A Son of the Rock

Women’s Press SF, 1978, 185 p.

Irene Waskiewicz, whose first name we are told is pronounced in the British way (I-ree-nee,) and Ernst Neumann have been assigned by the Trans-Temporal Authority to the planet of Ala-ed-Deen. Despite Ernst being twenty years or so older than Irene the pair seem to be a long-standing couple.

The culture on Ala-ed-Deen is based on that of the Middle East of our world with women firmly circumscribed. The daughter of the house, Zubeydeh, wants to be a poet but she has no hope of that. To help her achieve that ambition Irene takes the decision to more or less abduct Zubeydeh back to Earth. This causes her relationship with Ernst to break down.

Russ was of course above all a feminist writer and important in Science Fiction’s history for precisely that reason but from a distance of forty years later this novel seems to adopt the trappings of SF to make the points she wishes to about male domination (and female frustration with the resultant repression – due to society’s emphases this is as much internal repression as external) and hence is not the best specimen of SF as a result. For example the purpose and operations of the Trans-Temporal Authority are never spelled out. Not that the book is in any way unreadable; simply a bit out of time.

Pedant’s corner:- “something … that make them look like” (that makes them look like,) “to which the son of Bekkar’s apartments belong” (belongs,) “not knowing what’s waked her” (woken her.) “she sees his face becomes shocked” (become shocked,) Holofernes’ (Holofernes’s.)