Liviania’s review of Ice Song by Kirsten Imani Kisai
Science fiction/fantasy released by Del Rey 19 May 2009
Sybil quickly figured out that I enjoy stories that play with gender. Many people are intrigued by what separates men and women, but I enjoy that separation even more when it’s illuminated by a blending of the characteristics. Therefore, a story about a main character who transitions from female to male naturally seemed right up my alley.
Unfortunately, that’s one of the weakest aspects of the story. Sorykah doesn’t become Soryk until over a hundred pages into the novel. Then, she only stays Soryk briefly; it’s just long enough to meet a girl, become attached, have sex. The relationship does spur on many later events in the novel, but it felt clumsy. Until the finale, Soryk doesn’t serve much purpose other than having sex and preventing Sorykah from moving forward in her quest since he has no clue what her quest is.
Fortunately, Kirsten Imani Kasai imagined an interesting world. Many people are born with strange deformities in this dystopia, and discriminated against. One man, the Collector, enjoys experimenting on them and has just stolen Sorykah’s twin babies. He’s incredibly creepy, and his servants provide the most intriguing point of views. After all, those who work for him are the same as those he hunts. But they do have their reasons.
I like Ice Song best when it’s being a straight ahead sci-fi adventure about a mother and her allies against the man who stole her children. The relationship between Sidra and Soryk becomes touching after its clumsy start, so I could forgive the seeming gratuity of it. But I find the other sex scenes in the book fairly unpalatable, as – this is something of a SPOILER – Sorykah is forced to prostitute herself in order to receive information about her children. This interlude did explore the consequences of the setting, but I just feel like I’d be more interested in the questions it presents in a different book. Here it slowed down the action. It seemed to me like Kasai tried to inject some eroticism, but only made the sex disturbing instead of titillating.
Ice Song was not what I was expecting. I mostly enjoyed it, though the parts I didn’t like I really didn’t like. The unevenness took away from the reading experience. I may pick up something else by Kasai in the future since this is her first novel. Though the execution was clumsy, she had several ideas that I would love to see her explore again once she gains more experience. I would recommend Ice Song to fans of dystopian fiction who don’t mind fantastic elements, since the worldbuilding was the strongest part of the novel.
[singlepic id=642 w=320 h=240 float=left]Grade: B-
Summary
There are secrets beneath her skin.Sorykah Minuit is a scholar, an engineer, and the sole woman aboard an ice-drilling submarine in the frozen land of the Sigue. What no one knows is that she is also a Trader: one who can switch genders suddenly, a rare corporeal deviance universally met with fascination and superstition and all too often punished by harassment or death.
Sorykah’s infant twins, Leander and Ayeda, have inherited their mother’s Trader genes. When a wealthy, reclusive madman known as the Collector abducts the babies to use in his dreadful experiments, Sorykah and her male alter-ego, Soryk, must cross icy wastes and a primeval forest to get them back. Complicating the dangerous journey is the fact that Sorykah and Soryk do not share memories: Each disorienting transformation is like awakening with a jolt from a deep and dreamless sleep.
The world through which the alternating lives of Sorykah and Soryk travel is both familiar and surreal. Environmental degradation and genetic mutation run amok; humans have been distorted into animals and animal bodies cloak a wild humanity. But it is also a world of unexpected beauty and wonder, where kindness and love endure amid the ruins. Alluring, intense, and gorgeously rendered, Ice Song is a remarkable debut by a fiercely original new writer.
Read an excerpt here.
