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A new kind of sci-fi heroine, the tough-as-nails Alyx, is introduced in this Nebula Award finalist that Poul Anderson called an "extraordinary" novel. Set in a semi-utopian world, Joanna Russ's groundbreaking debut novel is the story of Alyx, a female soldier, survival guide, and agent of the Trans-Temporal Authority. Displaced in time from her ancient Greece, Alyx is tasked with safely leading a group of pampered human vacationers--including some unconventional nuns and a detached teenager known as the Machine--across an uninhabited scenic terrain to a relief station. But the journey proves more challenging than anticipated as they confront one another's failings; the physical dangers of an icy, hostile wilderness; and Alyx's own personal demons. Long before the kick-ass heroines of current science fiction and fantasy, Russ unapologetically introduced readers to a short, strong, middle-aged (for her world/time) woman of twenty-six who knows how to survive but struggles with the emotional nuances of her charges and the confusion of her own mixed feelings. With iconic characters like Alyx, Russ "four decades ago helped deliver science fiction into the hands of the most alien creatures the genre had yet seen--women . . . [and] helped inaugurate the now flourishing tradition of feminist science fiction" (The New York Times). … (more)
User reviews
I really liked this small sci-fi novel about a woman who is accidentally plucked from the past, and ends up with a job as a survival expert. Alyx is a great character, one of the butchiest women I’ve had the pleasure of meeting in fiction. (She is straight, however.) The other characters are
Our protagonist Alyx, a time displaced thief from a Leiberesque
Alyx is tough and resilient, makes mistakes, and is in no way defined by anyone else's expectations or judgment. Her evolving relationships with those around her, especially the young man known as Machine, drive much of the story.
The tone alternates between playful and brutal. Russ often makes you work to figure out what is happening in the story. The style is very reminiscent of contemporaneous novels of Samuel Delaney, which I love.
This book is really just an excuse to stick a barbarian stranger in a group of "civilized" people. I suspect that its a book that works for the time it was written.
I give Russ credit for choosing an intriguingly complicated plot line for her first novel.