Commitment Hour

ISBN: 0-380-79827-1 Order from: Amazon.com

An interesting exploration of the role of gender in society, defter and less ponderous than many "classics", but with flaws in plausibility.

Reviewed by David on September 13, 1998

Genre: Science Fiction (Regressed Civilization, Gender Exploration)

Synopsis: On an Earth centuries in the future, most people have left for the excitement and technological marvels of the multi-specie interstellar civilization. Only a few hardy, ultra-conservative cultures stubbornly cling to the environmentally exhausted, post-industrial birth planet.

In a hamlet remote and backward even by the standards of superstitious Earth, the villagers exhibit a curious ability: all children until the age of twenty switch their genders annually. The novel tackles this most crucial period in a young human's life: the hour when a youngster decides, for the rest of his life, whether to be a man, a woman, or sometimes, a despised Neut—a hermaphrodite.

Full Review: The old tired world has experienced a reaction to the technology. The machines are almost non-existent, the scientists are considered abominations, and the humans who have so long ago abandoned the then overcrowded and polluted Earth—traitors.

Instead, new religions and social structures have been developed. For the most part, despite their seeming backwardness, the new rituals and laws work reasonably well. The people are healthy, the children are treasured. Most people find niches to fit: craft, fishing, hunting, medicine or even more frivolous pursuits like music. Every child, before his commitment, experiences both sexes: the pain and joy of giving birth, the aggression and excitement of being a teenage boy, the quiet crafts and fierce dances, the flirting and sex—from both sides of the gender divide.

However, even in this idyllic but backward place, there are teenagers that don't fit, and children unable to make a choice, elders fearful of contamination of technology, and youngsters afraid that their god-given gift of gender change is a cruel game of advanced and ancient Visitors. Even in the quit Tober Cove, there are passions enough for love, hatred, and murder. And when powerful and disturbing visitors come into the village to study its quaint customs, the life of 19-year old Fullin, his sweetheart Cappie and their entire village will be disturbed beyond mending.

This book is an interesting and, on the whole, optimistic, exploration of one of the tropes of social science fiction: what if humans could change their sex? Using a teenager allows a better exposition, since this allows the author to play with a naïve but dynamic point of view.

This is definitely a better book than Gardner's first novel, Expendable. It has a much more consistent tone, and its use of humor is more subtle: the irony and sarcasm is expressed by the characters, not the author.

I have a couple of quibbles with this book, however. First, the male character of Fullin seems artificially superficial, full of hypocrisy, egotism and superstition, almost a straw man for his female identity. The actions of the sophisticated visitors, the Lord Spark and the Neut Steck, also seem at times cartoonish: he the meddling dilettante, she (it?) the obsessed outcast. Come to think of it, the behavior of the hunting society, mostly young thugs and bullies, seem unreasonably cartoonish. These several flaws in character portrayal mar the otherwise interesting characterization of the novel.

The other problem is the ending. Without going into detail, I would have preferred the book without the last scene. It adds a certain conspiratorial smugness to one of the characters. This quality seems unjustified by the previous material.

Overall: 5.5; Plot: 6; Characters: 5; Style: 5; World-building: 6; Originality: 5.5;

ISBN: 0-380-79827-1 Order from: Amazon.com