, cervix, and vagina, there are neither men nor women in this world. Instead, the two genders consist of Staids and Vails. Neither adheres to what we might recognize as 'masculine' or 'feminine', but gender roles seem more rigidly defined than our own era. Staids are apparently the custodians of the lore/knowledge/traditions of this culture; they pass it along via something called the Long Conversation, much as rabbis devote themselves to the Torah. Vails, on the other hand, are strictly forbidden from knowing anything about this Conversation, to the point where references to its obscure and complex commentaries cannot be spoken in their presence.
And then along come our heroes(heroines?) to shake everything up. Do they fall in love? It seems so, but then again, this seems somehow taboo. Do they get involved in some sort of artistic endeavour that changes everything? Well, the cover says so; but aside from an overly descriptive and rather impossible-sounding parade, we never learn much about that artistic statement. Instead, we get descriptions of designer genitals. We get names that are as silly as they are long, and never any hint of what the names mean. We get far too many whining, petulant arguments amongst Fift's parenting cohort - couples are no longer A Thing in the future, I guess; everyone lives in some variety of polycule. In short, we have absolutely nothing to serve as a touchstone, nothing familiar, nothing we might relate to other than the woes of young lovers.
How did this society get to be the way it is? Dunno. Why are Fift and Shria's actions so shocking? Because the author said so. Who is the alien, what makes them alien, how can anyone even tell when people are scarlet and silver and have beards and breasts? Ya got me, champ. Reading this book was like wading through a muddy bog with shoulder-high weeds on every side. It takes forever to get anywhere, and when you do, it looks no different from where you started. If there was an intent behind setting this in such a society, it got lost the first time someone took out a spoon for no reason we're ever allowed to know. If you subscribe to spoon theory, be advised it will take more of them than you may have to spare to make any sort of sense out of this one. I recommend giving it a miss.
Ruby
September 17, 2024
An incredibly thought-provoking, wild trip whose main strength is super complex worldbuilding that slowly unfolds and that you have to build your understanding of over time. I loved how the book made me consider different types of cities, gender structures, relationship to social media, surveillance, individuality, romantic relationships, surreal economic structures, technology, and how perception of the world around you can be influenced by tech and your body(ies).
I love show - don’t - tell - worldbuilding. There were some sentences where I didn’t understand any of the nouns, which was actually kind of awesome. Very little of the world building is explained, so you just have to go with the flow (no pun intended) and let yourself be immersed! It’ll all make sense in the end!
The central plot focused on Fift, who is navigating life as a young 3-bodied Staid (one of the genders). Zir journey is interesting but moves so gradually that if you are looking for something fast-paced, you should definitely read something else. The tension builds kind of slowly and is super related to our growing understanding of the world building and the culture that ze is living in. I didn’t mind that, but I could see how it could make the book feel like it is dragging. On the bright side, I kind of feel like I could see how every scene related to the character development and the worldbuilding. The worst instance of dragging was probably this one scene a third through the book that just kind of goes on forever and has a lot of meaningless onomatopoeia- just grit your teeth and bear it, lol. It gets a lot more interesting.
The themes that the book explorers are pretty cool and they feel “what if” enough to feel like a departure from every day life, even though a lot of them relate to things that we care about here on earth. It may seem like it’s focused on gender at first (and the idea of having multiple bodies), but it actually encompasses a lot more stuff, including but not limited to envisioning different kinds of genders and how a society could still be hyper focused on them in ways that feel strange but also familiar.
Overall, a super mindbending read- a bit long, definitely focused on the world building, and really satisfying! I read it because it was recommended by Ann Leckie, who wrote the awesome Ancillary Justice series and did a cool book talk I attended. I can totally see how her story was influenced by this one, which includes the idea of people having multiple bodies that influence their perception and how they interact with the world.
Don’t be a sluice-blocker! Read it!
I love show - don’t - tell - worldbuilding. There were some sentences where I didn’t understand any of the nouns, which was actually kind of awesome. Very little of the world building is explained, so you just have to go with the flow (no pun intended) and let yourself be immersed! It’ll all make sense in the end!
The central plot focused on Fift, who is navigating life as a young 3-bodied Staid (one of the genders). Zir journey is interesting but moves so gradually that if you are looking for something fast-paced, you should definitely read something else. The tension builds kind of slowly and is super related to our growing understanding of the world building and the culture that ze is living in. I didn’t mind that, but I could see how it could make the book feel like it is dragging. On the bright side, I kind of feel like I could see how every scene related to the character development and the worldbuilding. The worst instance of dragging was probably this one scene a third through the book that just kind of goes on forever and has a lot of meaningless onomatopoeia- just grit your teeth and bear it, lol. It gets a lot more interesting.
The themes that the book explorers are pretty cool and they feel “what if” enough to feel like a departure from every day life, even though a lot of them relate to things that we care about here on earth. It may seem like it’s focused on gender at first (and the idea of having multiple bodies), but it actually encompasses a lot more stuff, including but not limited to envisioning different kinds of genders and how a society could still be hyper focused on them in ways that feel strange but also familiar.
Overall, a super mindbending read- a bit long, definitely focused on the world building, and really satisfying! I read it because it was recommended by Ann Leckie, who wrote the awesome Ancillary Justice series and did a cool book talk I attended. I can totally see how her story was influenced by this one, which includes the idea of people having multiple bodies that influence their perception and how they interact with the world.
Don’t be a sluice-blocker! Read it!
Howard
July 11, 2023
Hovering between a 3 and a 4 rating. I had a good time reading but I also had some major problems with the book as a whole.
Things I liked: Somehow Rosenbaum managed to come up with a gender system that is both nothing like our current one and also just as arbitrary. I LOVED the concept of being multiply bodied. The way he switched between each body's perspective was so refreshing and delightful and really kept the pace moving forward. This was the most successful piece of worldbuilding imo. Throwing the reader into it and just letting us figure it out was definitely the right call for this element. Speaking of character design - I loved how colorful most of the characters were. This cover design is one of my favorites. I loved getting descriptions of characters and then trying to find them on the cover. The cover also represents the multi-bodiedness wonderfully. I also liked the conclusion of the second book (really an epilogue) and how the world changed due to the society level breakdown. I really appreciated the way romantic and sexual tension were written about (at least from Fift's perspective). There were some really beautiful and heartfelt moments, Rosenbaum somehow captured exactly what it feels like to experience that attraction for the first time and it was beautiful.
Things I have mixed feelings about: For me there was definitely some lacking in worldbuilding/understanding the stakes of the society. I had no idea that what Fift was doing at the first riot might have any repercussions because I didn't really understand that they were breaking any societal norms since I didn't really know what those norms are in the first place. I'm of two minds about this because it made me feel alienated from the reading experience, but I also wonder if that was done on purpose. Fift is a young child and therefore might be more unaware of the social implications of all their actions, but it sometimes seemed like they were aware too. I had a hard time feeling any rising tension and only realized something was "wrong" for the characters once things had already escalated severely. The ending of the first book felt rather abrupt as well, though the interlude and the second book did give some sense of closure.
I started writing this review as a 3 but I think I've talked myself up to a 4 again. We'll see how my feelings about this novel holds up under time and distance. I talked a bit about it to Dev and they're excited to try reading it soon. Very much looking forward to discussing it with them.
Things I liked: Somehow Rosenbaum managed to come up with a gender system that is both nothing like our current one and also just as arbitrary. I LOVED the concept of being multiply bodied. The way he switched between each body's perspective was so refreshing and delightful and really kept the pace moving forward. This was the most successful piece of worldbuilding imo. Throwing the reader into it and just letting us figure it out was definitely the right call for this element. Speaking of character design - I loved how colorful most of the characters were. This cover design is one of my favorites. I loved getting descriptions of characters and then trying to find them on the cover. The cover also represents the multi-bodiedness wonderfully. I also liked the conclusion of the second book (really an epilogue) and how the world changed due to the society level breakdown. I really appreciated the way romantic and sexual tension were written about (at least from Fift's perspective). There were some really beautiful and heartfelt moments, Rosenbaum somehow captured exactly what it feels like to experience that attraction for the first time and it was beautiful.
Things I have mixed feelings about: For me there was definitely some lacking in worldbuilding/understanding the stakes of the society. I had no idea that what Fift was doing at the first riot might have any repercussions because I didn't really understand that they were breaking any societal norms since I didn't really know what those norms are in the first place. I'm of two minds about this because it made me feel alienated from the reading experience, but I also wonder if that was done on purpose. Fift is a young child and therefore might be more unaware of the social implications of all their actions, but it sometimes seemed like they were aware too. I had a hard time feeling any rising tension and only realized something was "wrong" for the characters once things had already escalated severely. The ending of the first book felt rather abrupt as well, though the interlude and the second book did give some sense of closure.
I started writing this review as a 3 but I think I've talked myself up to a 4 again. We'll see how my feelings about this novel holds up under time and distance. I talked a bit about it to Dev and they're excited to try reading it soon. Very much looking forward to discussing it with them.
Kayte
November 9, 2022
This book was really a slog. I've been in a lot of zoom meetings for work where there are one or more side conversations about the meeting that are happening in various slack channels in real time, and it's exhausting and hard to focus even when the side convos are useful or interesting. That's pretty much what I felt about this book. Having characters in multiple bodies in multiple places is a cool concept, but it felt like we were getting side commentary on events as they happened, and rather than add suspense, it just added confusion and made me tired. Read this as an audiobook, it's possible that also added to the confusion, as it wasn't always clear when we'd jump from one body/scene to another.
I was really interested in the begging of the book. I liked the intro to all of Fift's parents, and how catty and fussy they all seemed. It started the book off on a fun light tone, which was a good counterpoint trying to quickly absorb all of the complex (but cool!) world building elements! Also, I've been having a lot of discussions with my daughter on privacy/safety online, and this extreme view of parental monitoring actually made me re-examine some of my views.
There were a lot of good things throughout the book, the world building especially. I get that there was the one big event which was the catalyst for the unraveling, but there was just so much commentary happening during and after that it didn't feel impactful. Also, there were occasional descriptions of what different bodies looked like, but I wasn't able to keep in my head any sort of image of what any of the characters or even settings really looked like, so I didn't feel anchored in place.
I also can't say I was particularly rooting for Fift, or Shria, or their relationship, or their families, or society... so I didn't feel invested watching it unravel.
I was really interested in the begging of the book. I liked the intro to all of Fift's parents, and how catty and fussy they all seemed. It started the book off on a fun light tone, which was a good counterpoint trying to quickly absorb all of the complex (but cool!) world building elements! Also, I've been having a lot of discussions with my daughter on privacy/safety online, and this extreme view of parental monitoring actually made me re-examine some of my views.
There were a lot of good things throughout the book, the world building especially. I get that there was the one big event which was the catalyst for the unraveling, but there was just so much commentary happening during and after that it didn't feel impactful. Also, there were occasional descriptions of what different bodies looked like, but I wasn't able to keep in my head any sort of image of what any of the characters or even settings really looked like, so I didn't feel anchored in place.
I also can't say I was particularly rooting for Fift, or Shria, or their relationship, or their families, or society... so I didn't feel invested watching it unravel.
Victoria Janssen
May 11, 2023
The Unraveling by Benjamin Rosenbaum is set in a far future in a semi-utopian habitat where people (I assume humans) have two genders, Vail (ve, vir) and Staid (ze, zir); they still use the terms "Mother" and "Father" but either gender can bear children after suitable body modification. Also, most people have multiple bodies, usually three, which can all operate independently but know what the other bodies are doing and sensing. Everyone is linked into The Feed, in which all people can watch what any other people are doing at any time, and comment positively or negatively in ways that impact one's social status; spaces with no access to The Feed are rare. Vails and Staids are expected to behave in certain set ways, and societal disapproval seems to keep this fairly rigid. Until, of course The Unraveling of the title. The story follows a Staid child named Fift, who does not, cannot, follow expectations despite wanting to do so in order to please zir parents and preserve zir familial Cohort. As a result, things change; I won't spoil exact events since this is a relatively new book, but the scope encompasses not only gender but the disruptions of art, how and why societies change, and how individual activists, and groups with divergent opinions, can all make a difference; that includes people who make vids (Clip Operas) and write fanfiction (Real People Fiction in this story). It was lovely to read some science fiction that really made me work to get into the world, at least for the first few pages; Rosenbaum did a splendid job with worldbuilding that was never ponderous or didactic.
Han Whiteoak
January 11, 2023
Every so often I pick up a book in the library because the cover looks interesting, and after I read it end up asking myself, "why on earth have I never heard of this before, as it's exactly the kind of thing my networks should be recommending to me?" (The last book this happened with was The Heirarchies by Ros Anderson, by the way)
The Unraveling is amazing. It's set in a world that shares our rigid fascination with gender roles, but the two genders in question (Vail and Staid) don't map onto male and female in an obvious way. Gender really is "assigned" at birth here, by powerful figures called Midwives who visit shortly after a baby's birth to prescribe its future.
Bodies are customisable, and people generally end up with more than one of them. Main character Fift has three bodies, and zir (if you can't stand neopronouns, this is not the book for you) consciousness resides in all of them at once. You'd think that a narrative that switches back and forth between three bodies in different settings, often paragraph by paragraph, would be confusing, but for the most part it's surprisingly easy to follow.
The plot is about love overcoming social conventions, and its power overcoming all the odds to spark a cultural revolution. There are many more interesting bits of world-building along the way.
I'm honestly astonished this book hasn't had more attention.
The Unraveling is amazing. It's set in a world that shares our rigid fascination with gender roles, but the two genders in question (Vail and Staid) don't map onto male and female in an obvious way. Gender really is "assigned" at birth here, by powerful figures called Midwives who visit shortly after a baby's birth to prescribe its future.
Bodies are customisable, and people generally end up with more than one of them. Main character Fift has three bodies, and zir (if you can't stand neopronouns, this is not the book for you) consciousness resides in all of them at once. You'd think that a narrative that switches back and forth between three bodies in different settings, often paragraph by paragraph, would be confusing, but for the most part it's surprisingly easy to follow.
The plot is about love overcoming social conventions, and its power overcoming all the odds to spark a cultural revolution. There are many more interesting bits of world-building along the way.
I'm honestly astonished this book hasn't had more attention.
September 8, 2022
After reading the Seep, I had asked for a similar rec, and someone recommended me this novel. This is honestly incredible in terms of what Rosenbaum manages to pull off, and he mentions that this has been kicking around in his head since around 2003, and the level of detail and intricacy in it speaks to this. The Unraveling is about a society with strict gender lines, Staid and Vail, individuals who can be multi-bodied, and family/parenting units can be made up of multiple Staid and Vails. The other fun part? Society is subject to total surveillance, all are implanted with neurological cybernetics that allow essentially social media and communication, and all are subject to ratings by other members of the society, and there's no such thing as privacy. In this surveillance hell, a young Vail, Fift, ends up becoming an unintentional symbol for a wider revolution around the lines of gender and expression in society, and this novel follows this all as it unfolds. The level of the world building involved here is incredible, not just from the thoroughness of society and history, but the ways that various documents (essays, a stock/opinion broker's opinions, etc) are interspersed as interludes throughout only add to the immersion. I highly recommend picking this up, it's a hell of a ride.
Macha
Read
August 31, 2023four and a half stars for the most brilliant and thought-provoking book i've read in a long time. a look at the far future on another planet, where gender is based on type not sexuality because body modification is so rampant, an individual having nine bodies (all conscious and independent) to coordinate is not unusual, family dynamics and social engagement are everything (with all the problems entailed), disease is unknown, and immortality is within sight. go now and read it, marvelling at how very much of the underpinnings have been completely thought through (and even more marvellously, realized on the page); it's exceedingly brilliant sociologically and also as a vivid story with real characters, and although the writer's choice is to throw the reader in at the deep end, the shock of the water does not last long, and everything goes err... swimmingly after the first few strokes.
January 30, 2022
This book took a while to draw me in. I spent some time being confused in the earlier chapters, and I'm not sure beginning with the protagonist at five years old worked for me. I'm glad I stuck with this book though. It tells a story set in a world where gender works differently and determines one's role in life. Family units also work differently, along with society in general. It's a story of change and how small events can lead to larger ones, and how sometimes, you get caught up in something that you didn't plan, and have to decide what to do about it. The protagonist also grows - and grows up - as the book progresses.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 54 reviews
More reviews and ratings
Join the discussion
Add
1
1
Can't find what you're looking for?
Get help and learn more about the design.
Help center