aromantic characters

Sea Foam and Silence – Lynn E. O’Connacht

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Sea Foam CoverFirst Published: 9th June, 2016
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy / Verse Novel
Available: Amazon.com | Amazon UK

A little mermaid watches the tall-crabs and starts to think they might be people too, but heading to land to find out will come with a cost.

This is a retelling of The Little Mermaid written in free verse. It’s hard to judge length with long poetry, but the book is around novel length. Fewer words on each page means it’s a relatively quick read.

The mermaid is set the deadline of a year to find love or be turned into sea foam. There are three main sections, with the first covering her life at sea, the second the time up to the deadline, and the third the time after. I liked that it didn’t only focus on the time on land looking for love. It allowed the contrast between life as a mermaid and life on land to be clear, as well as considering new challenges once the initial situation is resolved.

The mermaids were distinctly mermaids, rather than feeling like the author wanted to write humans with a few references to having a tail (which is unfortunately what too many mermaid stories end up doing). They live in a group of sisters, though it’s noted some become fathers during mating time. Among mermaid culture, it’s not considered odd that some don’t take direct part in mating. It’s only on encountering human culture that things start to get complicated, with human concepts of love, marriage and gender. Hunting humans for food is a stable part of their lives, which the little mermaid starts to challenge, but it isn’t portrayed in a binary good and evil way. The same goes for the witch who makes the bargain that gives the mermaid legs. The witch obviously has an agenda of some sort, but what that might be is ambiguous. It’s not a story with a villain, but one that deals with the more everyday difficulties of finding a place in the world.

The goal of finding love is difficult as the mermaid is confused about what that means. There are conflicting messages between all love being love and romantic love being the only one that counts. The narrative falls on the side of love being love in any form. There are also differences between human cultures in how things are viewed, rather than making this only a mermaid versus human issue.

Though it’s clear that the mermaid is asexual, I was less certain about how she viewed romantic attraction. It’s debatable where she falls on the romantic / demiromantic /grey-romantic lines, but she did appear to only potentially consider people that way after knowing them. There is also an aromantic asexual character and a lesbian, along with a polyamorous queerplatonic relationship being shown.

Every step she takes on land causes pain, so she has a fantastical chronic pain condition. At first, this means it’s difficult to walk, but she slowly adapts to the pain. It was good that there’s no magic cure here, though I would have liked to see her having bad pain days when she couldn’t do everything she wants to do. It’s not that it’s unrealistic to adapt to a certain level of pain or to find some things distract from the pain, but even the best pain management scheme will have times when it doesn’t work out.

She is mute and learns sign language to communicate. There’s one instance where someone expresses frustration at her not being able to speak verbally. This is in part because her early sign language is fairly crude and that makes communication difficult, but it’s still a moment I found jarring. I did generally like the sign language though, as well as the use of emoticons in places to convey facial expressions.

There’s a reference to people having different skin tones, but the main characters appear to be white. The mermaid doesn’t have much of a concept of race, so most descriptions are vague.

This is an enjoyable book with a focus on the issues of finding a place to belong. The free verse style works well to portray how the mermaid thinks and her confusion as she tries to figure things out. The chronic pain aspect is where I think it could have used a bit more exploration. The asexual and aromantic aspects were the strongest. Overall, this is worth a read for anyone who loves mermaids and verse novels.

Tales from Perach – Shira Glassman

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Tales from Perach CoverSeries: Mangoverse, #5
First Published: 19th July, 2016
Genre: Fantasy / Short Story Collection
Available: Amazon.com | Amazon UK

This is a collection of short stories linked to the main novel series. The original edition contained five stories. I read the updated edition, which also contains two stories previously published as Tales from Outer Lands. I haven’t read the novels, though mostly the stories worked on their own and had self-contained plots. An exception was “Every Us”, which came across as more of an extra scene for people who know the characters.

“Rivka in Port Saltspray” is the strongest in terms of standing alone. Rivka needs money, so ends up taking on a job to rescue a woman. I liked that Rivka and the woman she rescues use their shared faith to communicate: they don’t speak the same daily language, but do know the same stories and prayers. This is also the odd one out in the collection, as it has a fair bit of violence.

The rest of the stories had a generally lighter tone, though I didn’t always react to them in that way. There are microaggressions and threats, which made the stories where they appeared rather more uncomfortable. The one that particularly didn’t work for me was “Aviva and the Aliens”. It’s otherwise a very silly story about hungry locust aliens. But the aliens have all the same attitudes as the men on the planet below, so there’s a forced marriage threat. It changed the tone of the story with a jolt.

I enjoyed the domestic focus of many of the stories, such as running a business and family celebrations. “Take Time to Stop and Eat the Roses” was a particularly fun story, about two children gathering flowers to surprise someone. There’s some interesting fairy lore in this one too.

Many of the characters are queer. This includes trans, bi, lesbian and gay characters. One story has an asexual aromantic supporting character. I appreciated seeing these characters getting to have happy endings. I also liked that their Jewish faith was shown in a positive light. Religion was part of their daily lives.

There’s a lot to like here, but I felt there was an overall mismatch between how I reacted to the stories and what was intended. These are billed as being fluffy, which I could see for some, but not for others. Situations where rape is threatened, leering and microaggressions are all things I find decidedly non-fluffy. It’s not graphic, but those themes are there in some stories.

[A copy of this book was received from the author for review purposes]

Love Beyond Body, Space, and Time – Hope Nicholson (editor)

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Anthology CoverFirst Published: 24th August, 2016
Genre: Speculative Fiction / Short Story Anthology
Authors: Grace L. Dillon; Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair; Richard Van Camp; Cherie Dimaline; David A. Robertson; Daniel Heath Justice; Darcie Little Badger; Gwen Benaway; Mari Kurisato; Nathan Adler; Cleo Keahna
Available: Amazon.com | Amazon UK

This anthology focuses on Native American two-spirit and QUILTBAG stories. All authors are Native, but not all of them are QUILTBAG. It opens with an introduction from the editor, followed by two pieces that introduce the theme and a little bit about the history of two-spirit people. There are eight stories and one poem, so it’s a relatively short anthology.

There are a number of reoccurring themes. Nations sending out colonists into space is one, and is handled differently in each story that raises it. Another is what makes someone a member of a tribe. “Valediction at the Star View Motel ” (Nathan Adler) has a white girl who was adopted as a child, and “Imposter Syndrome” (Mari Kurisato) is about a non-human trying to get on a colony ship. Both stories share a similar theme, of the tribe viewing a person as a member for being part of the community, and the outside not wanting to acknowledge that. I also liked that “Imposter Syndrome” has an asexual aromantic character. It’s clear this is not because she’s non-human, as another non-human wants a relationship.

A number of the stories are romances. “Né łe!” (Darcie Little Badger) was my favourite of these, as it was about slowly getting to know someone, rather than love at first sight. The concept of transporting pet dogs for wealthy colonists was also fun. A more serious note to the story is about sovereignty, and the contrast between tribes when it comes to being able to maintain it. The Navajo Nation has its own space colony. Whereas the protagonist is Lipan Apache, and her family is forced to leave their farm, with no new home in the stars.

I liked the focus on a parent and child relationship in “Legends Are Made, Not Born” (Cherie Dimaline). Auntie Dave is raising the protagonist, which includes training in two-spirit community responsibilities. It shows ties between two-spirit people outside of sexual relationships, which really shouldn’t be as rare as it is in stories.

Though there are a lot of positive things, I didn’t like “Aliens” (Richard Van Camp). Unfortunately, this was the first story, so wasn’t a good start to the anthology for me. I did like how it was told as people verbally tell stories, but I had some concerns when it was suggested that Jimmy being a gentle person who wasn’t having relationships would mean his life was forgettable. As though it’s not a proper life without sexual relationships. And then once he does have a relationship, the shift is to making fun of his genitals. It’s implied he’s intersex, though even if that wasn’t the specific identity intended, he’s still going to be in one of the groups that frequently gets reduced to being a set of genitals. Those jokes do not feel like jokes to the person constantly on the receiving end of them. Had the story been told from Jimmy’s perspective, and not treated like it was funny, I might have reacted differently. But it was from the perspective of the people doing the laughing. It was presented as a warm and positive thing. Fortunately, it’s the only story in the anthology that isn’t from the perspective of a two-spirit person.

There is some representation across the QUILTBAG, though it’s stronger on LGT than the rest. Lesbians are particularly well represented. Others are less so. I do wish the one possible intersex character had not been handled that way. The binary-gendered language of some of the stories also stood out. This is talking about both genders, rather than all genders. It’s having male roles and female roles, but no room for other roles. Which is an odd choice when the focus is on two-spirit people.

Note that some stories contain descriptions of rape and assault (particularly “Imposter Syndrome”). The term halfbreed is used in a few stories. It’s in a reclaiming context, rather than being used as an insult, but still something mixed race people might want to know is coming in advance.

It’s generally a strong anthology, with a range of approaches to speculative fiction. There are stories where the speculative elements are very light, space adventures, and fantasy. It has cultural representations that do not fall into stereotypes and othering. The QUILTBAG content was mostly good, but there were areas where it was spotty.

[A copy of this book was received from the publisher for review purposes]