This whole mess of an article was going to be a review of The Mirror Empire by Kameron Hurley, a abysmal book I'd picked up at my local dollar tree because... it looked interesting. Well, it wasn't and this piece has mutated into something terrible. It was confusing, badly paced, and worst of all: it forced social politics, gender politics, on it's readers. And, by forced, I mean it wasn't a necessary aspect of the world, it didn't change anything but the wording, it was just there to appeal to a group, but, more specifically, it was marketed towards said group. Which means that it wasn't really written in a way where the inclusion of reversed gender roles and gender fluidity work, it's just put there to sell books to certain people. Understand? No. Well, that's alright. You see the endless social war of feminism, gender fluidity, and gender defined roles has been a hot button subject for years now. Some members of these groups know what they are taking about, they can be reasonable human beings, and will debate intelligently. However, there are sadly a whole lot of extremists and ignorant individuals that rise up, usually by being brazen yet somewhat unhinged and selective in their facts and arguments, and ruin the point of these movements entirely. These more extreme individuals, who basically ruin it for everyone, are so prone to backlash and wild reactions that they become viral - allowing others to feel that, maybe because they are so prominent, that these extreme people and their extreme viewpoints, are the right way to feel. Others take the opposite approach and become just as infuriating with their warlike presentations and penchant to point everyone out as idiots for not opposing these extremists. Some of us, like me, just don't pay attention to this and we move on, and somehow we get sucked into writing articles we didn't think we'd ever write. Funny how that happens. Point is, The Mirror Empire is an example of someone appealing to a movement they don't truly understand. There is not real point in the gender roles being reversed, the females don't change what it means to say, rule, or be in a certain role. They don't make these horrifying characters be more or less just because they are female - they just are female. Males characters are constructed in a way that makes them, basically, be the meek and passive females one would see in outdated literature - presented in a way that says 'ha! how do you like that?' to male readers, basically just making the whole thing seem as immature as possible. Oh, and males get raped by females and, as a man who has went through this as a young boy, I really don't find it too shocking or in-my-face. I didn't like the concept of rape in my stories when it was happening to females either, what is with this assumption that men do? Of course, you are going to have a legion of sociopolitical extremists clinging to what it sounds like it is, what it claims to be, rather then reading the book and realizing that the whole thing is garbage. Well, if this was truly a book made to spread a message and push the apparent 'patriarchy/male supremely' out of the picture, why is the author selling the book? Clearly, and obviously, to profit off of this group. But, who knows, the fact I've found this book at a Dollar Tree clearly demonstrates that, perhaps, this group isn't as malleable as people have come to believe. I'm not saying feminism, gender fluidity, or anything like that doesn't belong in Fantasy or Science Fiction - books like Dune portray females as supremely powerful and intelligent beings, almost always more capable then any male character, but that world had a difference made because of this. If your book simply switches the roles, with no difference, and they act exactly the same then why bother. If a female is put in that role, she has a history and reason that really shows that she is right for that place within the tale - then, by all means, that character should be female. But, none of the characters in The Mirror Empire are anything but archetypes with interchanged genetalia, and this book is not made to support gender politics, it is made to make money off of them. This book is a wet pile of human refuse, fermenting in the sun. I, quite literally, tossed it in the garbage after reading it. -L. BROOKS
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