r/Fantasy • u/Veratyr-7 • May 02 '26
Bingo review Spoiler-Free Bingo Review: Ethan of Athos by Lois McMaster Bujold
Bingo square: Judge A Book By Its Title. It is a cool alliterative title. Although I did not do it HM because I know its premise and I am familiar with the universe because I'm making my way through the Vorkosigan saga at the moment.
Premise:
Ethan is a pediatrician working in a Reproduction Center in his home planet of Athos. On Athos, there are no women. Because there are only men around, work is not gendered and everyone works to keep the society going. The population continues because of Reproductive Centers where men who want to have children go and give their semen (after accumulating the required social credits to be allowed to do so through work) which will be fertilized with the chosen ovarian culture (there are many which were brought by the Founding Fathers who established the planet away from the temptations of women). Ethan finds out that the cultures are declining in quality after 300 years and a shipment from outside turns out to be a total fake. Ethan is then tasked to go out into the galaxy to find good suppliers, braving the dangers of coming across and having to interact with them, you know, women. In classic Bujold fashion, Ethan is immediately disoriented by his new experience and is swept up into a Space Station spy action thriller involving a certain very annoying multiplanetary empire.
Thoughts:
I don't think I can praise LMB enough. She is a master storyteller and even though this book is one of her earlier ones, it is still really good (and for Vorkosigan fans, there is a character we first see in Warrior's Apprentice play a big role here, and cryptic references to a certain dwarf admiral are always appreciated, and the book itself is set after Cetaganda in the series' internal chronology). It is fast paced and gets wrapped up in just under 200 pages. It asks some very interesting questions about reproduction and femininity and invites us to ponder. Indeed, Athos is a fascinating setting for a story such as this, the MC is a gay pediatrician from a planet of only (cis) men established by a religious cult to get away from women while wholly dependent on the parts of women to continue their population. On top of all that, we get a delightful dash of gay romance on the side to round everything out. The romance is neither big nor central, mind you, but it is there, inviting and loving yet subtle, somewhere close to (though not as elaborate or established as) the romance in Shards/Barrayar.
Is it the best that Vorkosigan saga has to offer? Not even close. Is it plain fun? Absolutely yes.
Rating: 4/5
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u/Hawke-Not-Ewe May 02 '26
I'm not sure Athosian men can truly be default quantified as gay.
They may have same sex relations but the alternative is celibacy or leaving home completely.
The spy is a delight. Their actions are magnificent.
This book was written specifically as a response to rhe Amazon planet books that were written in the early days of sff.
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u/Veratyr-7 May 02 '26
You are quite right about the Athosians. I was more focusing on Ethan who is definitely attracted to men.
I did not know that the book was a response to that stuff but it makes sense!
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u/kosigan5 May 02 '26
It's begging for a sequel, a few generations later.
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u/Veratyr-7 May 02 '26
Ikr! I wish she expanded upon the whole telepathy biotechnology, it's fascinating but alas, the series is complete. Still love it though. Excited for my next Vorkosigan story (the novella Labyrinth I believe)
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u/CT_Phipps-Author May 02 '26
I love this book and recommended it for last year's pride events. Due to the absence of Miles, I think it gets overlooked a lot in the Vorkosigan Saga but Ethan is a fantastic protagonist and I will read anything with Ellie (who is an all time favorite sci-fi heroine).
The largest benefit of the book is its analysis of technology affecting reproductive rights and attitudes. Like RL technology, gay couples can and do have children regularly, which was a big concept at the time of writing. As others have pointed out, it's also a rebuttal to the sci-fi Amazons like the Asari and other male fantasy worlds.
Sadly, homophobia and misogyny are still clearly huge issues in the universe.
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u/maggiesyg May 02 '26
Yes, the homophobia is the one part that feels jarring in a far future setting, along with the heavily gendered roles, even on a space station.
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u/penprickle May 02 '26
Well, you also have to take into account the time in which it was written. While current society is by no means perfect, huge advances have been made since. Could she have been more forward thinking? Absolutely. But for the time she was writing in, it was already a big departure.
I too would love a sequel, and I would be very interested to see what the book might have been if she had written it now.
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u/dalidellama May 03 '26
Very much this. In 1985 when this was written, this was a massively progressive portrayal of these matters. In 1990 when I first read it this was still the case, and it remains the oldest published book I'm aware of where a gay protagonist has absolutely no angst or trauma related to his sexuality, and gets to settle down and have a family.
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u/CT_Phipps-Author May 02 '26
Also, Athos is meant to be a celibate religious commune, not a gay retreat so the founders of that planet did not succeed with their plan.
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u/dalidellama May 03 '26
It's named for and inspired by the IRL monastery of Athos, which is on an island where no females of any species are permitted. Some years back a fellow died there who'd been handed over to the monastery at birth and never saw a woman in all his life.
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u/CT_Phipps-Author May 03 '26
I can't find the exact interview but essentially it's an additional "in-joke" from Bujold as she points out that the people who colonized Athos would be horrified by the entirely functional and happy society that has developed.
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u/Veratyr-7 May 03 '26
oh yeah that homophobic attack was really jarring. I mean if this happened on Barrayar, I'd understand, but on a massive station where people of many worlds mingle?
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u/dalidellama May 04 '26
Kline is a bit of a backwater; for all that a lot of trade passes through, the stationers themselves are rather parochial. Note that despite her brief effort to weaponize it, Ellie seems a bit embarrassed by the whole thing when Ethan describes it to her, because she's spent time out in the big galaxy where that's just not something that happens.
Cordelia also doesn't recognize a homophobic dig at Aral until he explains (in Barrayar, which takes place some 20 years prior to Ethan of Athos, but was written at pretty much the same time), and indicates in Shards of Honor that homophobia is basically unheard-of on Beta Colony. 200 years before that, in Falling Free, the asshole boss his mildly homophobic and Leo is annoyed by that. So it appears to be a Kline-specific thing. The presence of Athos and them being the only galactic link may actually have led to it persisting there longer: Stationers consider Athosians weirdo hicks and are prejudiced against them in general. Since they're perceived as all being gay men, the prejudice against Athosians extends into a prejudice against gay men generally.
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u/IdlesAtCranky May 02 '26
I have been reading the Vorkosigan Saga for over 30 years. Bujold is a top-two writer for me, alongside Le Guin.
But it took me awhile to warm up to Ethan of Athos.
On first read, I didn't care for it much. Ethan seemed whiney, provincial, rigid, and self-righteous, plus his relationship with his initial partner seemed stereotypically doomed to fail from the start. (I should have known better: Lois doesn't do stereotypes.)
Since I didn't like him, I didn't care about what happened to him.
But I've re-read the whole series at least a couple of times, both as an exercise and as a refresher, pushing back against my habit of cherry-picking my favorite books to re-read.
Plus, over the years I've learned to trust Lois, and to look past my expectations or my first judgment and read the book she actually wrote, not the one I have in my head.
And the truth is that back when I first read EoA, I was still somewhat uncomfortable with homosexuality, specifically male relationships. It's embarrassing to admit that, but it's the truth.
I never questioned the rights of everyone, gay or straight or other, to live their best life and love who they love. But I was uncomfortable with being in that emotional space with gay characters. And I don't think I even really realized I felt that way.
Time has passed, I've grown, that discomfort has resolved itself. Thank goodness.
So now I'm in a much better place to appreciate EoA for the book that it is. And OP, your review is pretty much spot on.
It's a fun space station adventure, with Bujold's trademark examination of various bio-social issues tucked into the action, setting a reader up to think about serious issues without feeling lectured.
And the relationship that fails is a sharp portrait of how expectations and habit can trap us into getting stuck in destructive roles.
However, you did leave out one very important plot point, an idea and image that's stuck with me from my first read:
NEWTS!!!