The Library of the Uncommons

enne📚 reviewed A Half-Built Garden by Ruthanna Emrys

On a warm March night in 2083, Judy Wallach-Stevens wakes to a warning of unknown …

A Half-Built Garden

5 stars

Content warning minor spoilers

A Half-Built Garden is an extremely hopeful climate fiction / first contact / self-proclaimed "diaperpunk" science fiction novel. Lots of Becky Chambers-esque comfort reading vibes here and would recommend this to folks looking for a story about optimism and communities and finding shared values across cultures. Also, the aliens are huge human nerds and have watched too much bollywood and anime.

Personally, I imagine this book's plot hook a bit as an alternate universe Xenogenesis. (Sorry I know I know I bring this book up all the time, but it's one that really sticks to your bones.) Xenogenesis is about the extremely heteronormative patronizing Oankali coming to a failing earth and wanting to save humans and selfishly force them into symbiosis. This book tells the story of a slightly more future earth where corporations have lost power (but still exist) and the earth is being rebuilt by "dandelion networks" who forced corporations into submission and are focused on watersheds and ecological rebuilding. The earth here is a titular "half-built garden" which is still very much in progress when the aliens show up. But instead of the Oankali having so much power that consent cannot exist, the Ringers in this book have power but are more open to discussion and humanity trying to form community with aliens on their own terms.

One of the things I think the book did really well is that there a lot of different identities (parents, Jewish, trans, polyam especially) that are integrally tied into the book's theme and plot. The book largely focuses on the protagonist Judy and her family and is a first contact book about aliens who deeply value children, mothers, and family. Metaphorically, aliens see humanity as small children who don't know how unsafe they are being and a lot of the struggle is negotiating with aliens to be seen as people so to speak. There's a lot going on with gender as well; there's multiple trans folks (with different paths and feelings about being trans), and they use their voices to speak up for giving others the freedom to choose their own paths that are not predetermined. Also, a climactic seder scene! The whole book is ultimately is about what is freedom and dealing with exile and asking questions. I'm not Jewish but this whole scene just worked so well.

On top of that, I do love a book with gender stuff going on. We got multiple trans people. We got corporation folks who put on gender masks (prince, princess, butch, femme, "neither", "naked") in public for power games, but keep their true selves hidden at home. We've got matriarchal heteronormative aliens who have big biological mother hangups and need to get over themselves. We've got multiple novel family structures. We've got multiple neopronouns. We've got pronoun pins. Yes, please!

One small thing I enjoyed is that there's an alien romance that felt very real here? Like, the characters involved all believably talk about the interpersonal reasons why they feel supported and have a personal connection. There's negotiation and awkward discussion of "what all does this even look like" in all senses. There's metamour teasing. It just felt very believable. Also there's an amazing awkward "parents just showed up after alien sex and we have to go downstairs and introduce them" moment.

At any rate, I really enjoyed this book a lot. I need more optimism like this in my fiction diet.

(tagging #SFFBookClub as this was the Sep 2023 book)

Klara, continued replied to enne📚's status

@picklish How is this one for people who have a bit of a flinch response to optimism by way of things (even just in the backstory) feeling too easy?

Because I'm very intrigued, but that "forced the corporations into submission" is making me worry.

enne📚 replied to Klara, continued's status

@klara@wandering.shop This is not a step-by-step handbook towards an anti-capitalist world, for sure. I don't think the book says it was "too easy", but it also doesn't go into a lot of detail about it either. So, it's kind of hard to say if this will be an issue. I can dig up some quotes if you want more.

The "forced corporations into submission" largely happens offpage as backstory. I think this is largely handwaved past, in the sense that these corporations got barricaded and measured until they stopped creating so many negative externalities. At the time of the book, they have largely been (self-?)sequestered but are trying to regain some power. It's like if the EPA (or a climate agreement) was crowdsourced, had teeth, and had a ton of volunteers because people cared about the environment.

I think this is a book about first contact and aliens, and so …

I think this is a book about first contact and aliens, and so I came into it with some suspension of disbelief, which helped me personally get past this. I would have had a lot tougher time with a more recent future book. I too have a lot of cynicism and wish that I didn't have to suspend so much disbelief to believe that cooperation to solve larger structural problems is a real possibility.

Klara, continued replied to enne📚's status

@picklish Yeah, I mean, I guess it just made me think about everything capitalists have done to hold on to power-- futures that imagine that at some point they stop being willing to overthrow governments and back mass-murdering goons are sometimes hard for me.

(But, like, there is a _lot_ that sounds interesting in that book. And I'd already pre-ordered the paperback of it! So I'll probably read it eventually. I just want to be a little prepared.)