Ethan of Athos

3.5 stars

Originally posted at Fantasy Literature: http://www.fantasyliterature.com/reviews/ethan-of-athos/

Athos is a planet of men. No women are allowed ??? they are evil and they ruin good men. Since there isn???t a lot of immigration to Athos (their advertising campaigns just don???t seem to be very effective), they need to create baby boys to keep the population from dying out. Dr Ethan Urquhart is one of the men who???s responsible for using stock ovarian cultures to create and incubate male babies in uterine replicators. When the ovarian cultures begin to give out, Ethan orders new stock, but when it arrives it is full of the wrong kind of material. Something has gone wrong. Now Ethan must be sent off-planet to find new ovaries. Ethan is pretty nervous about his quest ??? he knows that there are women out there and that they are all out to capture and degrade men. He plans to stay well away from them, get his job done, and return to the safety of Athos as fast as he can.

But Ethan gets tangled up in interplanetary politics ??? someone has some dastardly plans for Athos and it has something to do with the wrong ovarian cultures Ethan received. Now he???s in mortal danger. Fortunately, he???s not alone because the beautiful mercenary Elli Quinn, who we know (and love) from most of the other VORKOSIGAN books, has been investigating this plot from the other end. If Ethan wants to stay alive, he must work with Elli (a woman!) to solve the mystery.

If you can get past the silly premise (an all-male planet) which, of course, is meant to be silly, you???ll find that Lois McMaster Bujold has not only provided us with a fun story (how can this not be fun?) with all the usual Bujold elements (genetic engineering plots, shooting, hiding, torture, escapes, rescues, etc.) but has also provided us with a little more substance than this type of unisex planet story has received by pulp writers in the past. Bujold lets us see an all-male culture at work.

Unlike the better VORKOSIGAN books, Ethan of Athos is somewhat predictable and has a naively incompetent protagonist, but it???s still a worthy read. Here we get to know Elli Quinn better and we learn how she feels about Miles Vorkosigan (the main protagonist of the series) and why she admires him so much. Miles never actually appears in Ethan of Athos, though Elli talks about him a lot.
Ethan of Athos is the third book that Lois McMaster Bujold published, but the events related in this story occur much later in the VORKOSIGAN SAGA, between Cetaganda and The Borders of Infinity. It doesn???t really matter when you read

Ethan of Athos, though, because it???s more of a side story. New readers could even start here, if they like, or it could be skipped all together. It???s not important to the rest of the series, but it gives us more insight into Bujold???s world and allows us to get to know Elli Quinn better. Plus, it???s amusing. I read Blackstone Audio???s version narrated by the excellent Grover Gardner.

Executive Summary: After a slow start, I thought it finished much stronger. 3.5 stars, rounded up.Audiobook: Grover Gardner once again does a good job. I don't think he really does voices (I find myself drawing a blank as I write this), but I enjoy listening to him. The volume and inflection is good, which for me is often the most important thing anyways. I plan to continue this series on in audio.Full ReviewThis is a pretty short book. It's only about 8 hours in audio. It started a bit rough for me. Ethan isn't a very likeable character, in particular because of his prejudices towards woman. Athos as a society is just so strange to me. My initial thought was this was an inspiration to those Men's Rights idiots, except they want women to be subservient to them, and not to have nothing to do with them at all.I had to look up the year this book was published. A society where homosexuality in book from 1986 seems pretty progressive. Although the attitudes of other characters in the book towards that seems appropriate to that time, so maybe not all that progressive.Once Ethan got off Athos and met up with Elli Quinn the book got going a bit more to me. However it took awhile to really get a feel for what was going on, and care all that much about poor Ethan and his quest for new Ovarian samples with which to sustain the population of his planet.There is mention of Miles Vorkosigan, but sadly he doesn't make an appearance. Ethan is a poor substitute for me. He did grow on me, and grow (albeit very slightly) as a character in this book, but not enough for me to care too much about him or his planet.Overall I did still enjoy this book, but not nearly as much as [b:The Warrior's Apprentice 61906 The Warrior's Apprentice (Vorkosigan Saga, #2) Lois McMaster Bujold https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1170597854s/61906.jpg 2792]. I'm hoping to continue on with [b:Falling Free 61915 Falling Free (Vorkosigan Saga, #4) Lois McMaster Bujold https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1386922931s/61915.jpg 2277408] soon, although that looks like it's another book without Miles. That's what I get for insisting on reading them in publication order however.

This is a determinedly odd but likeable book, and it's my favourite of Bujold's early works.

It gives us a male-only society encompassing the whole planet of Athos, with a religious aversion to and horror of women, and encourages readers to sympathize with at least some of the people who are part of this society. It's an odd and unexpected thing for a female writer to do, but it's very broad-minded of her, and I think it's rather sweet. I wonder whether any man would dare to write such a book.

I've seen Athos described elsewhere as a “planet-sized monastery”, and I suppose that's what it is, so it's not an entirely novel idea. Although, unlike monasteries we've known in the past, Athos has the technology to make babies and maintain its population without involving women or other outsiders.

The world of Athos doesn't attract me: I'm not religious, and I like women. As readers, I don't think we're expected to find Athos attractive; we're just asked to believe that people who grew up on Athos could live good lives there as decent human beings, feel loyal to Athos, and feel homesick on leaving it. And, yes, I can believe that. People are adaptable: they can adapt to many different forms of society, especially when they've spent their whole lives immersed in that society.

As for the religious horror of women, well, humans are vulnerable to things they've been taught all their lives, and religion seems to get a grip on people. I come from a non-religious family, so I never experienced it, but most of the world's population is still in the grip of some religion or other.

Ethan, the protagonist of this story, is not a religious zealot, just a normally religious person and a highly qualified doctor, which is what mostly concerns him. He knows almost nothing about women, and isn't sexually attracted to them when he encounters them (in the course of the story, for the first time in his life), but he's not stupid or unpleasant; he's not exaggeratedly heroic, but he's a nice guy. His experiences in the story don't cancel his allegiance to Athos, but they somewhat modify his opinions and outlook.

This is nicely done. The book would be less convincing if he suddenly became attracted to women or abandoned his home world.

I don't understand his motivation for a decision he made near the end (secretly infecting Athos with the telepathy gene), but perhaps that's my problem; it's not necessarily a defect in the book.

Most of the story takes place on a space station (away from Athos and not part of its society), where Ethan is sent to find a solution to an urgent medical problem, and gets involved in spy/counterspy action, much to his alarm and distress. Elli Quinn is also involved: as far as I know, the only character linking this story to the rest of the Vorkosigan Saga. She mentions ‘Admiral Naismith' (Miles Vorkosigan), but he's elsewhere. The interactions between Ethan and Elli are complicated and often amusing; they have such different backgrounds and points of view.

As far as I know, Athos and its people are mentioned in this book only. It seems a shame to create a whole planet with a distinctive society and then drop it completely after one book, but I suppose Bujold never found a convenient use for it in later stories.