**spoiler alert** Hazel loses and then gains and then loses again a kid brother. It’s heartbreaking and beautiful all at once. For a volume that start**spoiler alert** Hazel loses and then gains and then loses again a kid brother. It’s heartbreaking and beautiful all at once. For a volume that starts with a western-looking space outpost named “Abortion Town,” this episode in the renegade family’s life was handled with empathy and dexterity. And that’s really what is great about this series - it’s obscene and in-your-face with issues that aren’t typically acceptable in dinner conversation. But it’s shoved in one’s face because these are very real issues impacting very human people and the ensuing confrontation of those issues is extremely humane. I’ve seen sci-fi and fantasy use metaphor for earthly issues before... here instead we have aliens dealing with earthly problems; war, proxy wars, refugees, maternal health, sexual and gender issues, nuclear and divided families, incarceration and more. No metaphors required. These are my people!
Merged review:
Hazel loses and then gains and then loses again a kid brother. It’s heartbreaking and beautiful all at once. For a volume that starts with a western-looking space outpost named “Abortion Town,” this episode in the renegade family’s life was handled with empathy and dexterity. And that’s really what is great about this series - it’s obscene and in-your-face with issues that aren’t typically acceptable in dinner conversation. But it’s shoved in one’s face because these are very real issues impacting very human people and the ensuing confrontation of those issues is extremely humane. I’ve seen sci-fi and fantasy use metaphor for earthly issues before... here instead we have aliens dealing with earthly problems; war, proxy wars, refugees, maternal health, sexual and gender issues, nuclear and divided families, incarceration and more. No metaphors required. These are my people!...more
"I know you're in pain. I know what it is not to have a child. It can make you do terrible things." I wanted to tell him I had done nothing terrible..
"I know you're in pain. I know what it is not to have a child. It can make you do terrible things." I wanted to tell him I had done nothing terrible..."I never hurt Ulla," I said instead..."It's all gossip and nonsense."... "I know that, Ada," he said. "Then why would you do this? Why chase me all this way?" I felt tears welling in my eyes... "It's such a hard world," the sherrif said. "People need some way of making sense of it. You know that as well as I do..... When I child dies... or a man loses his wife in childbirth -- these things aren't bearable, Ada, not without help. But if you know why it happened, if you have someone or somebody to blame, then sometimes that's enough to keep going.... They'll be lighter ... when I bring you back. We all have to make sacrifices, Ada. I'm sorry, but this is yours."
What he means there - what everyone means in this tale - is women have to make sacrifices... or if it's a man 'making the sacrifice', the sacrifice is his woman. This isn't exactly a happy tale, but there is some justice for even the most well meaning and unsuperstitious citizen being willing to sacrifice an innocent woman to the capriciousness of fate.
Ada stars in this alternative history (a widespread Flu wipes out most of North America, as if smallpox had taken as many hereditarily European as Indigenous folk) where having babies is considered paramount and those blessed with motherhood many times over have agency to divorce their husbands while those barren are viewed with suspicion and fear. There are a lot of obvious American-brand Christianity parallels to make in terms of misogyny, hypocrisy and abuse though this story is more about a bunch of women deciding to live their lives as fully as possible (by becoming outlaws - which their communities made of them before they ever rob anyone) and to trust and rely upon each other's strengths as their own found family. Queer as anything and pretty great, but not nearly as 'rollicking' as I was expecting. This story takes itself fairly seriously. ...more
Liked it a lot. I'll get outrage for this, but I definitely preferred it over Gaiman's Sandman. The art work is lovely, the samurai-western is flashy Liked it a lot. I'll get outrage for this, but I definitely preferred it over Gaiman's Sandman. The art work is lovely, the samurai-western is flashy and the gods-among-mortals in the western setting is unusual.
That being said, I'm not really sure why everyone is calling this feminist... having female lead characters is just good storytelling, it doesn't make it "feminist" and I would be hard-pressed to label such when the first tale is basically about men fighting over a beautiful woman who kills herself when her husband locks her up. And then Death falls for her and locks her up as well .... and maybe rapes her? (The level of consent was unclear because for some reason the most agency the beautiful lady character gets in the entire story is taking her own life... and even that is told from a male perspective). This might be feminist if the point of the story were: oppressing women=bad. But it serves the primary function of creating a baby and a secondary purpose of furthering the oppressor-husband's story arc. Reminded me of Sansa's marriage-bed rape on HBO filmed for how it impacted THEON....more